with the Good Ship Illustration
I am halfway through the 4 week course, and have completed the second module, which landed in my inbox on Monday. I have really enjoyed learning new techniques, and it’s challenging – reassuringly so, as I am a terrible one for assuming I can teach myself things, so when I take on someone else’s instructions, I’m relieved when I don’t feel “hmm…could’ve picked that up from watching a couple of YouTube videos…”
Last week was all about how to draw, or adapt your drawing, for live illustration purposes, and this section is all about how to do the graphic recording bit. I have been listening to podcasts, and have signed up for a bunch of webinars, mainly in my areas of interest, namely sustainability, rewilding, conservation, nature, regenerative agriculture and all that jazz. I am experimenting with finding the sweet spot ratio of drawing to writing as some of the podcasts are scientific, or scientific-adjacent so there’s quite a lot of data or research info to communicate, and I’m not sure how best to do that.
Here’s one I did recently:
I made a mistake at the bottom, so stuck some paper on to cover up the mess. I now have some address labels to use for more seamless erasing. I used a calligraphy pen – not that I’d use it for real, but I’m getting used to cracking on with permanent mark-making and it seems silly to not use my ink pens when I’m practising. I’ve ordered some nice refillable marker pens and some heavier A3 paper so I can practise drawing with proper markers as I’ve never used any sort of felt-tip pens really. And you’re correct – I cannot seem to spell efficiency.
I have also been trying out with drawing people as they are important for graphic recording. I have been looking through my 1000 faces sketchbook which of course, I’ve not yet finished, and realised that it’s really useful for honing my quick expressive faces for graphic recording. Here are my shrugging and musing people, which I think will be handy for live illo:
I need to try some more diverse people so that’s next on the list. I need to be more brave with making my drawings the main focus rather than relying on the wording, but I’m going to try that once I have my new art supplies. I’ve not done much other drawing in my sketchbook as I’m a bit obsessed with this but that’s fine – I am sure it understands!
