As mentioned previously, inspiration can come from other artists and designers work. Ideas can also come through “visual practice”, which can be broken down into; “visual” i.e. observation, studying, exploring and “practice”, putting what we have seen/studied onto paper. Jill Calder’s illustrations are a good example of this. As an illustrator, she observes her surroundings, the environment as well as the people around her, she is able to produce detailed illustrations such as these in her sketchbook:
This shows that observing, exploring and studying your subject can help you to focus on details.
The illustrations also show experimentation. Calder has used different materials to produce each of the illustrations above which shows experimentation is key to the development of a ‘personal’ visual vocabulary. Using different materials can add a different look to the illustrations. For example the sketch of the dog has a different feel to it compared to this:
The following illustration also shows the difference materials can make.
The box on the left and on the right could be of the same scene or completely different ones, it’s hard to tell because of the materials used. The illustrator has used a bolder, darker material for the box on the right, where as the drawing in the left box is finer and Calder has used more detail in this box such as facial expressions.
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Sources:
http://www.jillcalder.com/jillcalder_sketchbook.php
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Sources:
http://www.jillcalder.com/jillcalder_sketchbook.php
