Laura Carlin

I found Laura Carlin's lecture really interesting, she talked us through her practice and explained how she makes illustrations, through examples of past projects she'd done. I thought how she keeps folders of visual imagery which inspires her is a really good idea as when you're stuck it would be easy to look through and gain some ideas, she gave advice telling us to be aware of our own influences.

She doesn't have the most photo-realistic 'style' but that is all part of her work. she leaves the audience with only a part knowledge of the characters in her illustrations, the rest of the details are left for the viewers imagination. I try to draw very...perfectly, something which I want to try get rid of, seeing the work of practitioners like Laura Carlin reminds me that it is possible to create a scene and narrative through fairly abstract marks.

Laura also makes ceramics, I love this aspect of her practice, I like how she physically makes objects, even in her Iron man book illustrations she gave all the characters shadows by making them in real life and photographing them. I have always liked the thought of ceramics and making objects, maybe things like this should be the stuff I could put in that folder of insiration she was talking about..