Chloe Isteed Illustration

I went to a talk at Chelsea organised by EYE magazine and the Association of Illustrators, in which illustrators Lucinda Rogers and Olivier Kugler spoke about their work, and curators Isabelle Bricknall and Olivia Ahmed spoke about the legacy of Jo Brocklehurst, and the new exhibition at the House of Illustration. It was a great experience to hear illustrators that I have admired and used as inspiration for my own work speak about their work so informally.  Lucinda Rogers: I first discovered her work during my foundation course, and I have admired her illustrations ever since. She was also one illustrator that I looked at during the Palimpsest project this year. My main reason for wanting to go to this talk was to see Lucinda talk about her work, as she is one of my favourite illustrators.  I really enjoyed her talk, as she spoke about what she is interested in conveying through her drawings and her process. She spoke about looking behind the scenes of...

Whilst I was at Chelsea for the Retooling symposium and the Draw The Truth talk, I visited the Tate Britain to see the David Hockney exhibition.  After Adrian's lecture about the reproduction of famous images like the Mona Lisa, it made me think about whether the David Hockney paintings that are incredibly famous, such as 'A Bigger Splash', would live up to expectation. However I was surprised when I saw it in person, as it was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. After visiting this exhibition, I am considering choosing the essay question about reproductions and whether it changes the viewers experience.  I found the exhibition hugely inspiring. Although it was very busy, there were lots of pieces to see. I enjoyed looking at his paintings in person rather than in a book or on the internet, as I could see the texture of the paint, and the small details such as his use of mark making. Also, the colours were a lot more vibrant in person. Visiting the exhibitio...

When looking back at our film, and getting feedback from tutors, we realise that the pace is a bit too slow, and some clips like the piñata and the empty set scenes are too long. I think that if we had more time to edit, we would have had more opportunities to watch our film back, and therefore we could have improved it.  Feedback: Great use of colour The set helped to capture the idea of fun The shift in mood between the fun party scene and the defecating works very effectively More party noises could have been used Could benefit from better pacing - build up more of a sense of anticipation to emphasis the grotesque even more Piñata scene lasts too long Think about the noises the beings would make  The song is all on a similar level - the film could have benefited from a song with some change in pace/something more frantic More POV shots - the ones from the trunk of my being helped to put the audience in the film  Have the set introduced with music already...

Our main problem was time. We were fairly ambitious with the size of our set, as we wanted our beings to feature in our film, and so the set had to be large enough to fit them in. We spent quite a long time building and decorating our set, which meant that we didn't have as much time to film and edit as we would have liked. Filming took quite a long time because we wanted to capture a variety of shots to make our simple narrative more engaging. Everyone worked together really well during the filming, whether it was using the camera, being in a costume in the scene, setting up the scene or giving support with props etc. We managed to film a scene with everyone's beings in, despite one person being absent for the day. We achieved this by looking at which costumes could stand up unaided. Molly's costume stood up alone, and my costume eventually stood up after propping it up from the inside using cardboard tubes. This meant that everyone could be in the dancing scene, and I wa...

The first thing we did as a group was to look at the similarities and differences between each of our beings. It was clear that although they all looked fairly different, they all had an element of bright colour to them, and so this was a theme that we continued in our film, mainly through our decoration of the set. Our given theme was 'defecate', which strongly contrasts with the look of our beings. We aim to use our set as an extension of our beings.  So far, we have decided on the idea of setting our film at a children's birthday party, using the studio to build a set and film. We made the decision to use our costumes in the film, however we also plan to do small elements of stop motion animation, probably for the opening and closing titles. We didn't plan exactly what the set would look like, and instead decided to have fun with the making process and work it out as we went along. I quite enjoy thinking through making, and doing this in a collaborative way was ...

Daniela Negrín Ochoa and Iria López form Wednesday Collective, and produce short 2D animations for clients. They spoke to us  about  how they formed a collective, and how they started getting commissions. One thing that I found really interesting was that they started off by doing an animation for the London International Animation Festival in 2011. They got the job through their university, and although it wasn't a paid job, it looked like they had experience working for a client, which was really helpful in terms of their portfolio and applying for more jobs. The theme was cut out animation, and so they created the short trailer for the festival using ink and acetate cutouts. It shows what you can create with limited, simple materials.  The link to this animation, and these images can be found here .  I really enjoyed watching all of their animations and how their styles had progressed/had been fitted into different briefs. It was  particularly  us...

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared:  We took inspiration from the way they successfully balance the tension between bright children's tv and dark/sinister themes/ideas.  Seth Bogart:  He plays with exaggerating forms, and using bright colours and cartoon-styled characters in his work We are also inspired by disco, as we want to capture the fun, bright colours, music, movement and energy of the disco in our film, as we feel that it works well with our beings.  Our story is set in a birthday party. After excessive amounts of cake, party games and dancing, chaos ensues. 

With less than a week to make a full bodysuit, I found it very difficult to get it finished in time. I did meet the deadline, but it involved me staying later, coming in earlier, and taking one piece home. Despite the tight deadline, I did enjoy the process of making the bodysuit. My design changed a lot during the process, partly due to feedback from tutors, and partly due to the amount of time we had. I think that I am normally quite ambitious with what I want to do, and so I decided to make the whole thing myself rather than buy something to build on top of. I managed to make my whole bodysuit using only cardboard, paper, wooden sticks, bubble wrap, sticky notes, wool and an extractor fan tube (and glue, tape etc of course). These basic materials meant that I didn't have to spend too much money, plus they were readily available if I ran out.  One problem I encountered whilst building my bodysuit was making it strong enough to last for at least ...

I went to an artist talk by Simone Lia, a comic artist, illustrator and writer. She enjoys using image and text in her work to explore what it means to be human. She has quite a few reoccurring characters, such as Fluffy the rabbit, and Chip and Bean. Things That I've Learnt - The Observer Simone has a regular comic strip in the Observer, in which she uses herself as the main character most of the time, exploring everyday topics that people can relate to.  They Didn't Teach This in Worm School This children's book features  anthropomorphic characters who throughout the book form a friendship, helping them to discover themselves and each other.  I really like the decision she made to use one colour in the publication. She told us that the publishers wanted to print the book in black and white. However, she wanted the worm to be coloured so that it would stand out. I think that this is a really effective way of emphasising a character in a sto...