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Ellie Richardson

When we were given this project, I had a list of different women who were inspiring to people in many different ways. I didn’t want to keep within a box, using people who all did the same thing, or work with 1 person in particular, so I chose 4 women, all with different roles and backgrounds. The people I chose were Billie Eilish, Jacinda Ardern, Steph Houghton, and Malala Yousafzai.

I enjoy working digitally and I usually base my work on my surroundings, creating minimalistic mirror illustrations, which was something that I wanted to incorporate into this project too. I like my work to have meaning behind, so this project was a good way to do that.

At first, I worked out of my comfort zone, finding new artists such as Andreea Robescu who worked with typography, which influenced my first few pieces, that I used as research pages for the women. After that, I went back to the start, and tried to think of ways I could link the style I enjoy doing, into this project. Throughout my time at college, I have found interest in doing continuous line illustrations, which I put into this project too.

The whole point of my final piece was for young girls to be able to somehow be empowered by these women, and by including people from a variety of backgrounds, I think it worked well. I made my final piece into a poster style, to promote International Women’s Day.