Big Book Of Nonsense

Within this module we also have to illustrate one poem from The Big Book of Nonsense by Colin West. The book is a collection of short poems and little rhymes about everything from cats and hats to monsters and misters.

 

The book was illustrated by Colin too so it will be interesting to hear his thoughts on our interpretations of his writing. The poem I chose was 'Good Homes for Kittens'. 

The poem is quite simple, made up of six loosely rhyming couplets related to different breeds of cats. 

These breeds are:

• Siamese
• Angora
• Tabby
• Black & White
• Tortoiseshell
• Manx

 I chose this poem because I love cats and kittens (at home we recently just got two!) and because the poem is so vague and basically only describes the breed of the cat, I can have a free reign on the illustrations I choose to do. I will be researching these different breeds and their appearances to help give me some inspiration for this work and to ensure I depict the breeds properly in my illustrations.



And now some cuteness! Meet Raphael the tabby cat and Leonardo the gingie cat.

 

Apofiss (deviantart)

Apofiss is a popular digital artist I found on deviantart.com.
Why are they so popular?
This is why:

Image from apofiss.deviantart.com

They paint the most ridiculously cute cats EVER!

Using mainly digital media including Paint Tool Sai and Photoshop, their work is characterised by soft colours and even softer brush strokes to create a warm, cosy atmostphere in their paintings.
They do a lot of work by commission through deviantart for many different customers and they have also uploaded tutorials to help other artists hone their digital skills!

image from apofiss.deviantart.com

In this commission to the left you can see the similarities in style with the above image. The commission was for another deviantart user and is one of their most popular works on their page.







Apofiss also paints a range of other subjects other than cats, from humans to other animals and popular characters and even still life.

'Khali'- Danaerys Stormborn from A Game of Thrones (Season 2)- image credit to apofiss.deviantart.com

In these other works Apofiss also shows a higher technical ability than in the previous images- in this portrait especially they have done well to capture lighting effects and the features of the subject well- while still keeping their style firmly in place. The soft waves of this subject's hair is similar in the way they paint fur, and the background shares the same subtle effect his other works do.

'pikacharge'- Pikachu painting- image credit to apofiss.deviantart.com

Apofiss also uses characters from popular franchises as subjects, such as this Pikachu from Pokémon.
Although this painting does not look like their typical style, there are still some staple similarities between this and their previous images. These can be noticed in the way the face and expression of the subject have been drawn (a cute expression is reminicent of the cat paintings) and the brush strokes throughout the piece and in the background have been seen consistently in their works.