CSM Degree show: An illustrator's point of view

I visited this today, as I reckoned this would be the quietest day. Saw lots of interesting pieces, some excellent, some good, a few rather pedestrian. I have to admit, most of my favourite things were in the illustration pathway of the Graphic Design area which is no surprise given my own specialism in this field.

Of all the artists I saw exhibiting, there were two who were of significant note.

The first was Jamie Coe, who had produced a thoughtful and touching graphic novel, House of Freaks, as part of his final project. The 24 page story revolves around two brothers in a Circus Freak show. I  thought this work was laid out well with good storytelling and pacing. Jamie is also a proficient draughtsman, which is becoming harder to find these days. I thought the cover was a good piece of artwork in its own right.

His sketchbook also shows a keen eye for detail, as well as a good sense of humour.

                               

Definitely a future Graphic novelist/illustrator to watch.

His website

www.jamiecoe.com

And blog

http://jamiecoe.wordpress.com/

The second artist I noticed was David Tolu Graham. Again, he's produced a fine body of illustrations and animations during his time at CSM.

Among my favourites was his Graphic Novel, Mr & Miss Translation in La Dolce Vita, a short slice of life story about a young couple trying to watch and understand a foreign language film without the subtitles.

                                           

The second were his character designs of angels from a imaginary faith, using the different signs of the zodiac as a starting point for their creation. There's some really lovely line work using a biro. This character is based on Gemini, the twins.

He also has a pretty cool blog at

http://davidtolugraham.blogspot.co.uk/

and his website

www.davidtolugraham.com

Be sure to check them out.

See you soon.


All illustrations shown are copyright of their respective creator/s