Chicken Bus

Posted on 20th February 2015 by kathrynhockey

I was inspired to try and capture the humour and vibrancy of these beautiful and ubiquitous buses when I was in Guatemala in the autumn of 2014.

The buses are imported from the US or Canada once they retire from the school run and are then dolled up and converted, usually by a team of two people, who run them as public transport on specific routes, crammed to the gills with paying passengers, luggage and even livestock, hence the name Chicken Bus.

I used this photo which I took in San Pedro on the shore of Lake Atitlan as my model

I made this rather wonky sketch from the photo and scanned it into Photoshop

I copied the fat side of the wonky sketch, flipping it over to make a symmetrical template

and then set about making a careful pencil drawing

I scanned the finished drawing

and coloured it in Photoshop layers; at this stage the image looked a bit plain and flat

so I added more detail to the pencil drawing, scanned it into Photoshop

and applied the cut out line work over the coloured bus.

I had a lot of fun making 15 different coloured versions of the bus before I’d decided what to write in the destination boxes. In the end I added various invitations and questions (afterall, you can change your destination if you dance or dream) in Spanish before grouping them into three sets of five buses to make simple poems.

The background is scanned paper.

¿Listo? ¡Tranqui! ¿Paz? ¡Gracia! ¡Amor!

(Ready? Calm down! Peace? Grace! Love!)

¡Venga! ¡Guapa! ¡Sueña! ¡Vamos! ¡Vuela!

(Come on! Beautiful! Dream! Let´s go! Fly!)

¿Feliz? ¡Baila! ¿Cuando? ¿Donde? ¿Ahora?

(Happy? Dance! When? Where? Now?)

A friend I´d met on my travels asked where the bullet holes were since Guatemala has a somewhat deserved reputation as a trouble spot, so I added a few to the Peace? bus.

And I’ve just picked up the first paper versions from my printer…lovely colours, thank you Pepe.

Book Covers for The Icarus Mendoza Sequence

Posted on 9th February 2015 by kathrynhockey

Last summer Jackie Cornwall commissioned me to design the cover for her latest novel ‘The Three Witches‘. It’s the first in a series of six books that will make up ‘The Icarus Mendoza Sequence’, a thrilling adventure story spanning three decades of the life of the gifted and troubled Icarus Mendoza.

Jackie told me the outline of the entire sequence, emphazising the themes for each book and the colours she associated with them.

The backdrop to all the books would be the fictional town of San Amaro de la Frontera, which Jackie based on Vejer de la Frontera the beautiful Andalusian pueblo blanco (white village) where we live.

Almost immediately it struck me that the six book covers could feature a continuous townscape, representing constancy and refuge, and that the section of townscape depicted on the front cover of the first book could appear on the back cover of the second book and so on for the entire sequence to make an interlocking set.

A symbol representing the specific adventure theme for each book could then be superimposed over the townscape.

The first preparatory sketch for the six book covers; the vertical symbols looked a bit stiff

I sketched the symbols ‘looming’ to liven up the composition and give them a threatening feeling.

Working from photos I’d taken of Vejer I sketched a montage of views.

I decided to experiment by drawing the townscape in charcoal so that I had a ‘negative’ image

that I could scan into Photoshop, splicing all the sections together and inverting it to make it white. I also removed the background

This turned out to be very labour intensive, I had to draw, scan, invert and splice two extra sections of town before I had an image long enough to cover the estimated length of all six covers.

I wanted to create richly coloured backgrounds with interesting textures so I opted for watercolour paint, using the wet on wet technique on heavy weight paper with a rough grain, referring to the notes I’d made on Jackie’s colour preferences for each book.

The ultramarine watercolour background for ‘The Three Witches’ cover

At this point Jackie clarified which symbols she thought were apt for each book and offered suggestions to replace those which weren’t.

I drew each symbol in pencil and scanned it into Photoshop.

Then I cut out the line work and coloured it to match the background

Finally I added the text.

Here are the finished covers:

And here’s the interlocking set of six again, you can click on it to make it larger.

The Three Witches is a ripping yarn; my favourite quote is

“Dance, like romance, is one of those sweet, cruel mechanisms by which little girls are enticed into a life of slavery.”

It’s available to purchase now on Amazon.

Baby Cockerel Cushion

Posted on 22nd October 2014 by kathrynhockey

This little cockerel cushion is the latest addition to my ‘textile range‘, made from a fabric sample printed with one of my cockerel designs.

I made the baby cushion as a gift for the recent arrival who lives in the house where I sketched the original cockerel, which turned into a stencil

which has since adorned many walls….

and even a few items of clothing……

I was a bit sad to find out recently that despite his regal appearance the cockerel I drew was firing blanks and was put up for adoption, but he died of shock just before his new owner turned up to claim him….just shows, a cocky exterior hides a multitude of insecurities….

2 Tone 2CV

Posted on 5th October 2014 by kathrynhockey

Here’s an update of the 2CV pattern I made earlier in the year, it’s inspired by classic Citroën colour combinations

Cockerel Patterns

Posted on 5th October 2014 by kathrynhockey

I´ve been having fun making some new patterns from my cockerel design:

I’ve just ordered a printed fabric sample of this last one….exciting!

Cushions and Bunting

Posted on 17th July 2014 by kathrynhockey

A few months ago I had some fabric samples printed with a few of my designs. I was recently inspired to make these into bunting and cushions to show alongside the digital prints on paper of the same designs which I’m currently exhibiting in the beautiful tea room Chokolata in Vejer de la Frontera.

Here is a cockerel (which started out as a stencil on wood) being sewn with a contrasting border prior to his edges being frayed.

cockerel-bunting-kathryn-hockey-artist-illustrator-web

Here is the finished bunting hanging at home. To see photos of the bunting at the exhibition click here

2cv-bunting-kathryn-hockey-artist-illustrator-web

I also made bunting from the fabric sample printed with my 2CV design (which evolved from my ‘7 Days’ illustration project).

Click here to see the bunting at my exhibition.

Here are the cushions.

I backed my printed fabric samples with contrasting velvet, cotton and corduroy to make them go further.

The Dragonfly pattern also evolved from my ‘7 Days’ illustration project.

To see photos of the cushions at my art exhibition in Chokolata click here

Meerkat Family

Posted on 8th March 2014 by kathrynhockey

This started out as a pencil drawing and was scanned into Photoshop and collaged in layers

7 Days

Posted on 23rd February 2014 by kathrynhockey

‘7 Days‘ is the title of the fifth and final assignment I completed for my illustration course with the OCA (Open College of the Arts)

The series of 7 patterns (1 for each day of the title) was inspired by a summer boating holiday on the Canal du Midi in the south of France, and also by the wonderful woodblock designs for wallpaper and fabric of Marthe Armitage, the dramatic wallpapers featured in Sherlock the TV series and the films August:Osage County and American Hustle.

The title page shows the location:

I chose 7 themes from the trip and made a motif for each, which I then multiplied to make a pattern:

Day of the 2CV

Day of the Locks

Day of the Sunflower

Day of the Plane Tree

Day of Patisserie

Day of the Dragonfly

Day of the Grapevine

My ultimate aim is to reproduce some if not all of these patterns on wallpaper, fabric and other surfaces.

The method was pretty much the same for each pattern; here’s an outline:

Research photos and sketches made on the spot
Preliminary sketches from the initial research images
Pencil or pen drawing from the sketches
Drawing scanned to Photoshop where the line work was cleaned (by adjusting brightness/contrast, duplicating with the layer blend mode set to multiply and using the eraser tool) and cut out
Colours and textures added in Photoshop layers using scanned handmade collages and marbling, bought papers, flat and graduated digital Photoshop colours and textured colours in Corel Painter12
Duplication of the coloured single unit
Adding a background of flat digital colour or scanned paper
Adding texture to the background

For those who are interested in seeing the production method for each image in more detail I’ve added them below:

Title page

For the background I made a map of Europe by tracing the outline in pencil onto squared paper

which I then scanned to Photoshop and inverted

I then collaged the map in Photoshop layers with some bought paper

and marbling I had made using oil paints

and a French flag which I found through an internet search

I distorted the map with the free transform tool and applied my inverted outline of a plane tree and grapevine pattern (methods below), adjusting the layer blending modes, tone, saturation, curves and levels in Photoshop.

I printed the text ‘7 Days a journey in patterns’ from Photoshop , traced it in pencil and scanned the tracing back into Photoshop where I coloured / inverted it

I wanted to show the location of the Canal du Midi, so next I made a collage of another map of France I found through an internet search, applying torn fragments from a French road atlas

working over it in water soluble green crayon and a wash of acrylic paint

before applying a crackle glaze and white acrylic paint to highlight the cracks and scanning it into Photoshop

I traced the outline of the canal in Corel Painter layers from this map I found on the internet and applied it to my cropped collaged map in Photoshop, adjusting the tone and saturation, adding text to mark Toulouse and Sete (the towns at either end of the canal), and creating a border using the brush tool and a scan of aged paper in layers.

I had a practice run at labeling France on a print out my map of Europe (to which I’d applied a crackle glaze and white acrylic paint) with collage and biro

I cut out the collaged label of the lower left version in Photoshop and applied it over my background, including a smaller duplication of the ‘flagged’ France and a smaller duplication with reduced opacity of the Canal du Midi map over the larger ‘flagged’ France map

Finally, in Photoshop, I adjusted the tone and saturation of the background to improve the contrast, added and coloured a boat from the locks pattern (see below) labelled the Canal du Midi on the larger map insert and added an inverted outline of the 2CV drawing (see below).

Patterns:

2CV

Research photo taken in France, I also referred to a photo I found on the internet

Pen drawing

Scanned to Photoshop, line work cleaned and cut out

Coloured in Photoshop

Curves adjusted, image duplicated and scanned paper added in Photoshop layers for background texture

Tone adjusted to achieve different coloured versions

Locks

3 sketches made on site to show how the canal boats go ‘up and down hill’ via the lock system

1 of many, many photos I took of the boat in a lock

A series of sketches I made to work out how to show how boats move up and down stream through the lock mechanism in ‘3D’

I traced the final sketch, made a pen drawing and scanned it to Photoshop in 2 parts

The line work is cleaned, duplicated, aligned and cut out in Photoshop

Outline duplicated in Photoshop layers on a scanned paper background with stripes added with the brush tool

Collage and colour applied to the line work in Photoshop layers: leaves with the collaged map of France (see above); water with the brush tool; locks with the photo of concrete shown below

Finally the single unit is duplicated and stripes of scanned blue paper are added in Photoshop layers. I also added a final outline layer over the top to improve definition. The repeated unit is reminiscent of the form of Tibetan thangka art

Sunflowers

Research photos taken on the spot

Rough sketches for possible pattern layouts, I wanted to show the sunflowers rotating, as if towards the sun

Pencil drawings

Drawings scanned to Photoshop, line work cleaned, trimmed and cut out

Pattern trials made by duplicating layers in Photoshop

Sunflowers coloured in Photoshop layers: yellow centres and green parts collaged with different tonal versions of the France collage map (see above); petals with flat and graduated digital colour

Collaged sunflowers duplicated to form single unit of repeat

Single unit duplicated and flipped vertically

Colour and pattern trials

I finally settled on a blue background, to represent the summer sky, adding texture to it via a scanned canvas

Plane Tree

Planted between 1681-1810, plane trees line long lengths of the Canal du Midi and are dying because of a fungus but I decided not to portray the dying trees in favour of ‘aesthetic delectation’.

Sketch made on site

1 of many research photos taken on site, I also referred to this Natural History Museum photo

Rough sketches to work out a single repeating unit

Pen drawing of the single unit

Single unit duplicated in Photoshop layers

Pattern line work inverted

Yellow tonal version of my collaged map of France added as a background to the inverted cut out line work. It overpowered the pattern which lacks definition