Daniel Bailey Illustrator

Final Major Project 2013

February 2013
The brief for my final major project was given to me as follows:-

The museum of Daniel. Creating a visual museum of hand drawn or printed interpretations of objects and ephemera. The completed drawings/images will be presented and classified as precursors to developing narratives and visual essays/collections that are starting points for applied illustration.
What to do for this project? I enjoy print work, lino printing, creating images in Photoshop, line drawing, still life, bookmaking. During the three years of the degree I have been successful in illustrating children's books, creating quirky characters, producing prints screen and lino and digital image making. I have previously won two major prizes for my print work at Hereford College of Art.

A Childrens Book
My first idea is to produce and illustrate a children's book. As research for my work, I have been collecting photos, objects and ideas that inspire me while studying for the degree in illustration. Last summer, whilst on holiday we visited a garden centre and I saw some extremely unusual and interesting plants. The ones which really captured my imagination were Gunnera.

Huge plants (related to rhubarb) they look like they belong more in the jungle and I imagine a whole plethora of characters and objects inhabiting this strange world

Researching this idea further I started sketching objects and characters for inclusion in these images..

My illustrations would use similar subject matter to The Borrowers or Honey I Shrunk the Kids, where the inhabitants of the strange world utilise objects intended for another purpose, ie. to be used by life-size people, bigger people in a bigger world. This would give the illustrations and story a charm and appeal for young children.

Still from the film, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, 1989

Still from the film, The Borrowers, 1997

I visited Waterstones bookshop to look through the book covers to find inspiration for a children's story. These book covers interested me and were on a similar theme.

March 2013
Discuss my ideas with my tutor today - this did not go well. I was encouraged to abandon my original ideas as described above and to focus on simple quirky drawings. My tutor told me to draw objects which I found interesting around me. He told me not to worry about what I was going to produce but to spend the next three weeks (over the Easter holiday) drawing individual images. I hate working like this. I always need to know what I am aiming for in order to produce my best work and to give myself a structure. I am really disappointed that I cannot continue with my original idea which excites and interests me and for which I have done so much research but I will follow the tutors instructions. I am, however, really confused..

April 2013
I am collecting and drawing objects as instructed, however, I feel I do not know where I am going with this idea and find it extremely frustrating. I must try somehow to regain the passion and interest that I had in my earlier ideas for this project.

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Objects
My tutor has told me not to focus on end products, however, I feel I need to know where I'm going. I find it very difficult to research something which seems to have no rationale. I decided to try to place a structure around the images myself and selected objects to draw. The Museum of Daniel Things that surround and encompass me and that reflect my life and my childhood. I found a range of such objects as ornaments and toys in my bedroom. All mean something to me and are mostly from my childhood therefore this would be a fitting Museum of my life. Objects I selected included my collection of Lego models, my shells, wooden toys, boats, cars etc.

Random or meaningful groups of objects?

Saw my tutor again today. He told me to Get real and to Get on with it. Each time I have a tutorial I become more and more confused. He questioned why I had selected such a random group of objects to me they are clearly not random - they form part of a collection of things I had in my bedroom things I have collected over the last 20 years. Things that have an essence of me in them and them in me. To be random implies that there is no rationale or structure. Therefore something is not random if the author can describe the rationale and structure.

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April 2013
I looked at the tutors suggestions again today. The ideas which strike me are to produce something surreal where diverse objects are juxtaposed to create different kinds of reality. I researched some surrealist artists who produced images of everyday objects juxtaposed such as Magritte and Dali.

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I researched The Surrealist movement before when I was doing the competition project entitled, A picture in Time in the Autumn term.

I looked at the individual images I have produced and created the following ideas as groups of images.

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This image experiments with shape, size and texture. The size of the images relates to their importance in my childhood. My ideas relating to textures led me to consider the materials from which the objects were made. I started to group my objects together and created ideas for the following images

I researched other possible ways of grouping a collection. I thought that the toys could be grouped together in boxes as if they were on display in a shop. The boxes, however could mirror the work of Piet Mondrian as the simple straight lines and colour would be perfect for presenting children's toys.

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I researched one of the artists suggested by Neil. One of them, Saul Steinberg produces line drawings in a similar style as my own. I was struck by one of his images in which he uses pillars. I decided to use this idea in my work.

Pillars
The shells are placed on pillars as if they were statues. They are oversized for the pillars and are given an artificial importance as if they were busts of famous people.

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I researched the idea of pillars and found the following book which contained illustrations of pillars Principles of Roman Architecture pillars However, I thought that in creating more detailed and perfected pillars, the image began to lose its charm.

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Fish
I then looked at ways of grouping together similar objects. Some of my favourite objects are the wooden fish and I started to consider how I can present these. I spoke to my tutor about these ideas - he liked the quirky fish.

Tutorial Record Form May 2nd 2013 Spend some time gathering research material from a variety of sources. DVDs, photographic images (books, magazines, newspapers) and printed material which he can use as inspiration for his drawings. This material could be collected in a scrapbook. Visit specific places where he can draw, make notes and take photographs of a variety of fish and marine species. Places identified are friends/neighbours who own fish tanks/ponds, Wyevale Garden Centre, Kenchester Water Gardens or pet shops and Fishmongers and museums. He could go on an extended visit to an aquarium, but will need support to do this from home. These drawings could be on loose good quality paper, in sketchbooks, on ipads/pods, and in a variety of media (pencil, watercolour, inks, pastels, collage etc etc). Try different ways of working! Spend more time on his drawings, which will increase the detail and amount of colour and texture in the work. Daniel must create substantial amount of finished/completed drawn/painted/collaged material The drawings/paintings should have lots of species/variety. Variety comes from small/big, colourful/patterned/dull, complex/simple/odd/funny/strange/etc etc Bring these drawings to class on Friday the 10th of May for discussion and agreement on the next steps. The next steps are likely to be making illustrations from the new material. Daniel has a new copy of the handbook which includes the two project briefs, a schedule template to help plan day by day and information designed to help. There is also information on student net.

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I then started to draw a lot of different types of fish and to give them unusual and different features, for example, bowler hats, walking sticks etc.

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I did some research into fish's behaviour. I spent several hours watching fish in the garden centre. I investigated aquarium and pond fish. I studied how the fish moved together and the colours and shapes they made. I got several books from the library to learn more about their behaviour and to investigate different ways of drawing fish.

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In creating my fish I try to give them each a life and character of their own. I was particularly interested in the way in which the fish move together and the potential of the shapes they make, swishing, chasing, moving, following parting and moving back together. The light reflects through the water making the fish seem larger, smaller, lighter, duller and the way in which the shape, cut and colour changes as the fish move. In this way every aspect of the image continually changes, the colour, shape, texture, size etc. The image suddenly changes and has a strange ethereal quality.

Developing my drawings into an illustration that tells a story

Whilst I was researching fish I became very interested in the idea of predatory fish and started drawing pictures of octopuses, sharks and other kinds of predatory and angry-looking fish.

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The story in my illustration could include these predatory fish chasing groups of other brighter, more colourful and quirky fish. I was interested in the idea of the chase and the shapes that the shoals of fish create as they are trying to escape. Having drawn the individual images of the fish, I used Photoshop to plan out and arrange the composition for the final images.

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For the first composition, I created a swirl of fish becoming smaller as they swim into the distance. The fish are being chased by one of the predatory fish above.

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In the second, I experimented with the idea of the octopus in the centre and the other fish escaping in circles away from the predator. The fish made an interesting pattern of concentric circles which mirror the shape of the octopus itself.

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In the third and final image I experimented with colour and shape. Here, in contrast to the last image, the fish are being encircled by the predators and are being pushed closer together into circles, each containing fish of a different colour. These groups of fish extend into the distance.

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Final tutorial May 2013

In this tutorial my tutor liked the ideas of the fish, however, he advised me to produce no fewer than 20 finished compositions!! He also suggested that I turn my images into a childrens book!

Presentation of FMP
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May 30th 2013

The Aquarium of Daniel. Creating a visual museum of hand drawn (or printed) interpretations of different types of fish. The completed drawings/images will be presented and classified as precursors to developing narratives/collections that are starting points for applied illustration.

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This fish attracted me because of its striking colours and I found its name amusing. I decided to give them accessories such as hats to make them more quirky and individual.

The cow fish also appealed to me because of its amusing name and it also looks a bit like a cow. It is also called a box fish because it has a very square body.

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This is a different variety of angel fish they seem to be a very colourful breed and have lovely tails and fins

chose the flounder because of its odd shape and quirky features, and that it would be a great contrast with the other fish.

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This is a swordfish I began to think about working with predator fish as well and this is an example said to be the fastest fish in the world.

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This is one of Jan Ormerods illustrations for The Water Babies.

This is a photograph of an angelfish I took when visiting an aquarium.

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This was my first attempt to collate an image using the individual fish I had been sketching, I was beginning to look at them in terms shape, colour and combining them to some kind of organised composition

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This is the first stage of the combined image, when I turn the silhouettes into fish I will probably remove some

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This is an example of one of the ideas for my final images, which includes a variety of smaller fish pursued by a hungry predator fish. I tried to get both a narrative idea of pursuit and also a pleasing spiral pattern. The vanishing point gives it depth and suggests the endless sense of space under the sea. This project has shown me that it is possible to build compositions by collecting drawings of a variety of objects and that the collation of them presents the illustrator with a huge bank of possible images.

This is one of my final images here I was looking at pattern and movement and perspective as well as the detail and colour of the fish themselves.

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The End

Daniel Bailey, Illustrator

For BA Hons Illustration FMP May 29th 2013

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