MA Visual Communication: Online Journal

CONCEPT : Blog entry 6

For the past week I've been quite ill and off my game, but I have been watching Spring Watch, and on Unsprung their featured artist is a guy called Matt Sewell.

This guy is brilliant, but enrages me, because that swine has already done one of my main ideas for a project, and he's done it really well. Git. 

He was an illustrator, but decided that he would prefer to make his own work, and has since decided to become and artist (also makes him a good contemporary artist/practitioner for my dissertation - I'm hoping I can find some interviews with him and more information).

Get this; Sewell is releasing a book, a modern bird guide, with his own watercolour images of the birds, and a brief poetic description of each one.

And his watercolours are excellent, really simplistic, and beautiful, and they make it really easy to be able to identify each type of bird. 

Here's some examples of his lovely stuff;

Matt Sewell

Matt Sewell, Bullfinch

(Sewell, 2014)

Matt Sewell, Kingfisher

(Sewell, 2014)

Matt Sewell, Pheasant

(Sewell, 2014)

Matt Sewell, Robin

(Sewell, 2014)

This is exactly the type of thing that I had in mind. Last semester when I was thinking of the updated RSPB red list book (mentioned in last semesters blog posts here, here, and here).

The one thing I can take from this, is how he simplifies the colouring of the birds to make them so easily identifiable, by breaking them down into blocks of colour, with the watercolour still giving the impression of texture and feathers.

And I'm going to have to buy his book.

 sewell, m. (2014). Matt Sewell » Blog Archive » Bird of the week – Bullfinch. [online] Mattsewell.co.uk. Available at: http://mattsewell.co.uk/?p=942 [Accessed 11 Jun. 2014].

sewell, m. (2013). Matt’s Songbird of the Week - Caught by the River. [online] Caughtbytheriver.net. Available at: http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2013/08/25066-matt-sewell/ [Accessed 11 Jun. 2014].

sewell, m. (2014). Matt’s Bird of the Week – Robin - Caught by the River. [online] Caughtbytheriver.net. Available at: http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2014/01/matts-bird-of-the-week-robin-matt-sewell/ [Accessed 11 Jun. 2014].

sewell, m. (2014). Matt’s Woodland Bird of the Week - Caught by the River. [online] Caughtbytheriver.net. Available at: http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2014/06/matts-woodland-bird-of-the-week-matt-sewell/ [Accessed 11 Jun. 2014].