Anyway, my shortlist at this moment in time include:
Airside - I love their playful, dream-like, geometric worlds and characters. Bursting with character and charm.
Lemon Jelly - 2003
Insyde - 2006
Jonathan Barnbrook - I admire his political stance against, amongst other issues, corporate globalisation, and the way in which he weaves this into his work. I also like his combined use of image and innovative typography. Some of his work is almost decorative - an area that really interests me.
Forwards, Not Backwards - 2005
North Korea 2.0 - 2004
David Hughes - Dark and edgy characterisations. I am fascinated by his craftsmanship as muc
h as by his witty conceptual abilities. His use of deceptively economic line and sweet spatial arrangements are really appealing. I also like the way in which he introduces quirky hand-drawn type into his compositions.
Sanna Annukka - Her work appeals directly to my interest in decorative design and pastoral sensibilities. Bold, confident patterns that draw upon a long tradition of nordic folk art.
I suppose there are common threads at work here; they all employ drawing in one form or another and each applies a certain decorative quality - even David Hughes with his use of collage.
Eventually I decided to attempt two - David Hughes and Sanna Annukka - partly
to initiate a challenge but also, I guess, to hedge my bets a little and discover which turned out to be more fruitful.
In so far as David Hughes goes I started with a definite idea regarding what I wanted to achieve. I was keen to draw out his political side whilst at the same time producing a piece that might be mildly offensive to some viewers. On his website, Hughes rather celebrates the fact that some observers have termed his images (or his mind) 'sick' by including their comments alongside the work. it strikes me that this is not a bad attitude to have. It was also important for me to explore the quality of his line - it is by turn fluent, economical, confident and edgy.
I don't know if David Hughes has ever tackled George Bush but he seemed to be a suitable target for the Hughes treatment having influenced global events with what many see as less than intelligent approaches and decision-making.
I had at the back of my mind the Michael Moore film 'Fahrenheit 911' and especially the moment where Bush, seated in front of an audience of elementary school children, is first informed of the attack on the World Trade Centre. It seemed to sum up how completely inept and out of his depth this man is.
Pursuing the George Bush idea, I decided to portray him as Woody from 'Toy Story', a reference to Bush's manufactured cowboy persona, and decided to have him unseated by a 9/11 style airliner attack on his stool. This seemed to harness some of David Hughes' classic irreverence.
I worked for hours trying to capture a Bush likeness allied to the Hughes' style. I tried tracing, observational drawing, distortion etc. etc. Ultimately I discovered that the most successful route to characature was to develop a series of key features for the figure in my mind's eye and then to execute these. Observational drawings and tracings became too life-like and less stylised.
The other key difficulty was the adoption of a style that both mimicked and got inside the mindset of Hughes. His illustrative style is deceptively simple and yet at the same time is terrifically sophisticated in its use of economic line. I experimented hard to try to achieve this fluency of line coupled to its spattered edginess. Dip pen offered the edge but not the fluency - too scratchy. Biro was an alternative choice but didn't quite offer the strength of line at times. This topic is still a bit of an enigma. I'm sure some of the quality comes with practice and experience.
Overall I was reasonably pleased with the outcome. It is a decent attempt at a characature of Bush and offers commentary on the personality. However, to my mind it still does not quite capture the piercing sense of distortion and quirkiness that Hughes uses so adroitly to illuminate his subjects. Nor does it yet include some of his hallmark hand-crafted type. I think it perhaps says more about me than it does about David Hughes.
Setting this to one side I became more interested in pursuing a decorative piece in the vein of Sanna Annukka. I was especially taken by her stylised treatment of nature, particularly birds. One of my favourite Annukka pieces is her cover design for the book 'Cold Mountain'. I therefore decided to combine two emerging themes by producing a poster for the book/film 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' - a favourite from the past.
I developed a Scandinavian style palette and worked on the bird utilising the drawing tools in Illustrator combined with elements from scanned pieces of wallpaper. The Wicked Queen font was a freebie that seemed to compliment the nordic theme. Other elements are vectorised images from the net. The whole is a spontaneous composition with few if any preliminary drawings.
I learnt a terrific amount about slicing and breaking components apart in Illustrator. In my self-tuition I probably picked up some really bad habits but I had great fun. Pleasing myself. Decorative design. I was in my element.
I would really like to develop this style further but it's on to the next project I'm afraid. Alternatively, I feel that it could readily lend itself to a craft oriented line of exploration e.g. paper-cuts or fretted metal work.
I would dearly love to look over the shoulder of a designer working through a piece like this. I think you would pick up so much in the modelling of the process. You could then begin to truly get inside the head of the designer and not just produce pale pastiche but authentically rooted pieces of design. Without the depth of experience, research and preliminary preparation I believe that I could struggle to produce other pieces that sit comfortably in this style. This piece might rely too heavily on 'found' elements rather than a self-generated sense of style.
