Gathering Research

I really believe in the importance of research when it comes to making innovating and impressive work so I am thinking carefully about how to approach my research file. I usually annotate my research by hand but this is messy, time-consuming and not always entirely helpful when I find new research to link to previous findings. In my last project I worked with Adobe Indesign to create my final book so I have become more familiar with the controls and I have decided to create my research file in this way. This means I can play around with composition, order and content and when I eventually print it for assessment it will be clearer and more professional.

Whilst I was in the library today I discovered 'Cutting Edges: Comtemporary Collage', an exciting and inspiring book that had lots of practitioner's work I had not seen before.

Katherine Streeter

I came across Katherin Streeter's work and I love the way she creates fun and unusual compositions with rough-edged cut-outs and layered textures. For this project I want to explore collage, paper cutting and textures further as I think this will help me come up with the most effective response to my narrative, meaning I am interested in the way other illustrators use these techniques successfully. Another example I found was Jelle Marten's work which is minimal with geometric patterns and shapes. He mixes found textures and photographs with a selective colour palette to create crisp, fresh pieces that portray atmospheric settings. Both Streeter and Marten use bold shapes in their work to create solid blocks of colour which could be an interesting way to adding the red to represent the circus followers in my work, without literally depicting their gloves or scarves.

Jelle Martens

For the rest of the week I am tackling the time consuming job of highlighting my text and copying and categorizing my notes so I can start creating imagery.