I'VE FOUND MY STYLE! HORRAY!

I've always lacked a "style" and consistency in my work. I've always been aware of artists and illustrators that have a distinct style, so much so that if you look at a piece you will immediately know it's by that artist. I've always wanted my work to be like that and now I think it will happen!


The current brief for my university project is a live competition brief set by D&AD. The competition is to illustrate to a piece of music...


For this project I started looking at circus music, because I've always like the creepiness of the calliope and the old fairground organs on the gallopers. As I was typing "Circus music" into Spotify, I discovered a band called The Tiger Lillies who had released an album called Circus Songs. Out of curiosity I click play expecting to hear something completely shit....but what a find! They sum up every emotion I get from old circus and freak show culture! 


Their genre is often described as "dark cabaret" which I find very intriguing! They have a really eerie sound to the vocals, which is backed by mostly only an accordion, double bass and soft drums. They sing about all sorts of twisted things - aids, prostitutes, death... They take these subjects - the horrors of life - an sing about them in this style that in a weird way is quite comical yet macabre.


Anyway, the song I chose in the end was a song of theirs called "Pretty Lisa"....


"In the fairground, Pretty Lisa's selling candy by the bar
Pretty Lisa's training hard to be a high wire star


Lisa's life is just a journey on the roundabout
Everything is very pretty until the ride runs out


Dashing Tony is her trainer
He's got straight white teeth
Lisa thinks that he's an angel
He's a pimp, and he's a thief


Well life is just a ride upon a roundabout
But pretty soon that ride it will run out


Tony has his Pretty Lisa tattooed from head to toe
Now he's sitting in a booth with her in the freak show
Tony hits his Pretty Lisa, but everything is fine...


The tattoos they hide the bruises every time."




This absolutely screamed at me and I was instantly inspired! For research, I looked at old circus costumes, posters, makeup, freak show acts, fair organs, toys and any sort of circus memorabilia I could find. Artist-wise, I looked at Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, Coraline, Edward Gorey (these are the sorts of artists I was on about being consistent in style earlier!)


I've always been better at using digital media such as photoshop, but I was never with the style I produced when using it. It was really 2D and looked more graphicsy. I love seeing textures in others' work, and the feeling that you just want to reach out and touch it. I really want to start using more textures in my work.

I started experimenting with digital collage...I modified an ordinary barbie doll and turned it into something completely different. I photographed her, scanned in fabrics and textural papers and started collaging them all together on photoshop..

After a bit of developing compositions etc, I produced the first page for my storybook about Pretty Lisa....

I'm so happy with this style that seems to have descended upon me from the gods out of the blue! I'm really enjoying every moment of this process, even the sitting in front of a computer screen for hours at a time! It's so much more exciting to look around for different textures and patterns rather than using solid colours. I also feel like I'm putting more soul into the image and giving it more depth - a flat image has no emotion or feeling and it rubbed off on me and made me hate my old stuff!


I'm continuing with this book...will post again when it's finished!! ^_____^