Rouleur issue 17.6

Latest set of illustrations for Rouleur, looking at the growing use of social media among road cyclists and the effects that it has had on the sport. I think I must have said it quite a lot before, but I really love working with these guys. The briefs are super fun and interesting and the images just come really easily.

Below are the final pieces. I'll also include a few of the roughs at the end. Before I've been a bit reluctant to share any rough work just because there may be the chance to recycle the idea or composition with another brief, but these are pretty specific so should be safe. My process of work took a bit of a dramatic shift from my usual approach and the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil were the only materials I used to create the roughs. As I mentioned before, I'm going to do a little write up on the iPad and my practice, but the benefit of using them meant that I was able to focus solely on the ideas and just pick up and create, rather than having to split my time between ideation and sifting through papers, for textures, colours, scanning, working up the roughs slightly etc.

Drought

Over 20 million people are facing severe famine and starvation due to drought. Climate change is a huge aggravating factor scorching harvests and ruining livelihoods, but we can all help change this!

Like the Wind

Here's a recent piece I did for Like the Wind magazine #13. I got to illustrate a really great article by James Dunn (instagram) about using memory and music to help him run and train further. I wanted to convey the solitariness of his process, lost in his own head but enforce he was by no means alone or lonely. The illustration ended up being really striking and quite graphic which I really like, whilst keeping texture and plenty of depth.

Some things I've been working on

As well as working on commissions I've been trying to improve my shop game! So I've been creating a few prints in order to boost my passive income and also just switch gear and try a few new things. A few months ago I got an ipad pro for a number of different reasons (I'm actually going to do a little post/review of this real soon) and creating these prints is just a way of me experimenting with the mix of collage and digital to see how I my illustrations can retain that tangible, textured depth and be digital at the same time.

Here are a few

      

All prints are available to buy either through Facebook (please like and share if you're into that :) ) or you can shoot me an email Grace01_25@hotmail.com

Tablet Magazine

Keeping the updates coming, here's an illustration I did to accompany another really beautiful personal essay for Tablet Magazine. It discusses a woman's experience of holding her first dinner party since separating from her husband, helping her to understand what freedom really means. 

I really love working with the people at Tablet magazine because they understand illustration, the idea of making reference to the parting of the red sea in the illustration came from the Art Director. I played on this a little further to create the waves out of curtains, towering around the dinner party, revealing the light shining through the window at the end of the table, portraying the safe passage of living a newly single life.

Rouleur Magazine

Here's a recent commission for Rouleur Magazine. It was three full page illustrations to accompany a humorous look at the diet of a cyclist, which is apparently a lot of pasta! I've worked with the Cycling magazine before and they are one of my favourite clients to work with, not only because I love sport and illustrating it but because their articles always bring out some really great and unusual imagery. 

Here are the illustrations.

 

They'd used a square format previously before which had worked quite well so I decided to play with this a little and have elements spilling out of the square to create an illusion of perspective and also step into the viewers space, drawing them in and capturing their attention.

Update

2017 has gotten off to a flying start already with lots of work commissioned, completed and waiting for publication, so lots of new updates on my website and here to follow. For now, I finished off the last post with a teaser for something I'd been working on for a fairly long time on and off. If you follow me on social media you would have already seen that this was a little sneak peek of my first children's book! Dedicated to my niece, 'Want to Play?' follows Bear on his journey to find someone to play with. Here's a few spreads:

I focused on some really rich landscapes, full of texture and depth, to become the home of Bear, a little red abstract character made from simplified shapes and flat colours. This created a careful interplay between figurative and abstract to portray Bear's playfulness and energy.

I'm really happy with how the book turned out, landscapes are something I create most in my personal work because I think there can be something quite powerful about them. You can infer so much from a place, emotions, atmosphere, tone, all without showing a smile or frown.

I'd love to create another book and have some ideas floating around so watch this space!

If you would like to purchase my book you can do here: http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7716267-want-to-play?t=1485257850887