Guest Lecture: Laura Carlin

I had been aware of Laura Carlin's work before this lecture, I had seen The Iron Man reprint that she illustrated and was looking forward to seeing her other work and to her talking about her work.

Laura works primarily in her sketchbook. During her time studying she had to decide what the point of her work in sketchbooks were, and what she could do with them. During a trip to Tokyo she drew people and drew from life; always enjoying people watching, and created a printed book called 10 days in Tokyo. I really liked her drawings and thought they were put together really well.

Her interests lie in quite dark humour, I think that comes across in her illustrations. She said the commissions that came through were for quite dark subjects; in one piece on sexual trafficking she spoke about trying to create empathy through illustration.

I really liked seeing her 3D work. It's very simple but effective. I like the slight shadows cast and how simply it's been created. This relates quite well to what I am doing in my own project as I am looking at the use of paper and how to create images out of it. It would be good to look at creating things simply.

I also really like Laura's use of colour, it's quite muted and goes back to the dark and sad elements in her work. I liked her take on children's illustration, allowing and being more open to darker subjects. I think with the book I'm working with alongside magical and fantastical moments there are moments that are a lot darker and harsher and so it was nice to see how tackling harder subjects are through Laura's illustration. I think Laura's talk has been the most beneficial to me so far. I would have liked the chance to have spoken to her about my work but I enjoyed her talk.