Emulations - E.H. Shepard

When creating these emulations, I tried to draw out characters from particular scenes in the same style as the artist. I drew them out in pencil first then added outlining and detail with ink and a dip pen. I made sure to add tone by cross-hatching in certain places whilst also layering lines and small directional lines where they were needed. Then, I added colour to some illustrations using watercolour paints and tried to create tone by using darker and lighter variants of the same colour in certain places. I feel that this worked well as the images are very aesthetically pleasing to look at as well as emulating the style of Shepard's work.

More artist Copies - E.H. Shepard

Artist Copy - E.H. Shepard

For my artist copy, I chose to draw and paint E.H. Shepard's iconic illustration of Pooh climbing a tree from A.A. Milne's book Winnie The Pooh. I chose this image as it's a simplistic yet elegant illustration with delicate colours which is a style that I find very aesthetically pleasing. 

Original illustration by E.H. Shepard

When creating the artist copy, I chose to use fine liner and watercolour. I used this medium as the original image has an elegant quality that watercolour creates successfully. It is a medium that I want to experiment with for my own illustrations and so I felt that this would be the perfect opportunity to try out the technique. 

I chose to outline and draw in the details with fine liner as the lines in the original illustration are defined and contrast nicely against the delicate watercolour within the image. I wanted to recreate this effect and look which is why I chose fine liner and not brushing in the details with ink or black watercolour paint. Not only this, but the fine liner works very well when drawing smaller details such as the tonal lines on the tree and on Pooh himself. 

My watercolour and fine liner copy of E.H. Shepard's illustration

Techniques And Colour Schemes - Initial Ideas

Subject Matter - Drawings

These are drawings of my subject matter which I created based on the photographs that I took. I chose to use felt pen to add colour to some drawings and watercolours on others in order to experiment with which medium would work best for different types of subject matter. I also left some uncoloured as I wanted to see what they would look like in just monochrome.

Subject Matter - Photos

The photos below are the pictures of subject I took which inspired the drawings I created for the children's book I'm creating for my final piece. I used three different subject matter; the cat, a young boy (the characters) and a pair of boots (possible images for the front cover of the book).

Experiment With Inked Layers

First, I chose some images from the internet to use for my fake screen print. I then imported them into photoshop, used threshold to make them pure black and white, then took away the white and changed the colour of the black shapes that were left.

I then started to play with blending effects such as multiply and colour burn to see which effect I liked most and which would create more visual interest whilst adding more layers, both digital and handmade.

Once I had done all of this I added more handmade layers so that there was contrast with the digital layers I had used thus far. 

After adding these layers in, I went through the process that I had with the digital layers and changed the colours and blending effects as well as changing the colour of one layer to a darker colour so that it stood out more and was more aesthetically appealing. 

And this is the final result that I decided on in the end:

Scamps (Initial Ideas)

For my scamps of initial ideas for the cover of the book I'm doing for my final piece, I decided to use a variety of materials and colours in order to determine which techniques I liked the most before experimenting so that I would have a wide range of combinations to choose from. I also chose to use different layouts so that I could see which would look the best and encourage a prospective reader to pick up the book and read it. 

I chose to leave some backgrounds as plain white in order to simplify the design and draw more attention to the illustration and title of the book, whereas I used coloured backgrounds on other designs to make the cover stand out and catch the eye. Not only this, but I experimented with strange layouts of image such as the design of the cat eyes on the boots both to intrigue the prospective reader and to represent what the book is about in relation to the title of the book itself. 

The Scamps:

Materials used: watercolour paint and fineliner (top), ink and fineliner (middle), watercolour paint and black gel pen.

Materials used: wax crayon and fineliner (top), wax crayon and gel pen (middle), wax crayon, fineliner and felt pen (bottom).

Materials used: felt pen and fineliner (top), fineliner (middle), coloured pencil and gel pen (bottom).

Materials used: fineliner (top), coloured pencil and gel pen (middle), watercolour paint and gel pen (bottom).

Materials used: watercolour and gel pen (top), felt tip and gel pen (middle), wax crayon and gel pen (bottom).