This year, I have
chosen to take part in the Young Illustrator’s Award 2014. I feel as though
this is an apt competition for me or anyone to take part in because of its
limitless choices in what someone who is participating can do.
My entry for the competition is something I thought about a lot, and failed to come to any conclusion. So I went and dug down to the literal meaning of the word “Inspiration,” and decided to look at a number of artists who first sparked my interest in Art, and this is where I rekindled my love for Alphonse Mucha.
My entry for the competition is something I thought about a lot, and failed to come to any conclusion. So I went and dug down to the literal meaning of the word “Inspiration,” and decided to look at a number of artists who first sparked my interest in Art, and this is where I rekindled my love for Alphonse Mucha.
My entry for the competition is something I thought about a lot, and failed to
come to any conclusion. So I went and dug down to the literal meaning of the
word “Inspiration,” and decided to look at a number of artists who first
sparked my interest in Art, and this is where I rekindled my love for Alphonse
Mucha.
Evaluation.
Over all, I
thoroughly enjoyed this project. I knew from the word “Go,” that it was
something fresh and void of all other projects we had been asked to do so far,
and was something completely of my own choice which was just an added bonus. I
also knew that, because it was such a wide spread subject, and that I could do
pretty much anything I wanted, I would almost definitely have trouble trying to
think of what to do. This is why I went back to one of the first things that
inspired me to start going into ILLUSTRATION and not just painting. On the
other hand, choosing to do something based on the style of Alphonse Mucha was
also a dangerous one, because he has been such an inspiration to so many
people, I knew I would have to make my work stand out against the hundreds of
other pieces of work based on his style. I began clearly unsure, for about a
week, on what I wanted my piece to be on, but I ended up going with what I knew
best, and stuck to my strengths when it came to illustrating. I was a lot more
confident with what I actually wanted to produce, and because of my recent
development in skills over the year, I could see much clearly, what I wanted my
final outcome to be, rather than had I tried this out before christmas.
I used all of
the knowledge I have gained over the past two years, not only with regards to
illustrating, where I have been shown in detail some top tricks, shortcuts,
workflows and skills in programs such as photoshop, where those tricks can be
applied to other programs I use as well, but with basic skills. An example of
this woul be on colour schemes and learning to literally paint in a digital
format. I feel as though these aspects are clearly shown in my competition
entry, and are able to give off a defining mood and theme to my image, without
me having to explain anything about it.
One problem I
had during the production of this piece was a general flop in my motivation
towards it. I sat for a good 3 hours re-doing the same pieces over and over
again simply because I was unhappy with how they looked, and it almost got to
the point where wanted to change the idea completely. However, with some
inspiration (watching speed painting tutorials on Youtube…) I was able to gain
back that motivation and change the colour scheme of the figure’s face
slightly, where it was easier for me to begin colouring her skin. There was
also an ongoing war for about 3 days with regards to shading on the figure’s
face, as I had never really painted a face from that angle before. And I over
came this by taking photos of my own face, with specific lighting set up to
immitate the scene I wanted going on.
To conclude,
I have thoroughly enjoyed this project, as it has tested me on more than a
physical scale and left me knowing even more about digital painting and
illustration, as well as me appreciating the work and effort behind Alphonse Mucha’s
wonderful pieces of art.
