Sara Fanellli

Sara Fanelli's work is cool because personally, I prefer to look at collages more than drawings. The different textures make the image seem much more interesting, playful and inventive, with her simple stick-like sketched figures that seem to skitter across the page.

Colourful animation!

Stumbled across this vid on YouTube and thought it was mint so thought i'd whack it on here! Love the colours and just the animation in general- would like to be able to do something like this one day....

Leo Lionni

Video and Photo Gallery | 100 Years of Leo Lionni

I found this video online of Leo speaking about why he likes to write about animals...I think his characters are really simple and cute.




A children's book author and illustrator who i'm very fond of is Leo Lionni who produced more than 40 children's books in his lifetime. He did paintings, sculptures, collages, drawings, mosaics, designs, posters and advertisements. He became widely recognized as one of the most distinguished and innovative designers and artists of the twentieth century. His life, most especially his early, formative years, bears testimony to how his everyday experiences, his family, and his surroundings influenced him as an artist and creative thinker. I am particularly drawn to his work because it looks like he has used a collagraph technique so i feel like my work has a similar style to his. Here are a couple of books which he has published...^

Collagraph printing...

One process that i really enjoy doing is Collagraph printing. I did more of this in the first year but i love waiting to see what the outcome is going to look like once i've rolled it through the presser. I like to make collages out of lots of different textured materials and then seeing this in the ink instead of it being just a flat matte colour. I definatly want to try some more of these next year. Here are some examples of what i mean...^

Before I changed my working method, my drawings were very detailed and accurate but I soon realised that this isn't what people want to see nowadays so once I bean tearing up bits of materials, I made good use of the print room which became my second home for a couple of months! I just love the grainy outcomes and every time you put something through the press, you get a different outcome every time. Here are a few examples of my new found technique:

One of my major influences...

Jan Lenica

It was only halfway through my first year that I began to find myself in my work. I'd constantly get myself all worked up because I was never happy with my final pieces and I thought i'd never get anywhere until I looked at Jan Lenica... I liked his style as soon as I saw it and literally, most of his work his made up of torn bits of paper/materials. I gave this technique a try when I did my Sinbad the Sailor project and have to say, I was so chuffed with my final pieces...for ONCE! If I hadn't have looked at Lenica's work, I think i'd still be stuck in the same rut! Here are a couple of my fave pieves of his work which helped me the most... 

Tina Berning

Tina Berning's work is something i've always admired...i like how she mixes watercolour paint with ink pen drawings over the top to outline certain elements in the picture. They're really fashionable and i've come across some of her work in Cosmopolitan magazine whilst flicking through.