Colorful Statements: The Art of Illustrator Eliot Wyatt

This content has been archived. It may no longer be accurate or relevant.

From Adobe Create Magazine:

Eliot Wyatt likes to say that his personality and his work are quite similar: “a bit weird, fun, and loud.” An illustrator based in Bristol, England, Wyatt creates colorful—and sometimes a little trippy—work that has enlivened high-profile campaigns for clients like Airbnb, Buzzfeed, and Nescafé.

. . . .

Wyatt’s subjects range from politics and social issues to celebrities, delicious-looking foods, fantasy automobiles, and really cool sneakers. A candy-colored palette and a flat, nearly two-dimensional look make for a very distinctive body of work.

. . . .

When asked about how his approach is unique, Wyatt is thoughtful. “I don’t know if it’s a bad thing, but I wouldn’t say there is anything particularly unique in the way I approach my work,” he says. “I will sketch out ideas, develop the best ones, and then move into a final image. What is unique is the thoughts and ideas that run throughout my illustration work and the way that becomes identifiable as my style. It’s not necessarily the way you approach a project; rather, it’s the way you think about it. For example, it could be thinking about a different way to view a particular scene or object, or how you may be able to refer to something without directly placing it in the image. These decisions contribute just as much to your ‘style’ of work as the aesthetic you choose to work in.”

. . . .

And what, in his mind, constitutes a successful piece? “For me, it is when both the aesthetic and the ideas are strong in a single image. Sometimes an illustration can lead too much with the aesthetic, which ultimately makes for a weaker image. Typically, all work, either client or personal, starts out the same way. My initial sketches are developed further in to larger sketches, which allows for more focus on creating a solid composition and framing of the image.”

Link to the rest at Adobe Create Magazine, which includes several examples of the Wyatt’s art.

PG is familiar with writing exercises but wondered if authors engage in other practices that help jumpstart or expand their creative efforts.

For example, is a character sketch the equivalent of a visual artist sketching out an idea?

To the best of PG’s recollections, visual arts and writing are centered in different parts of the human brain, but he could be wrong.

5 thoughts on “Colorful Statements: The Art of Illustrator Eliot Wyatt”

  1. “To the best of PG’s recollections, visual arts and writing are centered in different parts of the human brain, but he could be wrong.”

    But there are those strange interconnections. 😉

    Pictures can cause thoughts, play on words can cause those thoughts to veer into strange directions.

    So a puzzle titled ‘Mother’s Pride’ of a wolf and two pups looking out of their den veered me into writing a short of how proud another mother is with what her kids are up to (a rescue in their case.)

  2. Hmm. Interesting. Good point about the way you think about artwork.

    Speaking as an artist and a writer, I have approximately seven billion (only slight exaggeration) sketches, drawings, and thumbnails of my characters. I draw out fights, so i know where people are, I draw them in various outfits so I know what the fashions of their setting are, and so i know what they themselves look like. Having an image I can look at, tangible instead of in my head, helps a great deal when i write.

  3. My initial sketches are developed further in to larger sketches, which allows for more focus on creating a solid composition and framing of the image.

    I start with an everyday object, or everyday action, and then look around to see where “I” — the character — am.

    An old Writer’s Digest article started me seeing that way.

    The author would have her character step off a bus, then describe everything around them.

    – This is an old school bus, in a decaying inner city, the character is a little girl wearing hand-me-down clothes, knowing that she has to walk home on her own ’cause moma is still busy cleaning Ms Burnett’s apartment and can’t be there to see her home.

    – This is an airport shuttle bus and the woman stepping off is tired from a long trip, wearing the no nonsense polyester suit dress that’s standard for FBI. Polyester doesn’t pick up the smell of decay as easily as natural fabrics. The stench of the ten bodies that they found decaying in the walls of the drug house will linger long in memory.

    – This is a city bus that has seen better days, and the old woman struggles to lower her wheeled shopping dolly down step-by-step. “See you next Thursday, Myrtle”, said the Driver. Myrtle catches her breath a moment as the bus pulls back into traffic with the sad sigh of air breaks.

    She would write these moments to get started, yet they may never appear in the book. You can fill pages that way, suddenly seeing people/places/things/events, building background for you the writer.

    Another author would describe the character getting dressed, the room they are in, the kind of clothes, looking in the vanity mirror to comb hair, put on jewelry, planning the day, remembering the past evening. And again, these scenes may never appear in the book, but fill page after page letting you see the character.

    A kid can take an object and see it in a dozen different ways without trying. I figured that if I could do this as a kid, I might as well keep doing it now. I will go for a walk and see objects, then spin them into story.

    I pick up a red lava rock that the tourist train uses for ballast, and hold it in my hand as I walk along.

    – I see The Rock far from the Sun. They have hollowed it out, carefully, leaving no trace that it is now occupied as a smugglers transfer point.

    – They crack open the skull of the bum and remove the rock that grew as a tumor in his brain, careful not to crush it. The rock works best undamaged. You let the rock deliquesce in your mouth to release the Smart Drug(tm) that gives you the cutting edge over your competitors.

    – You place what looks like a small red rock on the chest of the young man lying asleep on the stone table. Once there the rock starts to pulse with light, in time with the beating heart. In a moment, it will sink through the skin, corrupting the heart, starting the transformation, letting the demon seed take over the body.

    It’s easy enough to start it with a phrase:

    – I see…

    – I hold…

    – I pick up the…

    and then just run with what you find.

    On a good day you can run this stuff through your mind on to the page, and have something to build from. Story grows organically, like a seed.

    The process is like this.

    Bean Time-Lapse – 25 days | Soil cross section
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w77zPAtVTuI

    BTW, The video is more terrifying than I can possibly explain. HA!

Comments are closed.