Digital Portfolio willow Luff

Personal Statement

I am confident that I want illustration to be a part of my future career but am yet to decide whether this will take me down the path of fashion or children's book illustration or perhaps something else entirely. I am genuinely looking forward to finding out. I am eager to study Illustration because it is the pathway that best represents me and, to put it simply, I enjoy it. I specifically want to develop my recently discovered digital skills and further experience how to become a professional creative whilst discovering / honing my craft. During my current course on level 3 Art & Design at college I have learnt to create through a range of different media such as but not limited to; graphite, print, paint, ink, 3D, ceramics and am recently discovering animation and the Adobe Suite. My specialties lie in portraiture and figure drawings however are I'm not limited to these areas. Over the years I have had a lot of different influences pulling me in different directions. Growing up on a pair of narrow boats without much technology I found art was the best way to occupy myself indoors, my mum specialised as a multimedia printmaker and my dad as a Luthier and musician. This exposed me from an early age to a range of different materials and helped drastically encourage my creative career. The artists that I have found most influential over the years have been Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivian Westwood. Fashion has been a subject of interest to me as I have grown up. I was subject to discrimination for my traveller background and as an extension, the way I dress. Rather than allow this to shut me down, I embraced my difference in fashion and made it part of what defines me. During this discovery I came across Gaultier and Westwood, both masters in their different approach to the fashion world, as shown in Gaultier's faux fur movement and Westwood's punk fashion creations. Another key influence was Paul Kidby, one of Terry Pratchett's Disc World series illustrators, as growing up I studied his illustrations while having the stories read to me. Their art inspired a lot of creation through my earlier years because they helped me to realise, I can draw from fantasy not just reality. As a part time job, I work for a local housing association/charity that houses vulnerable young adults. As most of these residents have little opportunities/funds in which to experience the world it is my job to organise activities for them. To achieve this I set up meetings, visit locations and advertise with posters I design. Outside of work and college I spend most of my time with my nephew and newly arrived niece. This is one of my favourite things to do. I am also a very active person and enjoy; going on long walks, camping, boxing, socialising and music concerts but for my rest days I sit at home with a classic movie, hot chocolate and a sketchbook. My hobbies include sketching, painting, make up, hairdressing, sewing, learning French and cooking. To do all these things I plan ahead, exercising time management. It has long been a personal aspiration to travel to France and live there for a year to learn the language and study the fashion and culture of its people. To summarise I want to create the opportunity to discover who I am and what I want to do, I believe this University course is the best way to achieve this outcome.

1. Ink and Textiles

This illustration was part of a college project from fashion and textiles.

I carved out some wooden quills to dip in the ink for the fine details and used a brush for the thicker lines to get the line weight right. For shading I watered down the pigmented ink. To finish off I added the print practice samples from the shirt I made.

The project this was part of was 'Animals' and the idea was to produce a shirt, dress or blazer inspired and developed from the initial photos we took at a zoo.

6. Biro Teeth

This is a photo from my personal sketchbook. Most of the pieces in it are inspired by observation.

The original was created after playing fetch with my dog, I then developed from there.

7. Line Art

View of Porto

This piece if of Porto drawn from where I was sitting across the Douro River on the boarder of Gaia.

I did the first half observational and then finished it from a reference picture.

For materials I used pencil as a rough outline and then went over the graphite with a black fine liner, using a ruler for the larger straight lines and filling in the rest of the details and shading by hand using the cross-hatching technique.