Alison Fennel

This blog post is about research on Alison Fennel.

http://about.me/Eastwitching < image reference at this link.

http://eastwitching.com/category/animal-art/ < image reference at this link.

Alison Fennel is a 47 year old nature artist, who is also a fully qualified teacher who teaches in watercolour painting classes. She specialises in creating animal watercolour paintings, and has been painting for over 20 years, so she has a lot of experience. Some of her water-colour florals and animals have been published by a few major printing houses in the United Kingdom. She has also notably had her work featured at the royal Cambrian Academy, and she also features often, in several big UK design magazines, such as Good Homes, coast and Landlove to name a few.

I really love her style. I love the way she uses watercolour paint, to provide a very soft, and uneven texture. The style she uses is borderless, and patchy. I like how she uses several shades of the same colour, to create the illusion of lighting and shadow.

I will take my inspiration from her, and work elements of her work themes into one of my final pieces.

Update:
I have used my research on this artist, and I have brought this into one of my final pieces, as part of the animal hybrid creation. I have taken inspiration from Alison, in terms of style, technique and medium. I have tried my best to emulate this with my illustration, which can be found here at the link below.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8837406714505932435#editor/target=post;postID=8270311067012307624;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=6;src=postname



Thomas.

Update on Animal unit

Finishing up my 5th animal sketchbook.

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Update finished.

Thomas.

Animal Hybrid Examples

http://io9.com/unholy-animal-hybrids-as-drawn-by-science-illustrators-511039747

This website link, is absolutely perfect for use in my animal research, and inspiration on creating weird animal hybrids.

http://io9.com/unholy-animal-hybrids-as-drawn-by-science-illustrators-511039747 < image reference at this link.

The animal featured in this illustration is entitled, 'Squirwolf'. It is of a half Wolf, half flying Squirrel. This image is my favourite example photo from the site, I love the animals used, and I think they work well together, the animal in a way looks like it would be a feasible, and believable creature. There are other examples of strange animal hybrids of course, that I will detail below this image.

http://io9.com/unholy-animal-hybrids-as-drawn-by-science-illustrators-511039747 < image reference at this link.

This illustration is called a 'Taranturaptor', the animal consists of a half Spider (Tarantula), half Raptor (Dinosaur)

http://io9.com/unholy-animal-hybrids-as-drawn-by-science-illustrators-511039747 < image reference at this link.

The above illustration is called, a 'Pandaroo'. a half Panda, half Kangaroo.

http://io9.com/unholy-animal-hybrids-as-drawn-by-science-illustrators-511039747 < image reference at this link.

This image features another strange animal hybrid, of a half Shrimp, half Bird (maybe a parrot).

This webpage provides excellent examples, and also gives me some inspiration of what can be created in the latter part of the assignment, which is to come up with four A3 creations, of non-existant, fictional animals.

I have pretty much thought of my four already, but I will take some inspiration from this post, and reflect this in my final animal hybrid pieces.

I will add to this :)

Thomas.

Group display

The class had a large display of all their animal work today from the entire unit, and after taking a look at the work laid out in detail, I have to say I am genuinely impressed, and surprised by the amount of finely detailed work produced.

Items included such things as sketchbooks from the animal unit, as well as a few of the final illustrations. All using a wide range of techniques.

From this group display of artwork, I have taken a few lessons from it for personal, professional and academic gain. For example mainly in areas such as time management, anatomy, detail and also practising quality over quantity of work. These are all areas that I wish for myself to gain improvement upon.


Thomas.

Dawn Holiday

http://www.dawnholliday.com/illustrations/4574142564

Dawn Holiday was born in 1986, and was the eldest sibling in her family. She states that her family are highly creative, in terms of art, and writing. She studied GCSE art, as well as A level art, as well as other educational achievements. She left the institute where she gained her A level, and enrolled onto an illustration course at the UCA. Another important part of her education, was that she pursued a career in animal care, which most likely really helped her to learn about animal anatomy, and proportions. 

She also creates animal fantasy artwork, which could tie in with the work I have been doing with fictional animal hybrids. She creates a lot of 'unicorn' artwork

Thomas.

http://www.dawnholliday.com/#/illustrations/4574142564 < image reference at this link.

Thomas.

Pip McGarry

Pip McGarry is an amazing wildlife artist, who creates ultra realistic animal artwork. His work is very well created, and you can tell he is highly talented, through his fine style. I have added a link to his great gallery, for all to view.

Pip McGarry is recognised as one of the world's leading wildlife artists. He has an international reputation for his oil paintings of such animals as big cats, and African game.

http://www.pipmcgarry.com/Galleries_African.html < image reference at this link.

He first became known, in 2004 as he was part of a very popular seven part series called 'A Brush With the Wild' on a television channel called 'Meridian Television'. This programme was filmed in Kenya, and at Marwell Wildlife, which is in Hampshire. On the programme, he taught several 'celebrities' how to paint wildlife images.

Pip McGarry is the chairman of the largest wildlife art society in Europe, and he has been an 'artist in residence' at Marwell Zoological Park, and he has been for over 12 years.

(Image referenced at this link > http://www.pipmcgarry.com/biography.html) it is also a direct link to his biography.

http://www.pipmcgarry.com/galleries.html <gallery


Thomas.

Animal sketchbook two

Here are all my animals sketches, from my second animal sketchbook.

Animal Hybrid #1 (Hogeel)

My first animal hybrid, which contains features of an Eel, hedgehog, and fish.
I decided to use these particular animals, because I wanted to illustrate and create an animal with a snake like body with curves. The Eel and the fish elements are clearly shown in this piece through the body. The hedgehog element is contained in the spikes, and also the general shape and characteristics of the head.

I researched these animals, and looked at a few photos of each on the internet, studying the outstanding characteristics of each. Keith Brockie, who I researched earlier on in this blog, inspired me to paint this illustration using watercolour paint, in order to slightly resemble his style of artwork, at least in terms of medium usage.

Made using pencil (to sketch out a base) then adding watercolours to add colour and tone, as well as depth.

Very happy with this animal, however I may add further detail later on, will update if I do

Thomas.

Natalya Zahn

Natalya Zahn is a nature illustrator, based in Caimbridge, MA (USA). She produces very fine, and detailed illustrations for commercial application, and most notably through her site, her work is featured in a majority of books.

http://www.natalya.com/Jasper-Hill-Farms-Annual-Promotional-Image < image reference at this link.

She interestingly uses text and typography in her work.

I decided to choose her in my illustrator research, because she produces very precise sketches, and she creates a vivid textures to her work, in a way that brings her drawings to life.

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http://www.notcot.com/archives/2012/04/natalya-zahn-natural-illustrat.php

http://www.natalya.com/ < her main site.




Thomas.

Lino printing

Today, I begun work in a Lino print workshop. I chose two different sizes of Lino (small and large), and took one of my initial animal drawings to transfer onto it as a tester (see below images)

I decided to work small initially, and then progress up to a larger size 'canvas' of lino. I found working small equally the same as working large scale, the only difference for me was the time spent making each print.

I would class both prints as positive prints, as I removed the area around each image on both lino pieces.

The test prints went really well in my opinion, they are crisp, and have a good level of detail, and nice shapes about them. I'm really pleased with the head of the pheasant, and the patterns that it produced.

After this test print, I moved on to a larger scale Lino piece.

The Lino was based on my hamster, and I used a photo stuck on my desk wall for reference. It took about 2 hours to cut, and after this I printed the large scale final vinyl onto an a1 sheet of paper. I will place the photo of the finished print below.

I am very happy with the outcome, but I would love to go back into the vinyl, and add more "shading" to give the print more depth, and detail if I can.

I will be doing this either tomorrow, or soon.

Thomas.

Helpful bird tutorial

Watched this video about painting birds in watercolour, by a talented artist. Recommend a view, it's really informative...

https://plus.google.com/104843786426592624368/posts/LB7JVWXDaSJ


Thomas.

Printing

Today, I had a go of several different printing techniques, in the specialist print room. Had to say, it was really fun, I did a few monoprint, and etching techniques, onto a range of different materials.

I decided to wait until my pieces finished drying before I took a photo, but I did take one during production.

I will attatch the photo here, very soon

Thomas.

A3 Finals Ideas, and progress

This task on the brief, is for me to create 4 illustrations of made up animals.
I am starting work on the first of my A3 illustrations, and I have decided which animals I would like to use, for each one of my different illustrations.

Final #1) Eel, Fish, Hedgehog hybrid

Final #2) Fox, Dolphin

Final #3) Lemur, Bird, Beaver

Final #4) Wolf, Gecko, Snake

I am currently working on my first illustration, which is still in progress of course

I feel this illustration is coming along well, and I cannot wait to see what the final image will look like. Right now it looks very bare, but I will be adding dar more colour, and also some more detail, in order to make the piece appear more lifelike, and natural.

For this particular piece, I am taking some inspiration from Keith Brockie, by using watercolour paint, to give that very distinct watercolour visual look.

Thomas.