Frances McKay Illustration

Images 35

It's that time of the year again when the great and good in British Illustration pop up in the A.O.I's 'IMAGES' annual. Judgement on number 36 is out soon, while IMAGES 35 recently had it's private view in London, where the various awards in different categories were dished out. Work to appear in the annual is jury selected, so not every Tom Dick and Harry can get in, and subsequently the standard is always high.

Well we are happy here at team FMI to say that we have had not just one, nor two, but three people manage to get into the hefty tome. And if that wasn't enough, some of them even got a number of illustrations into it.

The Independent - Books of the Year: Children's books

 
It's been quite a year for James de la Rue. He's been in huge demand and flat out working for Walker ('Emily's Surprising Voyage'), Puffin (four 'Spy Dog' and 'Spy Pups' books), Penguin ('Great Expectations'), Hodder ('Gladiator Boy' editions 13 - 15) and Random House ('A Girl Called Dog'). To top if off he scooped the AOI Best of British Illustration - Images 34 Children's Books Bronze Award 2010 in September, and earlier this month featured in The Independent's 'Books of the Year: Children's books - Bears, rabbits, tigers, flies (and snot-caked bullies)' By Inbali Iserles.

Images 34 Exhibition- the Best of British Contemporary Illustration 2010

 
Tuesday September 7th was the The AOI Private View of the AOI Images Exhibition 2010, at the London College of Communication.

Tibbs Felt Grey

I have been developing a story over the last few months, and I now feel that I have got the character looking how I imagined.

This all came about, when an illustration which I painted many years ago, of a very simple grey and black tiger, seem to trigger off quite a bit of positive feedback from my portfolio when Frances showed it at various meetings. They seemed to like the vulnerability of the character and although he seemed sad he still had quite an appeal about him. I had originally painted this character with my usual inky stick technique, (as it sounds a stick dipped in a pot of ink,) and my fingers to print the stripes on, I also produced a giraffe and some other animal friends like this too. Now because of the way I used the black ink, whenever i tried to add colour to the tiger, it never seemed to be as effective, and he seemed to lack the very quality he had in the first place. So for this reason i decided that although he was to remain black and grey, for him to appeal to children in a book, he needed to meet some colourful friends, and for there to be a reason as to why he felt so grey!

I know that Frances, has introduced my Tibbs story at a few meetings, so I am hoping that with time, and with the right development of the artwork, he will become a real printed book character one day!

Heres a few lines from the end of the story . . .

Tibbs still felt grey, but maybe not quite so sad.

He stopped and looked up . . .

. . . and something very beautiful and very smiley looked back down at him.

. . . and then Tibbs saw something, something that made him feel the most cheery, the most bright, the most smiley, the most happy, the most beautiful that he had ever felt before. . . .

Jill Latter

http://www.jillustrator.com/

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See Jill's work at the Images 34 exhibition – the Best of British Contemporary Illustration 2010

From Recycling to Cycling

Hi all, Here are two images I’ve worked on last week. Together with another 1043 by various artists, they were entered to the Cycling in London Competition launched by the London Transport Museum in collaboration with the AOI. Being a keen cyclist myself I liked the brief and I had fun thinking about the different things people carry on their bikes (I later thought I should have included a self portrait with A1 portfolio!!)
The slogan I used brought back to my memory another picture I did some 5 years ago when I was at university, and which was about promoting recycling (I am a keen recyclist too, which is part of why I use collage as my main medium). Making 3D models and photographing them is a different way of working from what I normally do (not the quickest when you’re working on tight deadlines!). But it’s possibly the most fun I’ve had making a picture…
Valentina All three of these illustrations are avaliable as limited edition giclee prints. For more information on these prints, and to see more prints by Valentina see 'Valentina's Limited Editions' in the right hand column.  Valentina's Website Follow us on Facebook