LAUIL504: Studio Brief 2 - Contextual 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 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.

LAUIL504: Studio Brief 2 - Proposal First Draft and Feedback

Proposal First Draft

For Illustration LAUIL504 Studio Brief 2, I am going to be continuing with the foundation of

work I created during Studio Brief 1 for the Carmelite Prize 2020 live brief, ran by Hachette

Children’s UK, illustrating Jeanne Willis’ children’s picture book text One and Only. I will be

making a 32-page picture book in the required dimensions (250mm x 250 mm) to illustrate

the narrative of a lonely bird of paradise who eventually finds a friend. This particular

outcome is most appropriate to the competition brief. My project is ambitious in that I have

never created a 32 page picture book before in under 10 weeks and it is particularly

challenging to my low level of vision.

I am especially interested in the themes of loneliness, identity, overcoming hardships, and

accepting our differences to build strong relationships with others. This is highly relevant to

the market and these times as social exclusion, difference and an ever-evolving diverse

society of people continues to grow and we need to learn to look past others’ differences

from an early age; whether that be of someone’s appearance, what they choose to wear

and how they choose to represent themselves, gender identification, religion, race,

disability, financial situation, emotional struggles, and so on. It is relevant to myself as an

emerging practitioner interested in illustrating children’s books, who stands apart from

other sighted illustrators, as I often feel that sense of exclusion in many areas of my life due

to my disability and mental illness. It is highly important for me to illustrate that loneliness

and longing I often feel. Children’s books are powerful tools to help children imbue valuable

morals at a young age and to be the one to lend a unique voice to this learning is impactful

to me and gives me a sense of purpose and responsibility. The aims and intentions of this

picture book are to challenge, to educate and to open up a conversation between children,

friends, carers, parents and teachers.

The initial research I have undertaken so far includes photography and observational

drawing of plants around my student accommodation to help build up the composition of

the rainforest based on real plants, contextual research on Henri Rousseau who often

painted rainforests with layers of hidden fruit and animals and a visit to Waterstones to see

what is available on the market already in children’s picture books and how my work can

situate within it. Further research I would like to conduct includes a visit to Leeds Museum

to learn more about rainforest plants and animals and a visit to Tropical World. Both trips

will enable me to build up a better sense of the rainforest environment in a genuine way for

my spreads while providing strong evidence of first hand research.

As I identified in the previous winners’ work of the Carmelite Prize, the panel of judges

prefer a digital approach to the outcomes for a more professional aesthetic, so I started

Studio Brief 1 by attending the Photoshop Brushes workshop and working digitally with a

Wacom tablet. I would like to learn how to use the Wacom Cintiq that are in the studios to

make the digital drawing process much easier and quicker, than using my Intuos, by drawing

directly onto the screen. I need to consider the text in my book, particularly on the front

cover of the title, and whether I want to create that by hand as with the success of my

Dracula font or with letterpress and woodblock letter printing workshops that I enjoyed

during my Agatha Christie brief. My book will be binded using the perfect binder method

which I have had an induction in. I will need to consider project management requirements,

time restrictions to the processes and workshop availability during this brief and plan my

time very carefully so as not to lose track. The digital print room will be important to the

printing of my final book so I will need to book ahead in good time.

The methodology I will employ for this project includes creating a series of observational

drawings from Leeds Museum and Tropical World, roughs, thumbnails and sketches of

spreads, character design using basic shapes and lines as a prompt, selecting a limited

colour palette, creating a font for the title One of Only, creating a dummy book to

understand how the final outcome will be, refining any changes based on the dummy book

before finally printing and binding the final picture book.

Feedback

• Clear, well informed, well structured

• Expand research into practitioners who explore themes of loneliness or challenging content for children

• Identify the specific target age range for the book; this will influence the aesthetic and type of text I will develop 

• Include relevant imagery, previous winners, relevant practitioners, thumbnails, process testing, images I've made.

LAUIL504: Studio Brief 2 - Personal Illustrations about Loneliness and Mental Illness

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.

LAUIL504: Studio Brief 2 - 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. 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. 

LAUIL504: Studio Brief 1 - Work so far

 

Here is my work so far in this brief. I'm really struggling with it and starting to lose time between the cross over of studio briefs 1 and 2. Children's books aren't holding my interests like they once did and this work is helping me to realise that. I associate children's books and my experiences with them, with happiness, family and comfort. I have none of those things any more and I'm starting to hate what I'm doing here. It's creating all kinds of artists' block and obstacles ad I'm finding it difficult to move forward. What do I do now? Do I keep pushing with this even though I'm struggling mentally and this is creating a barrier from me working?

LAUIL504: Studio Brief 1 - Contextual Research Henri Rousseau

Rousseau by Taschen

• 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

LAUIL504: Studio Brief 1 - Initial Character Design

 

• Responding to images on google and using different methods and media to try and create some initial thoughts

• Cut paper shapes to be playful, inquisitive, move away from what a bird of paradise is to what it could be in an evocative way

• Final outcomes based on silly proportions, gumdrop knees and being shaped like a teardrop to symbolise and make connections to sadness, loneliness.

LAUIL504: Studio Brief 1 - Contextual Research Mary Blair

 

Mary Blair had a very strong modernist approach to her concept art, animation and designs with bold primary colours. Her strong use of colour and whimsical shapes used for recurring themes of characters, building and settings are what draws me back to her work constantly. There' strong movement and a sense of fun, liveliness and playfulness with her intentional paint brushes adding textures in the process, furthering the feeling of movement in a two-dimensional image. She builds her own worlds - something I would very much like to imbed into my practice. She elicits nostalgia for childhood and innocence. I love her work with Disney and Little Golden Books as those are what I associate her with, my own experiences, and the work I want to create - imbuing the concepts of characters and self-made worlds and creating whimsy and fancy,

LAUIL504: Studio Brief 1 - Contextual Research Helen Dardik

 Helen Dardik marries both traditional painting techniques of gouache, oil and watercolour with embroidery and digital media - printing her work onto cards, giclee prints, books and other ephemera. Her Russian background and upbringing strongly informs her practice with a folk-art inspired approach to illustration which is apparent in the recurring use of flora and fauna; animal characters and flowers. Heritage and childhood are both strong groundings to her work as well as childlike themes, the celebration of female characters and nostalgia. Dardik has a very jolly and bright tone of voice using bright neon colours and soft, rounded shapes and welcoming, smiling characters. I want to be more informed and have a stronger sense of self and be proud of my upbringing as Dardik is, potentially exploring my Irish working-class heritage and being playful with my background as Dardik is, I like her approach to blending analogue (gouache) and digital - I haven't really experimented with gouache paint before and may like to experiment this academic year in response to briefs