image: Paddy Smith
“First World Problems” tweets
Summer 2015
Welcome !
Hope you all have had brilliant summers
– we’re just preparing the studios for your arrival.
As you know, the Illustration Course is a close-knit and friendly student community – a community of learning. You’ll learn off each other as much as from the tutors and visiting lecturers (not that we’ve got our feet up and drinking tea all day!) and we’re looking forward to the energy that you bring to the mix.
It’s going to be a really busy year and you’ll be doing loads of new things – some you’ll find tough going and others will be a breeze – hopefully all are interesting and challenging and you enter into the spirit of creative exploration along with us – who knows where you’re going to lead us!
Our course philosophy
Illustration in the 21 st Century is a vibrant and diverse subject, and we, as staff, are practitioners in areas such as editorial, animation and film, children’s markets, comics, printmaking, drawing, design, curatorship and critical writing, and as well as active in contributing to lively debate at national and international levels. It is our aim to involve you in those debates right from the start of your course, and to give you every opportunity to develop your own critical voice. Indeed, the Illustration course philosophy is designed to encourage you to develop your own intellectual strengths, enthusiasms and personal visual voice.
We are interested in your experience and opinions and look forward to hearing from you what it is about Illustration that you find particularly inspiring.
BA Hons Illustration Summer 2015 1

Year One (Level 4) includes the following:
THE DESIGN PROCESS
IMAGE AND TEXT RELATIONSHIP
SEQUENTIAL IMAGERY
LIFE DRAWING
LOCATION DRAWING
THEORETICAL STUDY into the Contexts of Illustration
CREATIVE and CRITICAL WRITING
INTRODUCTIONS AND WORKSHOPS
PRINTMAKING
DIGITAL SOFTWARE
BOOKBINDING
TYPOGRAPHY
VISTING LECTURER PROGRAMME
SOCIAL EVENTS
OVERSEAS AND NATIONAL FIELD TRIPS
List of the modules where all this happens:
ILLUS400 Play (20 credits)
You are introduced to the basics of making effective imagery and the design processes of illustrative practice. The module establishes the importance of developing a broad visual vocabulary and awareness, expanding analytical and technical skills and developing visual confidence.
Projects help to develop a broad visual vocabulary and visual awareness, emphasising media experimentation and the formal elements of drawing (e.g. tone, and line) through written and visual means.
ILLUS410 Narrative Sequence (40 credits)
You will visually explore sequence creation within your work via a range of traditional and digital media and formats. Character development, narrative pacing, creative writing are a feature. Critical reflective writing underpins practical work.
Reflection and planning help to establish personal ambitions and identify strengths and weaknesses.
CART400 PP Conscience (communicating an ethical message) (20 credits)
You explore ‘Big Picture’ ethical / sustainability issues in contemporary society.
A real-world problem is researched / established through collaboration across
Subject areas (Photography and Graphic Communication with Typography students) and together you explore different visual responses through critical evaluation of each other’s practice. You are encouraged to consider future, holisticism, conscience, caring, imagining, listening, mindfulness, contemplation, soul, spirituality, grace and nourishing – important to ethical understanding.
BA Hons Illustration Summer 2015 2

ILLUS420 Meaning and Ideas (40 credits)
This module introduces Illustration as a means to communicate issues of social, ethical, environmental or political interest. Through discussion students share personal beliefs and values. Students explore and challenge received communication via the interpretation and manipulation of imagery.
Projects emphasise creative thinking and ideas generation as essential skills for illustrators by identifying a well-defined focus for enquiry, planning and investigation from a range of sources.
The continuous practice of drawing will underpin all three ILLUS modules as will an overview of the key art and design contexts of the last century as a framework for the development of cultural visual languages. You investigate the cultural contexts that illustration has existed in, its current state and look forward at various possibilities for its future.
Along with exploring writing strategies you will also be introduced to the creation of visual research journals as a method of contextualising and reflecting upon your discoveries to develop a practical, theoretical and critical awareness.
As we said, loads to do!
Overseas trip
We organise an overseas field study trip every year and this may be outside of the official term time of study.
The trip needs to be booked very early in the year to enable us to make firm bookings and ensure the cheapest possible flights and accommodation, so please bring: a) the number of your passport b) 2 x colour photocopies please on separate sheets of A4
Please ensure that your passport will be current for at the whole year.
Please note if you need to apply for a new passport your number will change and this will incur an additional cost from the airline – if that applies to you then get on it!
London trip
We will be running a day field study trip to London in October / November.
You will be receiving help to cover the costs of both trips.
BA Hons Illustration Summer 2015 3

Please see the following lists
Appendix A
INDUCTION WEEK
This week starts on Monday 21st September 2015 and is designed to help you to orient yourself within the University and to introduce you to the
Illustration staff. As part of your Induction Week there will be a small project for you.
Appendix B
ILLUS400 – this is your first studio module and you’ll need to collect some materials to ensure you have a strong start.
Please bring the materials for your first studio day on Monday 28th
September as outlined on the following pages.
Appendix C
MATERIALS LIST
– the equipment listed will help you to be prepared for the various activities you will be engaging in.
You will be receiving a set of materials during the first weeks, but please bring your preferred materials (lucky pencil etc) as well. There are some odd bits you need to provide for yourself – please look at the list.
If you have any questions about any of the above, please email Ashley Potter, the Programme Leader: ashley.potter@plymouth.ac.uk
We really look forward to welcoming you! bye
Ashley, Tom, Claire, Dean, Rose, Stephanie, Jo, Stephen
The Illustration Team image: Ben Aslett
BA Hons Illustration Summer 2015 4

Appendix A
Induction Week starts on Monday 21st September .
Please bring these materials with you on Tuesday 22nd September.
1. 6 Word Memoir
The writer Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a whole novel in just 6 words. He did.
For Sale: baby shoes, never worn
You are asked for a twist on this challenge. How would you describe your life in 6 words?
Examples:
Well, I thought it was funny
Eight years old, combed hair twice
Start by thinking what is important in your life right now. Write about yourself or situation in 6 words. Don’t worry if it’s not ‘right’ – just get something on paper to start with. Come back again and again when you feel like adding more.
See www.sixwordmemoirs.com
for more.
2. 10 x A4 black & white photocopies (not lasercopies
–they don’t work) of objects / souvenirs / people / places / etc. which have a personal meaning for you.
They need to be good quality and contrasty i.e. very black and white as opposed to overall grey
BA Hons Illustration Summer 2015 5

Appendix B
This is your first studio module (not the same as the Induction Project)
It is very important that you collect the following suggested scrap materials
Over the following weeks please gather at least one big black bin bag of interesting 2D and 3D scrap materials; suddenly every piece of rubbish will have a new value!
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Household domestic throwaway: cardboard / cans / tops / plastic bottles / packaging / bubble wrap / shaped protective packaging / pizza discs / fruit netting / old rubber gloves / etc.
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Odd bits you might collect on the beach: flotsam and jetsam (please ensure that they are clean)
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What you can find in the street
– crushed bottles / cans / one shoe?
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How about the attic/back of wardrobe?
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Offer to tidy a shed and see what you find! The end of rolls of gaffer / duct tape, wallpaper, mangled old decorators brushes, worn out sandpaper, plastics, nuts, bolts, springs, wire, thick plastic sheeting.
Old wellies/shoes, worn out mop/broom heads.
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Discarded cloth material
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Printed ephemera
 Car boot bits’n’bobs – anything dirt cheap and ‘interesting’ in shape or texture or material.
Anything is useable
This material will form the start of your first studio project starting Monday
28th September 10:00am RL111 so it’s really important that you come prepared.
Please bring the materials with you on Monday 28th September to your studio, RL111 (Roland Levinsky Building).
Over the first semester you will also need and bring in:
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Old magazines for collage
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2 nd hand picture books
 A favourite picture book (don’t worry, this will not be cut up / ruined)
BA Hons Illustration Summer 2015 6

Appendix C
Here’s a list of materials that you should bring for the year ahead:
 Whatever you normally use
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A range of pencils from 2H to 6B
White palette (A3 or bigger – this can be a cut down piece of melamine shelving (Conte board from a DIY shop is ideal)
Water pots (2 x old large jam jars or cut down 2ltr plastic drinks bottles)
Household sponge
1” and 2” wide house paint brushes (1 or 2 would be good – can be cheap
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 quality)
White candle some cheap hobby brushes for glues and inks etc.
Collected, rather than bought range of papers (keep costs to a minimum......looking for interesting textures, patterns, colours and shapes to collage with and to draw on)
Craft knife eg “Stanley knife”
Masking tap e 1” wide
Paint - acrylic and gouache – a range of colours lemon yellow / cadmium yellow / vermillion / cadmium red / alizarin red
/ cobalt blue / ultramarine / windsor blue or monestial blue / hookers
 green / purple / yellow ochre / raw sienna / burnt sienna / cerulean blue
/ crimson / deep violet / orange
Black and white acrylic paints
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Here’s a list of materials that you’ll be supplied with for the year ahead:
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Scalpel & pack of size ‘10A’ blades
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A3 Hardback Workbook
A4 Sketchbook
A4 Visual Research Journal
A3 Cutting Mat
Putty Rubber
Graphite Stick 6B
Oil pastels
Good quality coloured pencils
BA Hons Illustration Summer 2015 7