The Brief

Choose one of the illustrators from the list below.

• Alice Wellinger
• Lucinda Rogers
• Lisk Feng
• Peter Kuper
• Holly Wales

Visit their websites, blogs and any articles you find about them in books and online and make a list of keywords in your learning log that you think reflects the visual language of their commissioned work.

Consider how they use media and mark making, whether their commissioned or professional work is political, dealing with issues, interpretative, reflecting narrative, informative, representational, decorative or stylised.  Is it 2D or 3D or 4D?

Write a short statement of no more than 200 words, to describe their work and visual language.  What connections do you think exist between their sketchbook and their creative identity or illustrative style?

Holly Wales – Statement

Holly Wales’s work has a bold design aesthetic with overlapping colours to create depth in her work.  The marker textures of her illustrations create dramatic and expansive designs with decorative and stylised qualities.  Wales works in many categories such as beauty and cosmetics, building and architecture, food and drink, lettering and surface design. 

Her designs originate from her sketchbook which is an integral part of her ideation process in creating interpretative patterns and two-dimensional surface designs.  Her food and drink illustrations are more three-dimensional, and the markers give an illusion of reflections and highlights.

Wales’s building, architectural and hand-drawn map illustrations are informative and represent significant landmarks, countries and locations, rich with visual information.  She also uses text and hand-lettering as part of the artwork to create stories which communicate directly with the viewer with a clear narrative.

Her hand-lettering is dramatic, striking and loud but can also be soft and natural with floral designs depending on her commission brief.  Holly Wales has a diverse illustrative style which she can adapt according to the visual language she depicts in her professional work.

More about Holly Wales

I have chosen to explore the visual language of Holly Wales because her work is very similar to what I would like my practice to be one day.

Here Holly Wales tells us a bit about herself and her work:

“I have been an illustrator for 17 years, drawing all kinds of pictures for some of the world’s largest publications and brands – almost all with Tombow ABT Dual Brush Markers!  I love drawing typography and lettering; I collect photographs of laundrettes, gas stations, diners and bakeries from around the world to work from.  I’m really inspired by the films of Wes Anderson and his saturated colours.  I love texture, and overlapping colours to create depth” (London Graphic Centre, 2024)

Holly Wales’s connection between sketchbook and illustrative style

Figure 2 shows posts from Holly Wales’s social media account of what she has been producing lately in her sketchbook. 

Figure 3 shows Holly Wales’s sketchbooks during 2006 and 2007.

“I think keeping a sketchbook is a good way of teaching yourself how to edit well – you begin to fine-tune your ability to know exactly what to keep and what to discard.  You realise that what you leave out is as important as what you put in.  My sketchbooks are configurations of shapes, colours and spaces.  I collect lots of material from old books in libraries and charity shops and then translate it all through a series of pages in the book to come up with completely new ways of ‘engineering’ images.” (Brereton, 2009)

Holly Wales uses her sketchbooks to develop the images and visual information that she collects into a completely new way of engineering images.  This means that she doesn’t use the images as they are but she “works” with the images until she comes up with new ideas.  This is also why she says “You realise that what you leave out is as important as what you put in.”  Once you start developing images you can find visual gems in unexpected places in your sketchbook.

I have noticed that Holly Wales’s style has changed somewhat since 2006.   Her published work is a refined and fine-tuned edition of her sketchbook work.

Bibliography

London Graphic Centre. (2024, August 12). MD Paper x Holly Wales. Retrieved from London Graphic Centre: https://www.londongraphics.co.uk/blog/md-paper-15th-anniversary-holly-wales

Brereton, R. (2009). Sketchbooks. London: Laurence King.