I revisited my work and reflected on the areas I have explored in this course.
I then used my sketchbook to consider various questions and themes I would be interested in researching further.
The main subjects that stood out were:
- How to go from a sketch to a finished illustration and what is a finished illustration?
- Themes around patterns and what is a good pattern? Or maybe how patterns have evolved and how vintage patterns can be used in contemporary designs.
- How to use reportage-style sketches as inspiration, to create stories for instance.
- The difference between a traditional illustrator like Beatrix Potter vs. an illustrator who uses digital media like Therese Larsson (http://www.sillybeastillustration.com/).
- Anthropomorphism and the representation of animals in illustrations. How does anthropomorphism work, from a look in the eye of an animal that we can interpret as human to an animal wearing human clothes.
I decided to explore the idea of anthropomorphism in illustrations and the way animals are represented. Some questions could be:
- How to draw animals when they behave like humans? with a human body or a mix between animal and human?
- Should they wear clothes or talk?
- Are humans present in the story like in Tintin and Snowy or are they “replacing” humans like Beatrix Potter’s characters for instance?
- How much do they retain of the animal in their behaviour/personality?
- Why do we enjoy so much giving human characteristics to animals?
These questions have sometimes occurred to me while studying for this course including in the very first exercise of Key Steps to Illustration (https://catherineillustrationblog.wordpress.com/key-steps-in-illustration/courseworkkeep/part-1/exercise-the-history-of-illustration/) or when I drew animals as part of an exercise.
Books and other sources to consider
The art of Animal Drawing (Hultgren, K. (1993). The art of animal drawing : construction, action analysis, caricature. New York: Dover.)
https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/illustration/how-draw-animals-55-brilliant-tips/
https://designobserver.com/feature/in-praise-of-the-anthropomorphic/7537
Some illustrators who have used anthropomorphism: Beatrix Potter, Therese Larsson, Herge, E.H. Shepard, Alexis Dormal, Walt Disney and many more.
I have considered the steps I should take to explore that subject and it might be a good idea to start with a visit to a public library as anthropomorphism has been used many times to tell stories.
Catherine Roux Degree in Illustration 