Artist Research - Jun Cen

Jun Cen's Soothing Illustrations Explore Loneliness in the Modern Era

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/jun-cen-wetransfer-the-new-yorker-illustration-110619

While looking into other illustrators who may have focussed on themes of loneliness, depression and mental illness for my work with 504 responding to briefs 1 and 2, I came across this great article from It's Nice That showcasing Jun Cen's illustrations.

Jun Cen is an established Chinese illustrator with a background in printmaking currently working in New York with clients such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Vogue and WeTransfer. He is known for his smooth and calming works internationally. He adopts an open mind to illustration because of his broad clients and audience and their culture taste.

From It's Nice That: It is the theme of loneliness in the modern era (which he also tends to experience) that regularly crops up in his work. In a world filled with hatred and bigotry, Jun goes on to say: "Even the words we use in both virtual and visual worlds sometimes become a mess of censorship to silence those who hold different opinions. When I feel frustrated or lonely, I feel more like an individual than any other time. So my recent work focuses on these moments of introspection."

Jun Cen: Silence

A very muted colour palette mostly of cold blue-grey and grey white. Only small areas of peach to offset but they are very muted so as not to cause a disturbance. The composition of this illustration is very clever. It is mostly symmetrical to create a sense of balance and peace. The shadows coming down from the ceiling invite the eye down into the bottle centre where the figure and window are. The focus of the brightest element is on the white vastness beyond the dark, faceless figure forcing the audience to stare into to beyond and the unknown for a long period of time feeling detached.

Jun Cen: Text Me

Aimlessly wandering around into cyberspace into a digital graph, the lonely figure has nothing behind them and nothing ahead of them. There is a sense of ebb and flow like being underwater and moving slowly and quietly like a ghost, a shadow. Muted colours again suggesting a feeling of being emotionally drained, exhausted, tired, staring into nothing. More green tones suggesting technology. 

Jun Cen: Text Me

Very cold and mostly muted colours on the fingers. The more saturated blue turning to black on the phone screen in a gradient makes this the focal point of the composition. The faceless figure turning away gives a coldness, an emptiness, a separation. No integration or interaction. The many layers of the internet? The hidden layers of a person behind the screen? Social media can be not very social at all and oftentimes extremely isolating and lonely, people can be the subjects of harassment or attacks.

LAUIL502: Studio Brief 1 - Visiting Lecturer Olivia Ahmad

• Series of commissions and billboards

• Working as a curator at this point to understand the art landscape

• Worked at Seven Stories (National Centre for Children's Books) and with lots of museums

• When looking at illustrations in a gallery things are out of context and in a white room so I have to give great consideration to why I have selected it

• Children's Warrior. Chosen to champion children literature. 2002. National Gallery collections

• Public art gallery opened in 2014. Came on board about that time. International illustration and UK illustration combining

• What I try to do each year is 6 or 7 exhibitions

• Accommodate different kinds of narratives. Roald Dahl. 

• EA Shepherd. I put a show on, I have a wide range of tastes, I try to come from different angles that will get people through the door. Went to the family of EA Shepherd and chatted and found out what they had in the collection. During the war he did these lighthearted caricatures, making fun, reportage, on the fields of Belgium and France. Mix of jolly voice and landscapes. Composition. 

• As well as drawing, I'm interested in letters and what someone's life is about. The context

• Each exhibition I try to frame it in a different way and completely change it

• Not really into making set rooms

• Picture books from Russia 50 years ago

• An exhibition should be an experience

• We can commission illustrators to make work for us. We have two galleries, contemporary and historic

• House of illustration is in King's Cross, London, and has regenerated. Spaces can be undesirable. Paddy wanted to challenge that a little bit with archetypes

• Another thing a gallery can do is show objects!

• Reportage and documentation illustrator. 200 year old market in London threatened with gentrification. Celebrates it. Highlights elements in the market, textiles, diversity. Commenting on our society

• How an exhibition starts. People say they have an interesting collection. Lots of plastic bags and a suitcase in a studio. Going through and filter it and edit it down. 

• North Korea 30 year period crisp packets, ticket stubs. NK is militaristic and problematic, people aren't living their lives. Military parades like robots. Thought we'd look at domestic life in NK and not military life. Interesting angle to gather people's interest. Same symbols kept coming up in graphic design through the government. An orchard. Means something. Thats exciting to me!

• Immersive spaces but want them to be genuine

• Sometimes people will have an amazing collection but there's no information or the studio so I can't put it up on the wall. People may still be around so I try to track people down. Made a poster, found an art director who had sadly passed away but was allowed to his home and given access to his work and intentions. Went to old office and studios. Receipts, bank statements, triangulating information

• Tom of Finland, born in 1920 working until 1980, art director by day and by night drew his fantasies. He was gay. He would send tiny erotic drawings as a contact sheet. Not many would do that at the time, if at all, so it was amazing. His studio is preserved by a friend of his. He does a lot of pencil drawings I could look at, body building magazines of the 50s

• Varoom. Showed me a whole new world of illustration. They were looking for an editor a few years ago. It's been going for a long time but it has its heritage. It was in a glossy format and when I was looking at the industry now it didn't quite fit anymore. Online platforms are finding out about illustration and design. I made it much smaller and fatter like a book, cheap ways of making something different. The cover will always be a talking point

• If magazines come out every month they have a grid and a high turnaround. Varoom comes out twice a year so I can craft it, the typeface is different and it feels like a much more bespoke thing

• Instagram is a good promotional tool but I'm wary of it. Some images get traction some don't. All depends on the algorithm

•  Each issue has a theme. This new issue is about narrative

• How do I choose illustrators? I go to graduate shows, general art shows, I keep an eye on things online, people send me their work. For historic stuff people are generous. Illustration is not like painting, quite a lot of collections take time to find contexts and information about them

Contextual Research - Dadu Shin

 I found a series of editorial illustrations that Dadu Shin had created surrounding the subject of disability when I was making my own personal illustrations on depression last summer and needed some illustrators to help contextualise the work I was making, highly relevant to my practice. These editorial pieces really stuck with me, for the breadth of disabilities and stories being portrayed and the similar way they were all approached. I want to use these as a good foundation of contextual research for social exclusion and loneliness in my project to help with compositional and colour palette ideas when it comes to creating work for the One and Only picture book.

"If You're in a Wheelchair, Segregation Lives"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/opinion/if-youre-in-a-wheelchair-segregation-lives.html

Dadu's illustration visualising Luticha Doucette's article for the New York Times depicting a black woman with incomplete quadriplegia and chronic pain and how her ability to move freely is severely impacted and frequently restricted. The social attitudes of ingrained ableism and ignorance and inaccessibility hinder her daily - something I deal with too. The colourless and featureless able-boded crowd is cleverly placed along her like a prison, a chain link fence of limbs, and she is trapped. The colours are muted and the most saturated are the woman herself, she is the focal point and this is her story. The sky graduates down bringing the eye down centrally to her where she is encased and unimpressed. The colours suggest the indifference of society when faced with a disabled person, not aware they are making a barrier of themselves. I face this issue everyday when walking about with Tami, my guide dog. Sighted people walking into us and not watching where they are going, too busy with their phone, standing on Tami's paws, walking into me and bashing me with shopping bags. It's exhausting and unwelcoming and makes me hate going out into the world.

"Passing My Disability onto My Children"

https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/illustration/dadu-shins-visual-narratives-of-disability-are-insightful-elegant/#5

Dadu Shin created this powerful illustration in response to Shelia Black's essay openly exploring the pains of a mother passing hypophophatemia, a type of dwarfism, onto her children. Dadu's illustration depicts a family of three, all holding hands, in a busy crowd who are not. The visual language of the dots suggests their genes being the same and passed down while also being central and the focal point of the composition. The soft, blurry figures in the background created in coloured pencil do not have the same visual language as the family and are not the same height. The crowd have the same height and visual language however, with darker figures on the edges drawing the eye inwards back on the family. The warm colour palette is welcoming and friendly, the shapes are soft and there is no bold or harshness beyond the genes. It is almost dream-like.

"Becoming Disabled"
https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/illustration/dadu-shins-visual-narratives-of-disability-are-insightful-elegant/#1

Dadu's illustration for The New York Times was based on a series of features written by disabled people during the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Paralympics reviling raw truths about living with a disability and the societal treatment. The shadows and multi-layered textures marry isolation and acceptance. These are "honest, raw, authentic and moving pieces of opinion." Disability is everywhere. Warm colours paired with colder, shadows mixed with light. The image suggests a metamorphosis, a growth, a realisation and acceptance. We are all people inside just like the central, able-boded person. 

LAUIL502: Studio Brief 1 - Visiting Lecturer Sophia Martineck

• Lives and works in Berlin. 

• Exchange student in Liverpool, where she met Amy de Nobriga in 2006, and in New York 

• Political book. Wrote many interesting and famous books on politics and humanity. She wrote book on Jerusalem trial

• Famous for speaking up for people

• Picture book for children. But about dark subject matter

• First task was to show Hannah as a child 6-8 years old. Tried to bring her grown up image into her child form. So you see her as she is. Was a challenge. Always a double spread of themes not in the text. Rebellious child fighting for her rights. Expelled from school speaking out against teacher. Made the typewriter and dress the same orange red colour so it's recognisable. She became very famous and got a doctorate

• Style? What is style? It is part of your personality and comes out as you work. The best you get out of you. Your cultural background, your culture. It's like your handwriting, your voice

• Pencil on paper black and white doesn't cost much easy to get ahold of then scan it in photoshop and colour that way with multiply layers

• Little sketches to find out how I think. Multi panel illustration to tell narrative

• How to get the most depth out of an image without over complicating it looking to old books, Japanese etchings and woodcuts. Very isometric and flat

• Likes to draw typography herself. Handy skill to have

• One exchange semester in New York. Learned etching and had to come up with own project. It was very open so I observed the city, little drawings of the city. Don't have to be so original. Copper plate, aqua tint, lots of grey fonts and I love that.  

• Looking for strange oddities. Nice memories from New York City.

• How did I get my first job? Went to New York and went to Liverpool. I need English. In Germany you send work out but they don't like that. They prefer to find you. Whereas in the US and UK it is acceptable to send work out to potential clients and very much encouraged. Being German is also seen as "exotic" and I have different experiences and perspectives to give.

• Working for the New York Times for a long time. First job in editorial. Phone call, you have a day. It's extremely fast. You have one go and if you fail they never call again. You have to find out what they want and like about your work. Lots of feedback with art directors. Very fast paced. Not lots of time. It can be sometimes good sometimes not. Not for everyone!

• Primaries for the election in 2008. Upper class. Middle class. Working class. Learning about a different country and society that's not my own

• It's very normal that old clients never contact you again

• Invited to be part of a comic collective all women from Berlin and Hamburg. Went to festivals, book cons, etc. 

• Tried sequential drawings and comics. Try new work. Two colours. First chapter. Panel by panel. Art director in Germany saw it and loved it and gave me a job with this comic and with Hamburg Magazine had 5 double spreads

• The Beatles in Hamburg. Handwritten lettering to squeeze in as much text as possible

• Could test to see new panels. Square square rectangle square. Freestyle storytelling. How to get the most information into A4. It has to be still legible

• Theme of "wonder" true wonder to me is medicine, finding dentistry, penicillin, X-ray, etc. Interests me personally. Museums in London that I go to myself. Topic that interests you is beneficial for future projects. Patient consent project. Risks. Two professors conversation of doctor and patient and risks of heart attack. Causes and risks and why you need to undergo this examination for older people. I was part of the pilot study where they read this booklet if they feel more informed / relaxed / etc. and they do and everyone gets this step by step comic. We all need it and it's important

• These are all jobs that come through snow balling. People find me 

• Surprise magazine, like the big issue, two refugees training for a job and hoping to stay in Switzerland. It's important for me to have topics like this on humanity. It is powerful. Different people and contexts. Give this my voice and speak up for people in need 

• I enjoy this job to then find the images for this

• Books I loved as a child. Born in east Germany and books were different in east and west Germany 

• Shaky ink drawings. Charming and weird characters, woodpecker with a walking stick, mouse in a dentist chair, everyone has pain

• Der struwpeter. Beautiful illustrations. If you behave like a bully you won't get away with it. The dog gets his revenge. Simple illustrations. It's from 1845. He couldn't find the right picture book for kids so made it himself

• Because I teach now I commute for hours on a train. I draw in a sketchbook. Challenge myself. Tired from drawing so much

• Made a tiny book of paper cut, it is self published, not to think just to do it. Just to go for it. To enjoy it

• See how far I can take it

• Finding different shapes, different forms. Like a bat. Free style. Finding something different while the pen is on the paper

• Different eyes, proportions. For fun, games

• Change the idea you had

• Working with text and storytelling. Almost always you have a text or narrative. 

• Graphic novel or Hansel and Gretel. 40 page book from 7 page narrative. Because it's so short. The sentences are so full of information you have to find a way in panels

• Had to have logic with the duffle coat and lots of pebbles. Wanted it to be modern 

• I enjoyed playing with the light and the dark with the trees

• What do they do for 3 days in the forest? They are scared and hungry. Until they get to the witch what are they doing? I enjoyed expanding their time in the forest

• Cake house instead of a gingerbread. I had fun thinking of a cake house and making it different

• The beginning is grey and dark and lonely, the middle is colourful because of the gingerbread cake, and then it's back to darker colours again 

• 20 double spreads at the beginning of each chapter. Starts with early man. Have to find the most information to put into an image

• Image of Haiti and colonisation and 18th century. Sugar plantation with slaves. Uproar of slaves who became an independent state and fought back. 

• China. It was up to me to find images to draw images from. Rectangular city. I couldn't make it up so much but found engravings of haircuts, architecture, etc to work with from rich people at the time. You have to do some research. You have to go to specific libraries. Books on Africa, China.

• Hand-coloured photographs to use as a reference from the library to recreate my own version 

LAUIL502: Studio Brief 1 - Consumerism Lecture

 Mini lecture: consumerism

We have been contacting organisations and people about our work as a consumer product.

We are all part of that process of consuming goods.

As an illustrator but as a person who exists in this environment.

Consumer psychology

Worth noticing how you might notice and mark your work. Why people might buy your work. Study behaviour.

All things about goods services purchasing. Behavioural responses. What is that entity. Idea of suggesting who we are. 

Consumer society. Consumption. Based within how transformation of resources. Part of that huge machine. Worth considering how we sit within that. Might be your own values - ethical and moral. It's a process. It's the end of line of economic process. Product bought and sold by group of people.

Ethical thoughts are it produces waste.

Identities. We can all say we have different identities. Social function. We want certain things. Code of behaviour. 

Social comparison. Compare ourselves to objects. Lifestyles. 

Social identity theory. Brand can become a symbol. 

Things you don't identify with.

Kardashians who brand themselves. Ideal lives, image, identity, impact on the way we socialise. Instagram filters taken down branding ourselves. 

Dove real women campaign. Keying into the audience more effectively sell your stuff. Reciprocal.

Branding can challenge how we think of ourselves. The ideal self. Ideal used self. Bought self. Two way thing. Given messages to aspire to. Discrepancy. Such as with instagram images. Lead to a seeking behaviour through consumption.

Make a list of 10 things that you buy into:

Consider why

• Too Faced
• Charlotte Tilbury 
• Ghost
• Alpro
• Hetty Hoover / Numatic
• Pedigree
• Kong
• Ted Baker
• Tresemee
• Temple Coffee and donuts

Fetishised. Commodified. Becomes a message. Counter cultures.

Can be a signal or statement.

Levi commercials

One is using a sexy young male model selling confidence and sex appeal to straight white men and their ego of being cool, having female admirers.

Newer advert open to everyone. Everyone dancing. All age groups. All ethnicities. Genders. Reinforcing it. Do these brands buy into their values?

Suggested needs for human beings

Self actualisation 

Morals goals

Self esteem needs

Belonging love sex friends

Safety needs shelter 

Food water warmth 

In advertising

Consumerism is a way of life. 

Who we are and who we think we are who we want to be

Higher values are strongly linked to basic human needs

Lack of prejudice

Morality

The steps that are still underneath 

Bit of background to the task of 10 brands and why we choose them, is there a cheaper one? The experience? That's the reason why. What is it saying about you. Put the list on your blog

Maybe pit Quorn on there

Do 2 or 3. Pick a high value one and a low value one. 

Considering what to display at CMV

 

Last summer I tackled the heavy subject of my own depression and turning them into visual metaphors, creating an editorial-style series of illustrations. This was challenging and therapeutic in equal measures. Am I saying too much or not enough in my illustrations? Which direction do I want them to go and how dark do I want to make them whilst still trying to retain my identity as an illustrator who loves telling stories where not all hope is lost?

Depression is often referred to as being "the deep blue sea," so I kept my colour palette simple with shades of blue, giving a cold atmosphere in the process. Compositionally and thematically I wanted to demonstrate the loneliness and isolation that depression gives the sufferer in metaphorical situations such as an uphill battle / struggle and drowning in too much emotion, along with more suffocating structures to represent feeling like a prisoner in one's own mind and feeling alone and defeated in a crowded space; the walls slowly closing in and people walking all over you forgetting that you exist. I added textures, rather than retaining solid colour and shape, to demonstrate the complexity and many layers to mental illness. It isn't just black and white and there is more underneath the surface of a person and their situation.

Contemporary editorial illustrators I used as inspiration for this project included Nick Rhodes (Switchopen) and Dadu Shin. Switchpen's White Lies concert poster has successful use of minimal colour palette of blue, black and white, cleverly moving the eye across the composition with colour contrasts to highlight focal components. Dadu Shin has a distinct minimalist approach to filling a canvas space where things still feel balanced despite the open space.

Reflecting on my work I consider it a personal achievement and accomplishment. A lot of thought and care went into making it with a genuine authenticity. 

I want to use these illustrations as a starting point and as a basis of contextual research for my One and Only picture book dealing with similar subject matter of a lonely bird of paradise who also suffers from isolation and exclusion. My own personal experiences can resonate very powerfully when illustrating the narrative and this is why the text is rather important to me. No one should feel alone when we are so surrounded by so many people but there are a variety of things that still cut us off in society.

I am also considering displaying this at the Colours May Vary exhibition on March 10th - either arranging these as a mini zine or as a print. This will be the most personal work I have ever displayed but I want to start opening up a conversation about mental illness with my work.

LAUIL502: Studio Brief 1 - Study Task 3 (Brand New You and CMV Report)

Personal SWOT Analysis

STRENGTHS
• Individuality by standing out from my peers as a severely sight impaired illustrator and creating work from an individual perspective.
• Great people skills built through voluntary work through sight loss charities, being a Student Rep, Student Ambassador and Student Governor in previous years.
• Clear communication built through voluntary work through sight loss charities, being a Student Rep, Student Ambassador and Student Governor in previous years.
• Very friendly and approachable as a mature student.
• Have excellent presentation skills over years of practice.
• Maximise my time and efforts with projects to ensure they reach their full potential.
• Great leadership skills as evidenced daily with owning a Guide Dog, being a previous Student Ambassador and Student Governor.
• Responsibility evidenced through owning and caring for a Guide Dog.
• Ability to problem solve effectively evidenced through the daily barriers I face.
• Perseverance and resilience as evidenced through still trying for a degree despite a lot of hardships and life difficulties.
• Excellent adaptability evidenced through life's hardships and being on an extremely sighted course with diminished vision. 

WEAKNESSES
• A lack of self-confidence through a series of very tough personal circumstances, health problems and, in turn, knocked mental health.
• Difficulties with time management through lack of self confidence, bad thoughts and bad mental health.
• Difficulties with collaboration; I don't like letting go of authorship and ownership.
• I struggle with motivating myself and have to set certain things in place to be productive so I don't fall into "old" ways.
• I struggle with prioritising tasks and often spend time on the things that aren't important.
• I struggle to manage stress until it consumes me.

OPPORTUNITIES
• A unique, disabled voice standing out from the crowd of sighted peers may lead to unexpected and exciting jobs and to be spotlighted and celebrated for overcoming physical obstacles
• Collaboration with other disabled illustrators 
• An opportunity to create unique work for sight loss and disability organisations and charities such as Guide Dogs, RNIB, Henshaws who may choose to pick my portfolio above a sighted illustrator
• An opportunity to collaborate with mental health organisations because of my deep understanding and experiences

• Opportunities for workshops and discussions about being a blind artist

• Opportunities to connect with artists in both Leeds and Manchester as I now live in both

THREATS
• My peers
• Fellow illustration graduates across the UK
• Fellow illustration graduates in the world
• Fellow creatives in the UK
• Fellow creatives in the world
• My disability creating barriers to opportunities

• My mental health creating barriers to opportunities
• Not having enough money
• Not having a studio space

• Not yet having an online presence with a website or illustration instagram
• Being perceived or stereotyped a certain way by people without even viewing my portfolio

Colours May Vary SWOT Analysis

STRENGTHS
• Local independent business in Leeds
• Locally source their products
• The first shop in Leeds to focus on design publications
• Leeds is growing in popularity and focus because of Channel 4 moving providing media opportunities
• Event space for exhibitions, events and workshops available to hire
• Friendly and approachable staff presence both online and offline

• Relationship building

• Connecting dots between clients and artists

• Strong organisation

• Making exhibitions happen

• A store dog definitely gets people in the door

WEAKNESSES
• Could be better at marketing
• People view the staff as shop assistants when thy are genuinely interested in illustration and building connects
• Students often come in but don't make themselves known or have much online visibility
• Only stock what they personally would buy which limits potential for sales

• Perhaps lost some customers in people who don't like having a shop dog around

OPPORTUNITIES
• Locally source their products.
• Opportunities to use the event space and to exhibit available through the website
• Open to work with fellow independents in the city
• Leeds is growing in popularity and focus because of Channel 4 moving
• Self-publishing

• Own branded products

• Opportunities to work with Leeds Arts Uni students

• To work with local business in Leeds - Jumbo, food and drink people, Design Industry Society, Modernist Society, Civic Society

• Able to join the dots between clients and artists and build networks

THREATS
• Galleries growing in Manchester and Sheffield
• Travelling Man
• Online sales surpass in-store sales
• Brexit has impacted customers confidence

• Coronavirus may impact, will CMV close?

• The retail scene is struggling a bit

LAUIL502: Notes From Session 3

• Who are you? How much do you charge?

• How are you going to communicate with you client? Through website, shop, email. Consider all of this.

• Have a clear passion for the work you make. You'll be stuck making he same portfolio for years to come otherwise!

• Marketing Mix - 4 key elements - Promotion, Product, Place Price - Should always be there in the background. 

• Helps you understand the needs you product meets. Markets the message underpinning your product.

• Analysis allows you to understand your collaborators, competitors, future clients and audience. Advertise to that audience in consequence.
• Marketing is not a static process!
• Study Task 3 market research
- Primary Research: First-hand research. Gathering new data. Taking portfolio to clients. Focussed questionnaires.
- Secondary Research: Existing research. Already verified. Reports, internet, newspapers.
• What is data? Quantitative through academic writing, surveys, verified. Qualitative. Opinions.
• SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Theories.
• Look at yourself but also where your competition lies.
• Challenge a business or join it!
• USP - Unique Selling Point. Stand Out from the Crowd.
• Who is the target market? What do I offer differently to the world?
• Define your target market. Narrow down what you offer. Networking offline as well as online.
• Join the Dots - targets the creative industry specifically. They put projects up online to reach the correct market.
• The internet is a gift. Maintain contact and be constantly talking to people.
• People are looking for very individual, innovative and exciting portfolios.
• Networking online is good. Networking offline, in person, is extremely powerful.
• Get over the fear of e-mailing! (side-note: this is something I need to take heed of...)
• Agents want to see you in the industry for a few years before committing money to you.
• MailChimp can be used to develop online networks and communities. Blogging as an email form. (My own personal note - I worked in a charity office, Henshaws Society for Blind People, that used MailChimp, so have some experience of using it and it being used as a communication tool to a large number of people).
• If you can get referrals and recommendations from clients and collaborators that is an extremely powerful tool.

LAUIL502: Contact List and Rationale

Contact List

AGENCIES

1) Handsome Frank

https://www.handsomefrank.com

• Handsome Frank represents a wide range of artists and some of my favourite illustrators including Helen Musselwhite, Paul Thurlby, Lesley Barnes and Anna Kovesces. It would be extremely beneficial for me to reach out and make contact early on in my professional practice to find out how to be represented by an agent, whether every illustrator needs an agent, how they select an illustrator to work with, what they look for in a portfolio, how they can help benefit an illustrator, and so on. 

2) Dutch Uncle
https://www.dutchuncle.co.uk
• Dutch Uncle is agency with a diverse range of illustrators and animators representing some of my favourites including Pin Zhu, Aesthetic Apparatus and Shout. It would be advantageous to network early on in my practice to find out how to be represented by an agent, how they select their illustrators, what they look for in a portfolio, how they can help an illustrator in the practice, etc.

3) nbillustration
https://www.nbillustration.co.uk
• nbilliustration represents very well known illustrators including Mark Conlan, Gemma Correll and ZapArt. It would be useful to network with such a strong agency to find out how to be represented by an agent, how they select their illustrators, what they look for in a portfolio, how they can help benefit an illustrator, etc.

ILLUSTRATORS

4) Sam Dunn
http://sam-dunn.com
• I know Sam Dunn through instagram, where we both follow each other and have a connection already through our favourite band and me frequently engaging with her work, for almost 2 years through the work she has created for the bands Ghost and HIM. She works mostly with the lino process and digital to achieve her thick black decorative lines and two tone colour palettes though carries this aesthetic over through other processes and productions using markers. She has designed and sold various shirts, hoodies, prints and CD cover designs through the Global Merch Group as well as independently and it would be fascinating to find out more about being contracted by well known metal bands and what it's like to work for them alongside balancing freelance work.

5) Louise Lockhart
https://louiselockhart.co.uk
• Louise visited LAU as a visiting practitioner back in 2017 at the beginning of my degree and I've been fascinated with her practice and way of making pictures since. It has even informed my way of working, mixing collage and cut shapes, balancing vintage and contemporary aesthetics for an evocative tone of voice. I would like to find out what she has been up to since in the past few years, how her practice has evolved, how she finds job opportunities, how she manages her time being a parent and an illustrator (as I struggle with time management) and have her as one of my strengthened contacts as an emerging practitioner.

6) Helen Dardik
https://www.helendardik.com
• I have admired Helen Dardik's work for quite some time for her use of bright and loud colours, curved and loose shapes imbuing a sense of nostalgia and fun. I would love to network with her, creating a contact with a hero, to talk about her practice, her way of working and creating images, how she approaches composition and character design, how she approaches job opportunities, whether she is represented by an agent or works freelance, how she manages her time between being a parent and an illustrator, and so on.

7) Luke Preece
https://www.lukepreece.com
• Luke has produced work for Metallica's Hardwired Tour shirts, Ghost, Ozzy Osbourne and Slipknot posters through "Metal Hammer" magazine and artwork for Gears 5 and District 9. He is very digital based using two or three tone palettes and intricate cross hatching on a tablet with a very stylised, horror aesthetic. I've followed Luke on instagram for almost a year commenting on a number of his posts, so it wouldn't be too difficult to touch base and arrange something via email. This will allow me to strengthen a contact, find out more about his practice that spans multiple forms (illustrating vinyl soundtracks, film posters, games artwork and products such as beverage cans), find out how he has built up such a strong list of clients and how he maintains a strong work ethic despite being a parent.

PUBLISHERS

8) Penguin Publishing
https://www.penguin.co.uk
• Penguin are the pinnacle of a classic publishing house and it would be a fantastic opportunity to network with them, find out more about the company, their opportunities for illustrators and, especially, graduating illustrators, what they look for in a portfolio, advice for a graduate, and so on.

9) Walker Books
http://www.walker.co.uk
• Walker Books have a very strong portfolio of picture books including The Gruffalo, Where's Wally?, the Maisy series, Guess How Much I love You, I Want My Hat Back, and Owl Babies. I did some personal research into the publisher at the time and chose them to have my "gentleman's agreement" with in December 2017 for a picture book of mine about Pearly Kings and Queens from a Level 4 module in my first year of university. Unfortunately life events got in the way - my dad left home at the beginning of 2018, my mum had a severe stroke and lost her mobility, her independence, her confidence and some of her speech which marked the start of my bad mental health and both of my retinas detached shortly after, ending 2018 as a terrible year. I didn't get in touch with Walker while any of this was going in my life, though they were aware of what happened to my mum, all very difficult situations that still impact me very negatively today as I don't have a strong support system anymore and still struggle with my mental health and PTSD. I wouldn't even know where to start but this study task can get me back on the right path with opening up contact with them again, interviewing them and hopefully getting my foot back in the door - reassuring myself that not all hope is lost with this opportunity - something that has been at the back of my mind for some time. Real life happens, sometimes extremely serious and heartbreaking situations. and hopefully they will understand. It is still very much my dream to publish my book with them. Opening up communication with them for this study task can allow me to find out how they select a client to work with, what the process of creating a children's picture book is,

10) NoBrow Press
https://nobrow.net
• Nobrow Press are an independent publisher of two friends and ex-St. Martin's alumni. They have published the works of Lisk Feng, Adam Allsuch Boardman, Luke Pearson, Matthew the Horse, David Doran, Keith Negley selling picture books, stationary, sketchbooks, cushions, tote bags, wrap and figurines. They seem like a fantastic team producing some really beautiful products and it would be an ideal contact to make at this stage early on in my career. I would love to find out more about their history, what's it's been like to work as an independent publisher slowly expanding their business over the past 12 years, what they look for in a portfolio, what excites them in illustration, etc.

Going beyond the study task and thinking of other local potential contacts to consider: Temple Coffee and Donuts (who use illustrated artworks on their products sold in store through Red Temple Player), Colours May Vary, Nation of Shopkeepers, Buttercrumble (creative communications studio in Leeds helping with graphic design and illustration), Bundobust, The Great Yorkshire Shop, The Little Leeds Beer House, The Lamb and Flag - Leeds Brewery, Blackbird Vintage, The Key Club.

Contextual Research - Henri Rousseau

Rousseau by Taschen

• For LAUIL504 and going back to the research session, instead of just composing research through the internet - I want to start using the facilities of the library more and using the breadth and expanse of our art books.
• Roussaeu was seen as an "amusing innocent" in the French art scene, "disregarding all the refinement of French painting and all the achievements of optical illusion." He paid no attention to the history of art nor showed an interest in experimentation, focusing only on the canvas itself.
• His peers were Van Gogh. Matisse, Gauguin, Signac for 25 years and he was seen as the odd one out. His art was seen as a joke and hung in bizarre places.
• Only when he died was his work appreciated and he was seen as a "gentle Douanier" and an eccentric.
• Drew chalk and pencil drawings in his spare "leisure" time along France observing wine, grain milk, salt, and spirits eig transported into the city gates. Simple, visible reality.
• 26 versions of his famous jungle theme were painted from 1904 - 1910. each progressing n composition and imagination.
fifty shades of green, many forms of eucalyptus, banana, sugar cane, fern, palm, cactus.
Characteristic collage style
• Multiplicity of viewpoints
• painted form photographs and traditional models
• His purpose was to show things as they were commonly perceived. informative, self taught artist.
• He hadn't picked up a paint brush until he was in his forties and hd a er naive way of painting  - a very simple and unassuming tone of voice

• hidden animals, many layers of plants to portray nature's bounty, a sun, bit of sky, mostly foliage to show how luscious the jungle is. • Oils on canvas showing texture, earthy tones but bright colours of a loud sun, flashes of animals attacking each other, splashes of fruit and flowers.

Book 2: Henri Rousseau - Jungles in Paris