The exercise is to find a range of illustrators who use a particular medium and catalogue them according to similarities in the way they use tools and materials.  Choose one image you most appreciate visually and explore how the illustrator works.  Go back to a visual you created for an earlier exercise and now render it using the same tools and materials as your chosen artist.  Now choose a very different artwork and repeat the process.

1. Find a range of illustrators

I have researched illustrators who are at the forefront of the discipline’s evolution as well as historical illustrators who have made their mark by using exclusively traditional mediums.  It became clear that illustrators in the twenty-first century explore and integrate traditional and new media and practice in a wide range of media. I have jotted down the illustrators according to similarities of their most preferred medium and then separated them further according to how they use tools and materials.

2. Choosing a medium

My medium of choice in this exercise is digital drawing and painting.  In Figure 2, I have chosen a few illustrators who use digital drawing and painting.  Some of them also use traditional methods, but I am focusing on their digital art for this exercise.

3. Moodboard of Style A and B

I created moodboards for style A and B to obtain a clear visual picture.

3.1. Style A moodboard

The overall style of moodboard A is organic, decorative and communicates an art and craft feel.  Harriet Russel distorted the Coca-Cola bottle by exaggerating the size to emphasise Coca-Cola’s 100 years of their iconic contour bottle. (Russell, 2015)

Sara Mulvanny also exaggerated the whisky bottle for her book cover design for Chasing the Dram by Rachel McCormack.  The whisky bottle with illustrations flowing around the outside alludes to Rachel’s travels around Scotland.

Mulvanny used metaphor and symbols in her editorial illustration for Good Housekeeping Magazine. “The illustrations were part of a feature called “A Recipe for Investment Success” that aimed to make the stock market less intimidating and compared being an investor to being a good cook.” (Mulvanny, 2021)

3.2. Style B moodboard

The feel of Style B moodboard is more design focussed with flat vector-looking shapes and smooth edges. The illustrations give the impression that it was constructed instead of drawn and seems less organic than style A moodboard. 

4. Choosing an image

       BRIAN CAIRNS

Brian Cairns was born in Paisley, Scotland, the youngest of five children.  He graduated with a degree in Graphic Design in 1986. (Stevens, 1995)

I have chosen this image by Brian Cairns because I appreciate his style and colour use.  He likes to use pale hues and empty shapes, but at times he will use bright colours and fill the blank forms with patterns when Cairn feels happy as he draws.

Brian Cairns’s Institution Investor illustration is a colourful illustration with the focus point on the young boy in the bottom left corner.  Extra line detail attracts attention to the boy, who is on his own contrasting blue background with red brush strokes around.  The boy is the first visual to catch the viewer’s attention.  Next, the viewer’s eye goes to the bubble and then to the infinity symbol underneath, back to the boy, through to the scribbles above the boy’s head onto the dots at the top.  Cairns uses metaphor and symbol in this illustration to convey a deeper message.

Sue Cummings, art director at the Leonhardt Group in Seattle, comments, “The way Cairns layers up images allows you to get diverse messages into one single piece that’s deceptively simple and very sophisticated at the same time” (Stevens, 1995)

The clean and bright colours, together with the loose brush strokes, create a mood of the playfulness of a child.  The blue gives me the impression of innocence and vulnerability. The red brush stroke around the boy might indicate entrapment.  This red is also in the bubble around the letters and might be a metaphor for an institution like a school.  The arrows are another symbol used in this piece and indicate direction. The red bean shape next to the infinity sign completes the red thread in this illustration and draws your eye to the infinity sign, suggesting that this entrapment has continued for a long time. 

The bubble is giant in relation to the boy and has been distorted for emphasis, but it can also be a metaphor to suggest how significant this influence might be. 

5. Using the same tools and materials as Brian Cairns

Brian Cairns enjoys using print as a medium, but his approach is flexible, and it is clear to me that he uses digital painting as well.  I will attempt to use digital painting the same way as he does.  He says, “When you print something, you don’t always have total control.” (Stevens, 1995)

This “not having control” effect is also evident in his digital work, and I will try to get the same result.  He also uses a lot of layers in his work that gives his work depth, but at the same time, he achieves a simple end product.  Cairns also combine text and image in his illustrations. I am rendering a poster for this exercise and wanted to read the book How Posters Work by Ellen Lupton but could not source the book in South Africa or online.  Instead, I have read Text and Image by Mark ‘Wigan’ Williams and The Complete Photo Guide to Hand Lettering and Calligraphy by Abbey Sy. I will render two of my own illustration using the same tools and materials as Brian Cairns.

I referred to other artworks of Brian Cairns in figure 7 to better understand how he combines text with image.  I first drew the letters on paper, using guides to obtain the correct spacing.  Next, I scanned the letters into Adobe Illustrator and used the pen tool to refine the shape further.  I exported the letters as a png with a transparent background to later import into my illustration.

I learned a lot by doing this digital illustration.  It encouraged me to use digital brushes I would’ve never looked at before, like wax crayon and dry brushes.

In the second rendering in figure 9, I have added additional images and text to create a narrative.

Overall, I have learned more about digital painting, digital brushes and creating text.  I don’t think Brian Cairn’s style comes easy or natural to me, but this exercise did challenge me, and I am pleased that I have chosen his work for this exercise.

Works Cited

Russell, H., 2015. Harriet Russell. [Online] 
Available at: http://harrietrussell.blogspot.com/2015/03/100-years-of-coca-cola-bottle.html
[Accessed 13 January 2022].

Mulvanny, S., 2021. Sara Mulvanny. [Online] 
Available at: https://www.saramulvanny.com/portfolio/good-housekeeping/
[Accessed 13 January 2022].

Stevens, C., 1995. Brian Cairns. Print, 49(3), p. 1.