5 Minutes with Laura Callaghan
Laura Callaghan; A normal student from Dublin living in London, amongst watching TV Box sets of her favorite shows, and going to gigs with friends (as all students do) does some of the loveliest illustrations we have seen! using a quirky style and her own life as inspiration Laura talks us through her world and Illustrations.
You are Irish born and bred, what part of Ireland did you grow up in and what about your culture do you love the most?
I grew up in the country in Co.Louth which is the smallest county in Ireland - not the most fascinating place on Earth!
I think Irish people in general live up to the kind of ‘Friendly Irish’ stereotype and are quite sociable. Also there’s not that much pretention, if someone gets too cocky or ahead of themselves they’re put in their place pretty swiftly!
You went to NCAD in Dublin to study; what was that experience like for you studying in entertainment/arts/culture platform?
NCAD was a great college to study in, even in terms of size, it’s quite a small college so the whole experience in more personal and you get to know your tutors and classmates pretty well. There an so many different courses so you get to mix with Fine Art students, Fashion Students, Media students etc. it’s a dynamic environment to be in. I studied Visual Communication where there is a real emphasis on learning the fundamentals of good Graphic Design and traditional methods rather then solely relying on what your Mac can do for you. I figured out midway through second year that I was never going to be a 9-5 designer, illustration was just something that came more naturally and I was encouraged by tutors to incorporate it into the projects we were given. We had access to a letterpress workshop and lots of visiting tutors from different disciplines-Graphic Designers, Illustrators and Animators. I found the course incredibly beneficial, even though I’ve gone on to focus on illustration I will always have that design knowledge which I think will give me an edge once I graduate.
What was it like being a student in the city and more importantly, how often did you drink Guinness?
Haha, I loved it and made some of my best friends while studying and living in Dublin. The student nightlife was pretty good and it is a young city which has really come along in terms of culture in the past few years, but perhaps a bit on the pricey side for broke students! This may seem unpatriotic-particularly as my Dad works in a brewery-but I’m not actually a fan of Guinness. It does make a splendid addition to Christmas pudding however!
Take us through a typical day in your world.
Hmmm. Well I recently relocated to Kingston near London city, only a month ago actually so I’m still finding my feet at the moment! I’m studying Illustration as an MA course and I’m currently halfway through a project which I have neglected for a week or so, as well as completing various commissions right now I’m pretty busy with that! I try get up whenever my alarm rings (usually 8.30), but more often than not fall back asleep again, have one of my coffees I consume throughout a day and head to college. When I’m as busy as I am now I tend to work all through the day and often until 3-4am, I drink a lot of tea and coffee and work best when I have TV box sets playing in the background, some about the continuity helps me work harder! I’m trying to get out and about London more and hopefully will in the next few weeks once the work eases up so in an ideal world I’d hop on a train into the city and spend the day in museums and galleries, do a bit of bookshop browsing and catch a gig, have a few drinks with friends…one can dream!
Here at Sketchbook we enjoy learning about designers from different perspectives, how they work and what makes them special. Your blog name ‘Laura Laura Picture Drawer’, is that a nickname amongst friends or did you come up with the name for the blog?
Emmm I’m not quite sure actually! I think it cropped up in conversation or something and I always threatened to use it as my URL as a joke, so when it came down to putting together a blog I just went for it. Seemed like a good idea at the time…..well it’s unique!
Your blog shows various projects - some for competitions, some commissioned and some more of a personal nature (in particular the one of your father sleeping!). Which type of work do you enjoy the most and why?
I do really enjoy commissioned work, after spending four years in a Graphic Design course I’m used to dealing with deadlines and specifications. It’s enjoyable and woking in a limited timeframe means I have to push myself and not faff around with things so much, my illustrations tend to be more streamlined and to the point. Having said that I love doing personal work when I get the chance, it’s been a while now what with college and everything but I think it’s important to keep a separate notebook just for my own ideas. I travelled to Austrailia for three months last Summer and kept a travel notebook which I drew in almost everyday. It’s something I’d love to do again because aside from keeping up my drawing while moving about it’s great to flick through and reminesce. I’m lousy with cameras so it was a far more succesful means recording things I’d seen!
Your work for the band Fol Chen is fantastic - we love the colourful circle substitutes for faces. You say that the brief stated that the band never shows their faces and you had to incorporate that, how did you go about tackling this challenge?
That was much tougher than I thought it was going to be! When you lob the heads off people you lose the part where emotion is mainly expressed so I suppose I had to think a little more about the figure than I’m used to. Also it was hard to get any photography of the band so I decided to forget about trying to nail likeness! Luckily the article it was based around was really engaging and provided more than enough external imagery. I was initally going to pop a paper bag in each one’s noggin but the circles work better-far more cheerful!
What would be your perfect piece of illustration? From colours to subject to tools you would use.
What I like changes from project to project, I get tired of things quite quickly! But at the moment I’m working on an eight week project for college where we were given free reign on the subject matter, medium used etc. so I guess you could say I’m trying to create the perfect piece of illustration for me right now! I’m focusing in international folktales which are really interesting (and morbid!) and creating three illustrated elements to accompany the storytelling process. I’m mostly using gouache and ink on coloured paper to create accordian books and wall friezes but I’m also having a stab at making a 3d diorama, which is a first for me. Fingers crossed!
You have a project based on phone boxes in the UK and Ireland, do you usually take inspiration form the places you are in?
Not particularly. Well I think any personal work I do is informed by experience, albeit in a very obscure way but it doesn’t nessacarily relate to the place I’m in, maybe that will change now that I’m in London. Like with the phonebox project (which was completed in Dublin) I was using stock photography of British red phoneboxes as a reference point as Irish telephone boxes are hideous, so I think it was more case of avoiding drawing from my surroundings!
If you could choose any city to design/work from, where would it be and why?
I don’t know if I could answer that one yet. I would love to travel more extensively, there are quite a few cities I haven’t seen yet so it would be rude to rule any out! I love London, there is such a wealth of things to see and do but have only been here a short while. I adored Melbourne also, it has a great personality a good illustration scene and the best french toast I have eaten anywhere. But one of the great thigs about being an illustrator or designer is that you don’t have to remain in one place to work, once my scanner and laptop fit in a suitcase I’m happy to head off anywhere!
If we were to take a peek into your sketchbook/mood board, what would we see?
At the moment, pages and pages of watercoloured images based on folklore and a lot of very teeny (misspelt) writing. I’m anally neat and tidy when it comes to sketchbooks so things are quite ordered, but I’m a complete slob in every other part of my life so there’s a good few coffee stains in there too.
And finally, if you could recreate a scene from art/fashion/history through an illustration, what would it be and who would be in it?
The 1969 moon landing, starring Michael Collins as the first to set foot on the moon, that poor guy just just to float around while the other two had all the fun.
