Do you visit Creative Bloq every day looking for a burst of illustrative inspiration? Well, what you may not realise is that there's a lot more where that came from on our free iPad app, Design Spring, which features hundreds of incredible illustrations, is fully searchable and is updated daily (you can download the app here (opens in new tab)).
To give you an idea of what's on offer, every week we'll be selecting one image we feel deserves as wide an audience as possible. We're kicking off with this illustration by Johanna Cranston (opens in new tab), a London-based artist focused on painting, illustration and toy design: 'Visions of Gormenghast - The Banishment of Flay (opens in new tab)'.
- Read all our illustration-related articles here (opens in new tab)
How she made it
"This was my personal project for my third year at Camberwell College of Art and Design (opens in new tab)," says Cranston. "During this time, I taught myself how to paint with Photoshop (opens in new tab) and how to draw people and buildings. I met my self-set goals within a month and a half and displayed the paintings in the Camberwell illustration final year exhibition and the 'Well Said' 2013 exhibition."
"The Banishment of Flay was probably my most difficult painting.
Initially, I dove into this picture without any preparation, only a vague idea of the mood and how I wanted the characters to interact. It had also been a very long time since I read the text, so for some reason I had the idea that the Countess was summoning a falcon - she smashes a stain-glass window with a fire-poker to let it in (though this was a different scene).
Gigantic proportions
"I wanted to show her gigantic proportions against the Earl’s first-servant Flay - a ragged, spidery man with an elongated head. I also wanted to express her dominance in this picture and Flay’s terror/shock at his exile. The hundreds of Persian cats the Countess keeps is one of the key elements to the picture.
"She is standing within a foot of him. The air is heavy with her presence. He lifts his eyes. The white cat is within a few inches of him. He watches the hairs of its back; each one has become a bristle and the back is a hummock of sharp white grass."
If you'd like to see your work featured on Design Spring, please email Jim McCauley or upload your images to our Pinterest page (opens in new tab).
