News / 25 Oct 2024
Illustration students create comics for Barnsley Civic
BA (Hons) Illustration
Contemporary art centre Barnsley Civic invited our Level 5 BA (Hons) Illustration students to answer a professional brief to create a one page comic inspired by the life and art of Georgia O’Keeffe.
The challenge is in association with the Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition that Barnsley Civic are hosting titled 'Georgia O'Keeffe: Memories of Drawings', containing 21 of O'Keefe's photogravure prints of her major drawings.
To start the brief, Illustration students were first invited to Barnsley Civic to see Georgia O’Keeffe’s artwork in person and get inspired before planning their comics.
Jason White, Barnsley Civic Creative Engagement Manager, and Elizabeth Dickinson, Curator at Barnsley Civic, recently visited Leeds Arts University to join a BA (Hons) Illustration critique session as part of the project to see the students work in progress.
Students were encouraged to write thoughtful critiques of their peers’ work on post-it notes, then discuss as a group afterwards. Jason, Elizabeth and BA (Hons) Illustration staff also gave feedback on the work.
“I personally found the crit very constructive. I think having multiple people’s opinions is really beneficial to tweaking our work and making more fine pieces in the end. And it was an overall positive vibe having the guests here as well, it was great getting their perspective. Very positive overall.”
Xander Wilson, BA (Hons) Illustration student
Jason and Elizabeth now have the difficult task of shortlisting 40 comics, then a final selection of the comics will be chosen to be published in an anthology called 'Drawings of Memories'.
Each shortlisted student will be given a copy of the book for their portfolios.
“We recently had the pleasure of hosting the students when they came over to Barnsley Civic to see Georgia O’Keeffe’s artwork in the flesh and get inspired. This last week, along with Barnsley Civic’s curator Elizabeth, we got to take part in the final group crit and see some amazing works in progress. We were really taken aback by the many different stories told from O’Keeffe’s long life, as well the wide variety of styles on offer. We can’t wait to see the final illustrations, but we can guarantee that shortlisting 40 illustrations from a total of 72 is going to be incredibly difficult. This is a really talented cohort, that really understood how to work with and deliver a professional brief.”
Jason White, Creative Engagement Manager, Barnsley Civic