I'm Baaaaaaaaaaack!

So, that's the MA all done then!

I haven't posted anything new on my blog for a few weeks, as I was busy with the little matter of the Final Show for my MA in Illustration. The past couple of weeks have been really hectic, but a lot of fun! And now, I've reached the end. Our show was on last week, and was really well attended. I was very happy with my final pieces, and had some really good comments back from people who came along to see it, which was very uplifting! On Monday I went in to take my work down, and yesterday we collected our results, and I was very pleased to have passed with 78%.

My main piece was a collection of my Haiku Comics. I've posted most of them on here already but I kept a few back until after the show, so that people coming who had been following my blog hadn't seen it all before.

Here is the final piece, followed by the individual Haikus that I hadn't previously posted:




I was really pleased with the way people reacted to my Haiku Comics. There was lots of laughing to be heard, which was really pleasing. I definitely want to continue with this project, creating new Haiku Comics. Also I am going to make a book from my existing Haiku Comics to sell at the Alternative Press Fair that is happening at the beginning of August – more details soon...

So anyway today is my first day as a fully-fledged Master of Colouring-In and Doodling, and after a bit of a sleep in after a "few" celebratory beers last night, I'm ready to begin the next phase... But first I really need to tidy up my desk...

Never Mind The Haiku...

So I've been busy organising things for my Final Show – sending work to print, ordering frames, getting postcards and business cards designed and printed... – which all takes time, and has meant I haven't spent much time actually drawing in the past week. But now that most of it is sorted out, I can get back to producing some new pieces for my portfolio.

The past two days I've been drawing new Haiku comics. Ordinarily I would post the results on here straight away, BUT...I was thinking that as I'm going to include some of them in my final show, I would hold off posting them until after the show is up, just so those of you that look at my blog won't have seen everything that I'm going to be showing before the show is up, and to hopefully entice some of you to come along and check it out.

In the meantime, here's a sample panel from one of my new Haiku comics:

Knock Knock. Haiku's there?

It's been an odd weekend. I really wanted to get on and create some more Haiku comics for my final show, but found it really hard to get going! I spent most of Saturday trying to work on some of my existing ideas that I'd already sketched out, but not being able to get them working to my liking. I decided to go back to the source material and sat and read through some of the Haiku anthologies I got out of the library. It seemed to be a good idea, as I discovered a number of Haiku that I had previously overlooked, but which presented some interesting visual ideas...

Haiku Do You Think You Are?

Here are my latest two Haiku comics. These two were a bit more of a challenge than some of the previous ones and took me longer to work out how best to illustrate them, but I am pleased with the final results.

Also today my friend Kazu sent me a digital scan of Japanese paper, which was exactly what I had been looking for to use for the background texture in these comics. Thanks again Kazu!

Have I Got Haikus For You

Here's looking at Haiku, kid!

It's been such a beautiful day outside today, which makes it difficult to sit inside and draw... so I didn't! But after the sun went down, I did come inside and illustrate another haiku.

Haiku-Cachoo!

I was looking through some of my various scribbled notes and proposals from early on in my course, and came across an idea I'd originally had to illustrate some short poems, as a way of producing some work. As with a lot of things that I write down, I hadn't actually gotten any further with this idea. I've also been thinking recently about my comic strips, and how I could use this form of narrative illustration in a slightly different context. Mixing these two thoughts together, with a teaspoon full of my interest in Japanese culture, I had the idea of taking the Haiku – the traditional 3-line Japanese poetry – and presenting it in the form of a 3-panel comic strip!



The rules for constructing a Haiku are that it should consist of 17 syllables, divided over 3 lines into units of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. Because the Haiku I have chosen to illustrate are literal translations of the original Japanese texts, the number of syllables when translated into English, does not follow this formula.

My aim with the visuals was to retain the style of my daily comic strips, but to pick up on the colouring of Japanese prints. I was interested in trying to achieve a combination of both the modern and the traditional, plus it also ties in with some of my more recent experiments with using a more limited palette.

I am really enjoying creating these, and have a number more I want to illustrate!

**Update 30/5/09**
By a strange coincidence, when I came online to upload these images, I noticed that my classmate Jenny Capon has also been doing some illustrations based on Haiku over the past few days. She even looked at the same website as I used to look for Haiku to illustrate. It's a small world after all...