Spotlight on BA (Hons) Illustration for Commercial Application student Joanne Nicole Kelly who, during her time on the course, has expanded her creative practice to include a range of disciplines culminating in Bug Patrol her FMP. An eco-friendly clothing brand that advocates for nature and wildlife. Her work is an interesting look at the diversity in skill and experience that can come from studying on our illustration course, read on to find out more:

Tell us a little bit about your creative practice!

Since recently getting back into my creative practice, there’s a whole host of things I like to create. I like to paint, sculpt, draw, print, you name it. I’ve focused on digital drawing over the past few years (using Procreate and Photoshop), specifically drawing characters. I have a real love for creating a character and thinking of their back story. For this kind of illustration, I’ve slowly developed my rendering and artistic style, as well and continuously learning anatomy, lighting, colour theory and different drawing/rendering techniques. When I’m not drawing characters, I enjoy abstract paintings where I can through a load of shapes and colours down and see where I end up, or sculpting with clay to see what I can end up with. Really, my practice is a whole load of experimentation.

Tell us about you FMP Project Bug Patrol:

For my FMP I’ve developed a brand called Bug Patrol. For a while I’ve been thinking of how I can use my voice as an artist. I’m a real nature advocate so I wanted to create something that could have a voice for nature and wildlife. Bug Patrol was born from a quiet moment, taking the time to slow down and notice. Even in my small, concrete yard where I’ve only potted plants, it was amazing to see how many different insects there were there. Insects are absolutely crucial to our planets eco-systems and life on Earth, so I felt like it was important to spread awareness about earths tiny heroes.

Bug Patrol is initally a clothing brand, promoting awareness whilst still being fashionable. In future, I would like to create workshop events so that Bug Patrol can be more of a community, rather than just a brand. The clothing is screen printed using vegan, eco-friendly, water-based ink and is printed onto 100% organic cotton. Because I’m used to creating characters with a lot of colour and rendering, it was initially quite a challenge to strip that back and focus on drawing insects (which I’ve never really done before) and how to set a design up to be effective when screen printed. This was a challenge but it paid off in the end.

Bug Patrol products will be on a pre-order bases – this helps to reduce waste and help us be more eco-conscious.  Once the brand starts to make profit, the aim will be to donate 1% of profits to various wildlife charities, so that shopping at Bug Patrol is also making a difference to wildlife. To keep up to date with it, check it out over on Instagram at: @bugpatrol.jpeg

What else are you working on?

As previously mentioned, character design was my main focus for a while, you can check it out over at @moonworm_ on Instagram. I also work as a screen printer at @thirteensupplyco – I’ve been here part-time about a year and a half now. Being here has taught me a lot about the production aspect of designing and creating clothing, and well and the skill of screen-printing and set up.

I will be focusing on getting Bug Patrol off the ground for now, so don’t have any places that I’ll be exhibiting just yet (maybe @venom_fest in May if I get things fully running by then!) but stay tuned on Instagram, I’ll be posting any markets or events I’ll be stalling at there. In the distant future, it’s also a goal of mine to create a Concept Art book of my own world, characters, creatures and stories, which will be exciting!

How have you found studying on the illustration course?

For me personally, I’ve really enjoyed the Illustration course. I previously studied Fine Art at other school for a year, but I didn’t feel like I was learning anything. Fast forward to starting at The Northern School of Art, I feel like I’ve learned so much in these past 3 years. There’s a real nice community aspect to it too – my class has a wide range of creators so it’s always really refreshing to see what everyone is getting up to and bouncing ideas off of each other. Something I really value too, is the lecturers on the course. Each one has their own specialism but also have a broad range of knowledge surrounding illustration, making them super easy to ask for advice or help when you need it. Overall, I’ve really enjoyed studying here and taking advantage of the facilities. I definitely made the right choice in moving!

If you are interested in studying illustration at degree level make sure you check out our course page here. We also offer a number of open days so applicants can check out our campus, speak to staff and students and find out more abut their future course, see dates here.