Illustration, to me, is all about understanding the subject before you jump into it – so the notion of using various techniques to further my understanding as part of the process of research was an aspect of this lecture that I actually appealed to; personally I am a little bit of a magpie – I collect things that I believe to be beautiful, whether it be clothing, trinkets, or merely something of a certain colour – I have to have it. And this collection often serves as a varied source of inspiration and ideas. Watching the world go by is something I also spend a lot of time doing as not only is observation something that was important in this week’s lecture, but it is important in everyday life as I think that by observing our world and what’s in it, we can learn and improve ourselves, and by doing this we improve our creative skills as well.
However, research would be nothing if all it consisted of was collecting things and observing what is around us; I feel that there is no better way to achieve a better understanding of your subject than to fully immerse yourself in it – studying the history, the practitioners, the various techniques etc. I also think that this should be done in a variety of ways; using reference books, the internet or by even going out and looking for exhibitions to explore, working practitioners to talk to.
This blends quite easily with my second chosen key principle, as the practises that are involved in research often spark inspiration; like I mentioned about my collecting habits inspiring my work. I believe that inspiration – when broken down – is strongly linked to curiosity in the way that we want to experiment with new ideas when they come to us, how we explore possibilities, previous practitioners work and simply the chain reaction one idea can cause in our minds – sparking off in numerous directions with a variety of results. I have always enjoyed the process of taking an idea and experimenting with all the different ways that idea can be used – whether it’s testing medias and materials, or techniques or styles of drawing and painting or transferring the idea from paper to computer image software.
But I also think that inspiration doesn’t just come from research, or experimenting – it can come from anywhere at anytime, which is why I often think I should always be prepared with a small sketchbook and my camera in order to document anything that happens to interest me, and it can be something incredibly small and insignificant, or it can be something that is well known and has inspired practitioners before; a number of illustrators mentioned in the lecture said that they sketch a lot and can often fill a massive number of sketchbooks, and some even use their sketchbooks as their exhibited work.
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