Illustration Grounds?

Dean also used chalk boards to draw on

The main focus for me has largely been on what I've actually been illustrating but the grounds which I've been working on have become more of a focus since the workshop with Kerry Andrews. Having looked at some of Tacita Dean's Alabaster drawings in one of my last posts and contemplated the wall as a surface through looking at the Gond Art from India I have decided maybe there is some way I can produce a surface that is in some way related to the content and context of the work.

Two of the surfaces from the workshop

The random nature of the reworked surfaces I produced in the workshop are one some level rich with some kind of earthy content, the materials working hard at the fragile surface, breaking it down and opening the grain of the paper. The patterns I created were the result of a process that was generic but what if there was a way of creating a ground in nature seeing that is what I'm illustrating?

One idea I have is to have birds and even crows create a surface themselves. I'm unsure if this even validates the process because it is linking the subject of crows with the actual birds themselves but it seems like an interesting place to start. The concept has formed like a science project in my mind and the process will be as follows:

1.       Mix black food die into fat

2.       Spread this on to sections of a sheet of paper

3.       Sprinkle seeds on to the surface to attract birds

4.       Place outside and hopefully birds land and leave their foot prints on the paper

I'm unsure if this will work yet but the surfaces may be interesting and might enrich the final illustrations I do over the top. Results will follow.

Method and Reasoning so far in my MA Illustration

Now I am a couple of months into my MA Illustration I am having to carefully study my methodology and what is driving my thought process and ideas. I think the direction of my illustration has had a number of influencing factors so far:
 
Firstly the media I am using is currently and simply black Indian ink. This is influence by the black wood block prints of Leonard Baskin and their use in illustrating the work of Ted Hughes. They are brutal and primeval and I see these images tapping into something basic in nature, something gritty.

One of my latest drawings combined with a Ted Hughes Quote

I also enjoy the process of using the ink. I like the emphasis of the line and feel of the quill in the creation, this process an important part of the making. The organic nature of the ink  and it's sometimes unpredictable mark making gives the work a freedom. Yet, there is something exacting about the high contrast and permanent nature of the mark.
 
Secondly the subject matter has been inspired by nature and poetry written on this topic. Works by Ted Hughes, Emily Dickinson and Lionel George Fogarty - conjure up a range of imagery that I intend on illustrating. Much of what I have drawn so far has featured a range of motifs from the 'Crow' by Ted Hughes, including the crow its self and settings such as fields.
 
Thirdly I'm driven to understand a process of iconization and simplification that these sometimes pagan symbols, an ancestral interruption of nature, go through. These forms of nature that are symbolic images from history.
 
Fourthly I intend on trying to represent the collected imagery of a whole poem in one picture, a form of tableau or two dimensional totem. Potentially with the ability to convey a range of ideas or even present some overview or sense of the poems meanings. Each of these tableaus would be large and a work of art in their own right but yet an illustration. This final work would make up a series and as a whole potentially represent the poet's overarching themes.
 
I am interested in how the motives of the artist illustrator overlap with the work of the poet. Where the boundaries of people's interpretation exist and how together the works sit beside one another and enrich the overall meaning. The story illustrated, the meaning interpreted, a sense communicated?