illustration evaluation

For my illustration unit this year i decided to go down a different route than last year in idea rather than media. The story this year was about a man named Donald, a fisherman, on a boat when him and his crew see a mermaid, they all proceed to throw herrings at it until it swims away. Knowing mermaids are bad luck a person at the docks later tells Donald not to return to sea again as it is an omen of death. Donald does not return to sea until a year later when he is approached by a merchant with a good deal. They sail away and are never seen again.

 This story made me think of the current Brexit, US and UK trade deals and obviously the Donald i thought of as Trump. I thought this would be a funny and different approach to the unit and it felt more up my street than what i had done before.

After looking at a verity of illustrators i was drawn to the work of Geoff Grandfield and Shepard Fairey. I loved the cinematography / film noir 'style' of Grandfield with the satire of Fairey. After i experimented with a few different ideas i came up with these two final images.

With these, i have obviously annotated the development in my sketch book, i tried to use the USA, UK colours, i tried to use line to separate scenes, imply divide and also to mimic the lines of white in the UK flag.

I used found free imagery and just block colour and shapes i made on Photoshop. I picked the two scenes of Donald throwing the (red) herring at the mermaid and the scene of talking about a deal between himself and the merchant.

I wanted them to be very simple and bold. I liked the idea, as i usually do in my work, of using imagery as strong symbolism.

Obviously i was set back in this unit, as with a few others, because of personal circumstances and i did take me a while to get back on track with it. I felt like i has stepped away from this unit just as i was making my final two images and i had lost a connection with it.

If i could do it again i would have taken more time to get back into my connection and i would have explored a few different ways to execute my final images.

Overall i enjoyed it very much and i liked adding my own spin to the unit. I loved challenging myself to make it political and satirical and i enjoyed making the final images as i love to use photoshop. Overall again, i am happy and obviously i wish i hadn't had to take time away from it but i think it also goes to show myself how much i value my education as well as how much i can achieve in a short space of time with everything going on. I feel a sense of pride in myself even if the end result isnt as polished as i would like it to be.