Two of my favourite places. I went to the House of Illustration to worship Lucinda Rogers who is one of my illustration heroes so don't expect a critical review...
The works were displayed in the South Gallery, a range of large pieces ranging from A0 down to slightly smaller than A2 drawn either on watercolour paper or grey or shades of orange paper which looked like sugar paper. I could see faint coloured pencil lines of under drawing in some of the pieces but the final drawings were generally in brown or black ink applied with a brush or probably a dip pen. There was no shading but she used patches of coloured paint or pencil to highlight areas or suggest shadows. Some of the figures were drawn with coloured pencil. Rogers uses which lines of dark ink to highlight areas but also to show the contours of receding market stalls. There are missing lines and areas left blank for effect but on the whole these are busy drawings with lots of people and things to look at.
Most of the drawings contain a person although there were some, such as a drawing of a fabric stall, where the goods for sale were the subject. It's the people who fascinate me, London stallholders that although I've never met I know from market stalls across the south-east, proud, feisty characters. My absolute favourite was Ros P's stall next to Sarge's stall and flag but there wasn't a postcard of it in the shop and there are no pictures online. Rogers campaigns with an organisation called Just Space, on issues relating to development around East London and is at her best when she has something to say. I think that the weaker drawing in the exhibition was the inside of one of the show flats in a new development beside the market, technically a good drawing but lacking in soul.
Also on display were the originals of a number of Quentin Blake illustrations which he produced in collaboration with the author John Yeoman. It was interesting to see the pasted mock ups of the book pages and Quentin Blake is a master of children's book illustration. His work is nothing like the sort of illustration that I aspire to so I do find it difficult to critique it. Maybe the drawings are a little bit too caricatured? They succeed in capturing a feeling and an activity, and he has been very successful so who am I to criticise? I think that some of their appeal is that they look deceptively as though anyone could draw them so they are very accessible. I know that they aren't aimed at me and I do like them in moderation, but too many of them is like eating too many sweets.
In the North Gallery was an exhibition of Gerald Scarfe's work for stage and screen. (review here) I went to the Pink Floyd exhibition at the V&A primarily to see his work for The Wall so it was great to see some more of the preparatory drawings. Some of the more atmospheric ones were drawn on black paper with coloured pencil (or crayon?) which is a technique I like a lot. Also on show was work for the Disney cartoon Hercules, the English National Ballets Nutcracker and the opera Orpheus and the Underworld. Scarfe has a distinctive style and a unique, crazy approach to his work which is bold lively and colourful but also edgy dark and sexy. He says that he has never taken mind altering substances and if that is true then its a good job he hasn't because I can't imagine a more quirky approach to illustration.
The Wellcome Collection has an exhibition about design in healthcare "Can Graphic Design Save Your Life" which showed designs from drug packaging to communicating healthcare messages about diseases like cholera and aids to people who were unable to read. There were projects to make hospitals more user-friendly and designs for cigarette packaging, John Snow's map of the cholera outbreak which he linked to a water pump and Florence Nightingales infographics of causes of death in the British Army. New Scientist review here. Guardian review here. It shows the power of design for good and for bad (cigarette adverts).
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