Digging deeper into illustrating rooms
Trying to focus on a niche
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I am trying to get better at niching down.
Though, actually, it occurs to me that my joining in with #theydrawtober has been a bit of a distraction from this. Once that’s done, I will get back to my A to Z of Furniture, which is very relevant for both room illustration and hand lettering. I have been really enjoying it, though, and I am only a few days of completing a whole October, which I haven’t done in any challenge for a long time. It’s helped a lot that work has been quieter this month. I have been getting a bit annoyed, or bored, maybe, with the colour palette. Though I do love how they all look together with a consistent (mostly) colour palette.
Anyway, I thought I’d start with doing some research, so I have been looking through some of the art books on my shelves, and took a few (not remotely professional) photos of some painting and illustrations of rooms, to look at more closely. (Note that this is just for the purposes of me noticing things that I want to explore more in my own room illustrations, I’m not studying any of it in terms art history.)
And I’ve started a Pinterest board of room paintings, illustrations and film stills and anything else I can see that’s interesting in terms of room illustration.
The ones that draw me in the most are those with a flatter or distorted perspective. I am not sure if that’s because that’s how I tend to draw, or if I tend to draw that way because I am drawn to them.
I was also really drawn to the house cross-sections with little snapshots of rooms. They make me think of dollhouses and Bramley Hedge books and also this book that I had when I was little which folded out to make a house. I loved it so much. I tried searching for it, but no idea whatsoever what to search for.
Other things I noticed being drawn to are especially busy compositions (which is not a huge surprise) and images that include a window, which I don’t think I do a huge amount of the time. They do appear sometimes, but mostly not with actual scenes visible outside the window.
I am planning to do some more research, particularly looking at picture books and also room illustration used within advertising (I’m kind of hoping to find some mid-century gold there). But I’m also going to do some sketches to explore cutaway houses and room illustrations that include a window with a scene outside. I want to use this exploration to create a number of new room illustrations (or room-related illustrations), and then I’d love to make them into a zine. I might have to do some zine research, too.
If you didn’t see last week’s post about setting up an Art Stack of some kind, do go take a look. I’ve had a few people say they would be interested in helping out, so I’ll be arranging a call in November to chat about how it could work. It would be great to have a few more ideas, or people who would like to get involved.
Coming up this week over at The Illustrated Plant Kitchen - I’ll be sharing a recipe for a lovely meal I made last week and for paid subscribers there will be an illustrated printable meal planner.
So I read your title and was weirdly convinced that you were talking about some special artist hangout places that are called ‘illustrating rooms’, and it’s frankly embarrassing how long into the article it took me to realize you’re using ‘illustrating’ as a verb and not an adjective 😅
I love your room illustrations and room illustrations in general. The very first piece of artwork I ever bought for myself way back in college was an etching of a part of a room, I still have that piece and it still mesmerizes me.