#1. Feather (aka "True confessions")
The giclee print for sale on the site called “Feather” was published in an article titled “True confessions- a tale of Human Magpies and singing Blackbirds”.
While reading through the copy the first couple of times I tend to draw little visual notes beside the text of whatever image it stimulates. Once I have settled on the central theme of the article I play around with the relevant doodles I have come up with, trying to find a page design where they sit together, balance, and interact with one another in some sort of meaningful manner.
The article begins with the writer walking with an old friend past the flamingos in the Zoo and comparing his friend to a magpie due to her habit of including conversations she is party to into her novels, he wonders how innocent he is since he is relating this information in a national publication. He adds that both as a writer and a counsellor he feels a need to have his ear attuned to the human condition, to remember the disconnected threads of human experience and weave the chaos into a coherent pattern. The metaphor of weaving/stitching carries on through the text, for example, he remarks how life can be more confusing and bizarre than any film or novel, that if we are lucky we might find a golden thread through it which stops it unravelling into chaos. Straight away I felt I had strong imagery to work with. The piece ends with him talking about listening to a recording of a Blackbird singing while visiting his parents.
Producing paintings and drawings as an illustrator, particularly an editorial illustrator who is often required to conjure imagery to illustrate abstract ideas, it is helpful to have an extensive visual reference library stored in your head. What do I mean by this? Well, everyone knows the human brain reacts to information and stimulation like a sponge to water, so the more books I read, drawings I make, exhibitions I go to, films I watch and visual information I soak up the better chance I have of making visual associations when reading through the text of a brief. In the case of “Feather”, with the repeated references to birds I recalled a series of photographs from a body of work by Cornelia Parker which I saw in the Serpentine gallery some time ago. She had made beautifully delicate black and white photographs (or to be completely accurate, photograms) of feathers which held historical association. For example one feather was taken from Freud’s pillow, another from the sleeping bag which Sir Ranulph Fiennes bedded down in each night during his trip across Antarctica. I thought the stark contrast between the feather and background would form the basis of a strong illustration.
Since at least the first half of the article involved interaction between two writers, and because it focused on an aspect of writing, I felt it was important to represent this in the illustration. Fortunately the feather doubling as a writing quill gave me a subtle solution.
With most illustration commissions you would expect a certain degree of limitation to artistic freedom over a painting / drawing in the guise of the customers requirements from the dimensions, size at which illustration will be printed, full colour or black and white, to more rigid instruction such as the inclusion of a middle aged suited business man with receding hairline holding a red apple on an out stretched hand, with his arm at 45 degrees, and on, and on!
The magazine which commissioned “Feather” was almost the perfect employer in that they gave me free reign (I say almost perfect- the pay was crap). The Art director always flowed the text around my work which meant I could choose the dimensions of the painting, and he trusted me enough to never ask for preliminary
sketched ideas (usually an Art director would ask to see the rough ideas you had come up with as sketch, they would then chose which one they want you to work on, you come back with a more polished drawing of their chosen sketch, they ask for one or two final adjustments, you rework it, get final approval then paint the final illustration, hope they don’t change their mind in the interim, and wait two or three months for them to pay you for the job you burnt the midnight oil to get into them on time).
After working out the colour scheme (as seen in the sketch above-left) I draw up a full scale version of the final design (as seen in the drawing to the right-enlargements of both are linked) then crack on with the painting. After this illustration I started including "This way up" notes (with instructing arrow) in the margins of paintings because "Feather" was printed lying on its side!
