Paul Hogarth & Lucinda Rogers Comparison Task -

Paul Hogarth's Piece -  

​Paul Hogarth's approach to a city street uses a lot of negative space to it's advantage, with linework being considerably stripped back as we approach the foreground. The background has elements of solid black, that is used to block out important details such as the signs and shadows of the people walking in the middleground and background. Finer detailing on the buildings and people are very sketchy and quickly applied, as I think Hogarth's intention was to focus on the grand scale of the street rather than capturing every minute aspect of the scene. This is mainly clear since the aspects that stand-out the most, are the water tower off to the far left's distance, coupled with the barbed wire protecting it on the roof of a building. With the very far off distance's street lights and road signs, which I feel gives the negative white space in the back a quick and easy, feeling of depth that helps distinguish the background and middleground of the piece.

Though Hogarth does manage to do a decent job at emulating those finer elements with different texture work as we can see the tallest building have dry brush or pen strokes to give off the feeling of it slowly becoming more obscured by the distance between Hogarth's spot he was drawing from, and how high up that building was. As well as the fire hydrant thats located to the left next to the car, having some very subtle cross hatching in what seem to be some quickly applied shading. Other areas of the sketch that share that same detail would be in the car from the left hand side, as it has very basic shapes to create its form, yet still being recognisable enough as a vehicle driving by. The ladders crawling on the side of the tall building also are very quickly applied to the drawing, albeit in a way that seems a bit misaligned, but manages to create its visual structure well enough. Then of course, we have the focal point of the piece; which is the Hotel Providence sign that towers above the figures standing underneath it. The people are somewhat rectangular and angled upright against what looks to be a classic barber shop pole. The man closest to the right has a very distinct-looking hat, and on the opposite side of the pavement is a man wearing a trench coat, also with a hat, yet it looks different. I think Hogarth's approach to both hats from these men is very smartly applied since they are clearly different hats, but are done with the same kind of technique in being different sizes to one another. The man closest to the viewer, is probably the most detailed person in this sketch, as we can see him clearly in the foreground with face wrinkles, his hair texture, and coat he is wearing. I really like how Hogarth approached the sketch of this man the most with his right arm (our left) having creases and waves that show where his arm is moving from his torso.

Overall I think that despite the ladder's implementation, this is a very strong illustration piece and is very well constructed.

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Lucinda Rogers' Piece -​​

Lucinda Rogers is a contemporary artist from the current era, and her work is very informed from Hogarth's work and other illustrators of his era. Rogers' piece is very similar to that of Paul Hogarth's as it shows a city street, with it's everyday life passing by. Though it seems very indicative of Hogarth's work, at first glance, it does have its own visual language and use of the media that takes what Hogarth's work introduced, and views it in another way to add her own flair in depicting a street-view building.

To begin, Rogers' work appears much more focused on detail and how those visuals are placed into the work, as a means to translate the real world onto a canvas, sketchbook, etc. Places where Rogers' work differs from Hogarth's work can be seen in the use of shading, this is often used in the world of illustration to block out integral shapes and add depth to the drawing. There is also the use of much thicker, blackened, lines of ink as seen on top of the far right's building, and the bottom right of the street to emulate the feeling of shadows and how it casts across the areas where the lineart sits. Another way that she approaches shading is with the bottom right's pavement and corner, and the start of where the cathedral lies on the pavement. It seems Rogers had used a much more free-flowing media to map out what elements would go where on the piece, with water colour paint, or perhaps in using dabbed ink through a makeshift brush. The windows are also coloured with a bright sky-blue, most likely to emulate a shine effect. while there are other varieties of windows spread across the building; in some linework being lighter than others. Personally speaking, I think that this works better in selective areas, as the bottom of the cathedral appears to have some structure, but not as clearly translated onto the drawing as the tower that is standing above it. On the other hand, this method actually shows some lines that are thicker to be well implemented, as when viewed in its entirety, you can see that some lines are not even there at all; for a purposely inconsistent, yet also creative way of showing where details are without visually laying it out and fully intending these textures to be viewed as though they were. This creates a very compelling pattern and keeps the attention of the viewer in my opinion.

And just like Hogarth's work, I can still see the implementation of line work that Hogarth's sketch also used, as the cathedral across the way from the main building collects a lot of simplistic line work that comes together to form the Gothic architecture from an age past. There is also the implementation of cars below, but this time, Rogers' had taken it upon themselves to depict a much more realistic and accurate attempt at illustrating the vehicles, even if they are more modern than the ones in the previous art. Another similarity I had found in Rogers' piece, was that she attempts to do the reverse effect of having the buildings from the background be less detailed, instead of Hogarth's opposite approach in detailing the background and lessening the finer parts as they progress into the foreground. However, there are still very detailed elements still kept in the background, as in the far right; we can see people walking through the street in the distance to where the vanishing point is. For being so far, I believe that Rogers' used a fine liner and ambitiously drew the people with body language so realistically, it looks almost as though we can see them in real life. This also goes for the people in the bottom left who are about to cross the street, as they are huddled together, which captures the sort of "rush hour" effect that street life houses.

To summarise and compare with a previous generation's attempt at the same format of capturing a street corner through the same media, I really think Rogers' work had shown some improvement and stylistic changes from Hogarth's that show through in many areas. ​

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Ways in which I think this reflects on my own work, would be in how I have yet to master the methods of cross hatching, scaling and form. I would say my habits and concerns for my own work mainly lie in those aspects, while I apply texture far too early and don't map out where things should go first like how the aforementioned artists had done in their work above. I still think there is a lot to learn and apply to my skillset, as well as break out of a slight confidence issue in allowing my linework to be more freeflowing like that of most professional illustrators. I will commend myself for some perspective attempts though, as a lot of this course is teaching me things i haven't even heard of before, and I'm making it a habit to take notes and mentally burn these into my head so it becomes second nature. As for the use of ink, I would think I have a fair handling of how it works after going out and purchasing the tools needed to carry out these illustrations and similar tasks. ​