Defining my Work

what defines my work?


- my work in pencil
- my work in pen
- my line work
- my use of texture
- figures
- the content and context

When looking at my work and trying to examine it in a little more detail i came across this:

my work in pencil- 

I tend to be very sketchy with my pencil work and its this that gives my work movement . I’m usually very tentative and a little uneasy when inking my work and colouring it so it is due to my lack of courage on my part that I tend to like my pencil work a lot better . I prefer to work in a less permanent matter which gives me room to make mistakes as i usually do make quite a few in the first stages of my drawings.
I add quite some bits of texture to my pencil roughs to give me a sense of how it would look when inked but more than enough times I have regretted even inking my work as the pencil work seems more effective .

 my pen work- 

My work in pen has gotten considerably better in the past year , the amount of texture i use in my pencil work is coming through with the pen work and often enhancing my work. My work tends to look very well in black and white or greyscale which makes me think if this might be the right way to go about my project. Often I find that once I colour my images, they sometimes lose the effect that they had when they were just black and white.

My line work - I tend to use quite fine lines for my work , sometimes buffering and thickening the outline of my subjects to make them stand out more. This method has worked well for me as it develops a good contrast between my fine detailed work and my thick outline definition. 
my quality of line is very specific to my own style and is often how people can distinguish my work from others, this is due to my influences and my insistence for working in pencil.

my use of texture-

Texture is very important in my work and I usually achieve this through my line work, I enjoy making complicated and effective patterns in clothing , often opting to a very fine and detailed way of working. The same can be said for hair and backgrounds. my style is very recognizable by the amount of texture I place into hair and clothing in particular. I enjoy adding texture to my work even if it does take quite a bit of time to finish a piece at times.

My figures are also very distinctive, they are often very exaggerated , the limbs are often elongated and my favourite figures to draw are often lanky and thin which is probably due to my early influences of Tim Burton and Harry Clarke, whose figures often tend to have the same elongated qualities, making them look slightly distorted or fantasied .
In terms of facial features my drawings have been described as “elf like” or “cute” and last year I tried to stray away from this a bit , drawing alot more masculine characters and working of different ways of drawing body types and expanding my style, I also found that i have a knack for drawing beards and facial hair very well.

content and context-

I have said that most of my work tends to focus on figures and people and this is very true. I enjoy drawing people and i relish the challenge of creating characters for my own narratives.
My figures tend to hark back to another period of time, and this is probably due to my fascination with history and a highly romanticised view of the world. I tend to draw things as I wish they were and so my figures often don clothing and mannerisms that aren't necessarily modern or incredibly true to real life . 
My early illustrative influences of Edward Gorey , Tim Burton and Brett Helquist definitely play a part in why my style has settled on this.
I'm not very interested in drawing modern representations of things, I tend to stick to what I think the past might have been like or my own visualisation of what our world will be like in the future, therefore my subjects tend to be based in a highly fictionalised or stylised setting that I have envisioned.