Sunday 16 February 2014

'Mistakes are the portals of discovery' - James Joyce


It’s a luxury to sit down today and update my blog, with a cup of tea to hand! Having worked all morning on a book project, then chopped some whopping logs (always satisfying after standing at my desk working. Yes I stand and work, it keeps the line fluid and the painting from becoming too tight). Alexis Deacon, one of our tutors encourages us to do this. Here's an illustration I recently finished for my Red Riding Hood project.


These days my life seems to be  spent working pretty  much 6 or even 7 days a week preparing for the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in March plus work for the MA at Cambridge School of Art. Today was no different, here is a painting in its early stages.


I have yet to work into it with texture and pattern, all done by hand.  I love the process of physically working on the rice paper and seeing the luminous colours build up slowly. Rice paper when wet is not the easiest medium to use but it seems to have chosen me and I am hooked!

So, what I have learned these last few weeks apart from how to drive in floods! Is that instead of feeling the need to control the  painting - let go and allow it to unfold. To relax and keep the fun and inspiration alive by pretending it’s a rough.  Whenever  I start to dread working on a illustration, particularly a section of it,  I have realised that actually it is because it is not working, either compositionally or the characters are not integrated into the composition. I now realise this is a flag to say , come on Pol, redo it! You know in your heart, it’s not right! Sometimes it really is good to  sit back, take a break and start again. Learn from the mistake!
Right best chop more logs – unlike Red riding Hood and her Granny this Forest dweller is a match for any wolf! Then I best start work again but before I go here is a link to the MA Children's Book web site, showing all the beautiful work off to Bologna on our stand, my work is on page 3.
/http://www.machildrensbookillustration.com/