The Making of an Artist...
Grace Crawford is an English-born illustrator and
portraiture artist. Studying and living in Coventry, she’s working towards a
degree in Illustration and Animation. Her art is powerful; she utilises both
realism and photorealism within her pieces to communicate to her audience. In
the present day, she hopes to gather as many skills as possible to construct
her multi-medium title. Her most significant development to date is moving from
traditional art forms to now working on a digital platform.
Grace’s influence for art originated from the Beano[1]
comics, from around the age of ten. With consistent practice fuelled by these
comics, it allowed her to take an interest into drawing. Armed with Crayola
coloured pencils, she practiced until she could draw without reference. To
continue nurturing this talent, her mother hired an art tutor to further
develop Grace’s skills and interest in art; her style developed from a sketchy
and rough style to a fine and realistic one. It made the move to keen amateur
to a skilful talented creator. In that timeframe, it was here when Grace realised,
she wanted to become a professional full-time artist.
These years of tuition allowed her to score highly in her
creative-focussed academic paths. Her interests originally laid with
portraiture, but she started to delve into the worlds of architecture and
product designing. As she discovered more pathways into the artistic world,
Grace’s skills have greatly matured in recent years to the point it has taken
on multiple forms. With such a variety of talents under her belt, Grace has
warmed up to the idea of teaching a new generation of children art in a
professional school environment- both on a traditional and digital platform.
Her flexibility with different art forms would fit perfectly into the world of
teaching – where the curriculum often explores many different mediums of art.
Grace Crawford's 2016 Architectural Exhibition - A building modeled upon 'Vertical Structures'
Grace’s style carries the photorealism movement[2], for her realism and her cartoon sketches. She has always favoured using photographs as a reference for her work to produce an accurate representation with precision. It’s a challenging task to replicate such real-world scenes, but she takes these challenges on head-first to continuously improve her work from one piece to the next. Grace particularly enjoys photorealism for the detail that is spent over a single art piece, which allows an eye-catching piece to be created, allowing a viewer to spend a significant amount of time looking at the piece, constantly finding something new about it.
Stephen Hanson remains one of her favourite illustrator
artists[3],
and he was an early influence for her favouritism towards realism[4].
Grace first became aware of his style from his illustrations of Enid Blyton’s
Secret Seven books. Hanson illustrated modern covers for the whole book series
to attract young audiences into reading the book with the fresh and colourful
cover[5].
“From a very young age I’ve been drawn to reading, and I
very much do judge a book by its cover from the illustration. Honestly
speaking, I never got into Roald Dahl’s books because I was never much of a fan
of Quentin Blake’s illustration style – it was always too basic and sketchy for
me. What I do love about Stephen Hanson’s Secret Seven illustration style
though is the crossover with realism and a cartoony undertone, which I loved to
look at. The illustration was so powerful to me that I almost completely
avoided reading other Secret Seven books with other illustrators on the covers,
because it didn’t feel the same to me as Hanson’s covers.” - G Crawford (Oct 2018)
Grace has always felt that Stephen’s work has reflected
massively on her own style, since it showed her that she could be as intricate
as desired, but still able to incorporate a simple cartoon vibe into it all. It
taught her that art can be in any form, size or style.
To take things to the next step, she dreams of a time where
she can be fully proficient on Illustrator, and other such programs, which will
allow her to change her drawings into traditional to a digital format – just
like Hanson – and start incorporating this into her own career, where she can
nature these digital skills for her own artwork, and perhaps teach them for
younger generations.
Grace favours the possibility of learning digital skills on
different programs to broaden her work and possibility of becoming inspired for
a potential new career path. She knows by learning as many skills as possible
it can take her on many opportunities when she finishes her education.
These industries tend to have a wide variety of art styles
desired depending on who or what the piece is being created for, so Grace is
confident that her wide variety of skills will work well here. She also
recognises that this is where digital skills become important in today’s modern
world, so she can keep all opportunities open to herself.
To Grace it doesn’t honestly matter what work she does,
because she enjoys almost every art form and every working situation, be that
within a team or independently. If she’s making art for people to enjoy and
she’s inspiring a new generation, she’s very happy.
Grace has confidently learnt most of the art forms that are
around today. But if there was one type of art where she could confidently say
she was most comfortable at the moment, she would not hesitate to say that oil
paints is where her heart lies. With rich pigment paints, it allows her to
create a smooth and beautifully-created painting that really gives a portrait
justice. The faces of Grace’s portraits are so highly executed, it’s hard not
to dismiss them from a crowd.
The painted elements on her canvas are all layered to
produce something that shows off her strengths. Oils really allow her to show a
talent that demands discipline within the painted elements.
“‘Medium is the message’ is one of Grace’s proudest oil
pieces, which took over thirty hours of work. It features women placed into a
tryptic, and it delves into the idea of feminism, and how our modern society
sets the standard of our treatment towards them.”
Grace's oil pieces exploring into the themes of feminism throughout her 2016/17 final projects.
Grace wanted to highlight the fragility of women, but at the same time, show their power shining through with this tryptic. By almost trapping them into individual frames, it gives a powerful message to the consumer about how women are limited in society.
With success naturally comes some flaws, and for Grace she
finds all her artwork must always meet her interpretation of ‘perfect’. She
knows she falls down the perfectionism hole hard but finds it hard to escape
due to the immense pride she takes in all work she creates. Although it can be
interpreted as a good thing, she realises how this mindset has restrained her
from producing an abundance of work – the work won’t be completed until it’s
perfect.
Profoundly if Grace was to turn back time, she’d want to
take advantage of the early media platforms arising and start learning new
digital skills – that being consuming creative media content online or
producing it herself via software available to her. University has allowed her
to make that understanding that a digital world is now forming, and either
Grace takes that platform jump, or risk abandoning the aspirations of a
thriving art career. By learning the tricks of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and
InDesign, and animation software’s Autodesk Maya and Mudbox, she strives to
know all five systems before the end of university to thoroughly apply
throughout her future career.
“University has opened my eyes to the importance of
producing a digital awareness for yourself and future clients – perhaps I was
in denial before coming to University, where upon I was hoping to stick to
traditional skills. However, a year in, I know this gets you nowhere - the
creative industry is evolving, and so must I!”
Graces designs always strive for a realism style and finish throughout her pieces of work
For Grace, art is one of the most important forms of expression for herself. Art is a powerful form of sending out a message – be that for society to see, or as a personal form of note. Grace views her drawing as something incredibly liberating for herself; to draw what’s on her mind onto a piece of paper almost effectively takes that weight off her shoulder.
Another key aspect that motivates Grace with regards to her
art is the effect it has on the people around her. To make someone smile
because of an art piece she has drawn is a very rewarding experience. In
Grace’s eyes, pictures speak louder than words, and to therefore have the
ability to create forms of media that have profound effects on people (be that
in terms of making them think, or to simply be appreciative and happy), is
something that enriches her relationships with the people around her, and
motivates her to keep fine-tuning her work to continue this experience.
Ultimately, Grace isn’t driven by money in terms of media
creation. Although the industry does have potentially lucrative positions, the
main reason why Grace got into drawing in the first place was not to grow her
bank account – it was to make a better life for herself, and the people around
her.
Grace’s multi-skilled ability has been both a blessing and a
burden for her over time. On one hand, it’s left her frustrated that she has
been unable to distinguish an exact style to herself. On the other hand, and
especially in recent times, Grace has recognised how this flexibility will play
greatly to her advantage with the world of freelance. Grace will be able to
comply with almost any request, and that makes her art potential far more
lucrative.
The Outcast (2018) Book Illustrated and Written by Grace Crawford
Moving on to some past commissioned experience, Grace was
recently asked to paint upon her school wall to represent her interpretation of
a ‘sixth form community’. The project was out of her comfort zone at the time,
but the skills and experience gained from it was invaluable and has only made
her stronger as an artist. Most notably, it taught her how to effectively paint
on surfaces, and in busy environments. This experience has further strengthened
Grace’s confidence to adapt to any situation.
By the time she finishes university, Grace wants to have a
full understanding of digital art platforms such as Photoshop, Illustrator and
Maya. She recognises that to be competitive in the modern world, an artist
needs to be fully confident with digital art. Currently, she’s demonstrating
her digital portfolio through her artistic Instagram account
(@creativity_drawn)[6],
where she uploads art derived from her hobbies and studied regularly.
Grace's early work upon digital platform Photoshop. Already she is proud at what she's able to achieve at such an early level and looks forward for the future and what she can develop.
Once she finishes her degree, Grace aims to take a year out for herself. She aims to undergo the Adobe certified exams in Photoshop, Premiere, and Illustrator[7] – doing this will allow her to demonstrate to the job market that she’s able to confidently use Adobe software, and thus make her far more employable within the creative industry such as film and TV, who use Adobe.
Grace believes teaching is a lucrative career path for
herself. With this career, she can produce art within her own time, and also
consistently utilise her multi-medium skills with her students. Alongside her
curriculum teaching, Grace likes to think she would offer additional classes
outside teaching times to show budding students subsidiary mediums. If she was
offered such opportunities during her childhood, she believes she would’ve
taken digital art more seriously at a far younger age.
To reach this goal however, Grace knows she must undergo a
postgraduate teacher training programme[8];
she will start working towards this qualification beyond the gap year[9].
She hopes that with the degree, relevant experience and having herself DBS
checked and approved, she can achieve her goal, and start her professional,
creative career.
Grace’s main inspiration for starting a career in teaching
art came from her own academic knockdowns. She was presented with a poor grade
in her Fine Art A2 course, which was down to teaching complications. Despite predictions
of an A*, she never achieved this grade, and to this day still dreams of
revisiting her A-level career and redoing the course to claim her rightful
grade.
Ultimately, Grace feels that her artistic education at
school never felt genuine, and her grade reflects this. She hopes to achieve
the necessary qualifications in teaching to ensure such a thing does not happen
to any future generation of budding artists. Teaching the true elements of art
will allow her to captivate the next generation and preserve art as a work
sector.
“Art should never be taken for granted, and neither should
the artists themselves. If people continue to dismiss art as something
‘secondary’, then where would art stand in ten years’ time? To watch art
constantly drop from school curriculum's is upsetting. Creatives should never be
penalized for something that is naturally gifted to them from birth.”- G Crawford (Oct 2018)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beano
[2] https://www.theartstory.org/movement-photorealism-history-and-concepts.htm
[3] http://www.arthouse-gallery.co.uk/ARTISTS/Stephen-Hanson
[4] http://www.thelittleredgallery.co.uk/our-artists/manufacturers/stephen-hanson
[5] http://www.atherstonegallery.co.uk/stephen-hanson.html
[6] http://picdeer.com/creativity_drawn
[7] https://www.adobe.com/training/certification.html
[8] https://www.coventry.ac.uk/study-at-coventry/faculties-and-schools/engineering-environment-and-computing/computing-electronics-and-mathematics/qualified-teacher-status/
[9] https://www.beds.ac.uk/howtoapply/courses/postgraduate/next-year/education2?=coursesearch-pg
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