Helen Ward

Having a talk from Helen Ward proved to be useful and inspiring to me when it comes to her techniques an knowledge on the field. I had seen her work before and found the way she uses paints very interesting. I was able to gain further insight in to her processes and her professional side. 

She is particularly practised when it comes to imaginary animals. She has learnt from reference and built up skills to perfect the structures and how they move. She does however prefer to to make up her animals as they cannot possibly be wrong. 

When Helen is creating final pages for a book, she is sure to produce in non chronological order. Your style will always change slightly throughout the pages of a book so she does them this way so there is not a dramatic style change at the start and end of a book. If I make more books in the future this will be something I use so there is a better consistency throughout. 

She says that it is better if you can write your own books and stories as a writer will more than likely have an idea in their heads of how they wish the outcome to be and it could mean you veer away from your way of thinking and working. However it is still a goof idea to be connected and network with writers so that future opportunities are not hindered.   

Ward suggested that it is better to sell your ideas and work to a publishers if they already are familiar with the subject. For example, an adapted, well known fairytale. I can see why this would be true as a target audience would be already established and it is already a popular piece of literature so can therefore be easily sold. I definitely agree with this however, new ideas are still something I'd want to venture into. 

Onto Helens techniques and processes she has some very visually exciting work. I liked the idea of working on brown paper with black and white ink. I think the whites bring something different and capturing to these pieces so I would therefore like to experiment with this too. When creating her book pages she quite often draws a box so as to make sure her proportions are correct and it acts as a guideline space for her work. In terms of creating book pages I think this is always a great plan but in the general illustration sense I'd find it constricting. 

Helen had lots of interesting and inspiring thoughts and ideas which I will take on board and apply to my own practice. 

http://helenward-illustrator.co.uk