Chris Haughton

I have been trying to introduce emotion and atmosphere into my work and have been trying to find illustrators that manage to do this successfully. I think I need to simplify my work as I have a habit of over complicating compositions. I start out with a simple idea but throughout my process I find myself adding more and and more components. I am trying to change my perspective but have spent years making complex images without any really thought about communication. I think it stems from an idea that complex designs are impressive, I know I can create an image that looks 'good' if I use the methods i have developed over the past few years, I also think that over complicating compositions could be a way to disguise elements I am not happy with. i want to simplify my designs and concentrate on fine tuning all the elements I include. 

This is my final poster for the 'Person of Note' brief. I like this poster but think I have struggled to get the emotion of the characters right. Alice, the girl in the picture looks as surprised and she does happy or laughing. In a crit it was suggested that the blue bird looks quite menacing. This is a problem as it can confuse the message of the poster, I need to eliminate any ambiguity!

The poster generally received good feedback, the group thought it communicated positivity and noise which are two things I was aiming for. I think I just need to spend more time between roughs and finished designs to make sure I have fine tuned each detail with the purpose of conveying the ideas or emotions of the subject.

I decided to look at the work of Chris Haughton as I had seen his work in presentations for previous modules and have given my niece a couple of his books that I really liked. He uses stripped down colour palettes and block shapes with texture to create immersive environments that draw the viewer into the scenes he illustrates. 

His characters convey emotion despite being quite simple and having simplified facial features. He uses their posture to give them character and inform the viewer of how they are feeling. I need to spend time drawing different postures and shapes to see how I could employ this in my own work. I could draw a perfect representation of a person but if the posture does not fit the emotion the character is feeling then it will not benefit my design. Haughton works a lot with cut and torn paper which not only creates some very interesting textures but acts a a constraint to the amount of detail he can include in his compositions. I think I need to work with a greater range of media and enforce some constraints to force my self to change the way I think about creating images.