Opening statement

My personal practice involves fine liner and watercolour. I usually draw straight on to paper with no pencil outline. This makes my drawings inaccurate but to me it makes them more interesting. I usually draw portraits in various colours and different thickness of lines. I would say the images I produce at the moment are surreal images but they have no real point to them they are usually decorative. Sometimes I draw just for humour or I would like to see how an idea looks on paper that I find interesting. I have no clear reason for my drawing and I never think of an audience, these are a few things I need to think about when drawing. I usually just dive in and draw but now I will think about what I’m going to draw and plan it out to have best possible outcome so my drawings don’t start to look the same and predictable.

My ambitions are to improve my drawing skills dramatically and at least master one media. I would like to draw images that entertain people and improve my practice. I would also enjoy experimenting with different drawing materials and using pencil more often to make my drawings more accurate and less rushed. Recently I have drawn with pencil and used watercolour and had no solid dark fine liner pens, I am still unsure whether I like this style however it is encouraging me to draw things that I have trouble with and will hopefully expand my skills.

My motivation is to produce images that are higher quality so I can sell/publish my work and get a job as an art teacher I plan to do this by doing more observational drawing as I discovered improves my art work greatly if I have a goal at the end it will encourage me to do it more so I will be closer to improving my art work to a standard where I think it is good enough to sell.

The illustrators in the past that I have been inspired by and have taken parts of their style from are Ralph Steadman and Gerald Scarfe. They are both sadistic cartoonist and have drawn political cartoons and have both had their work publish in private eye. Their styles are similar that they have very free controlled lines yet I think Scarfe’s marks are ‘cleaner’ than Steadman’s. Their drawings sometimes may be on the dark grotesque side. I have also looked at Ronald Searle in the past however all of these artist have similar yet varied styles I should increase my knowledge and looks at other artists not necessarily illustrators and see if I can be inspired by their work. I am looking for something different so I can try and make my work as unique as possible.