Owen Davey
Client: Directory of Illustration
We are very proud to announce that Owen Davey was the selected feature artist to create artworks for the cover, endpapers, title page, and contents page of the Directory of Illustration #33. As always, Owen did not disappoint in bringing his creative expertise to the project. The annual book consists of work by professional illustrators to be sent out to art directors around the world. We had a chat with Owen to get some insight in to the project!
How did you approach this specific job?
I was given this years DOI theme which was ‘Make Them Look’ and decided to explore this idea as much as I could to try and find a narrative I could explore over the several pages I had to Illustrate. I focused on the ‘look’ element quite early on and had a vague recollection of a mythical creature with lots of eyes; something that would both be weird and cool to see (make people look) and also have lots of angles to ‘look’ from. When I found the Ancient Greek story of Argus who had one hundred eyes and his task to look after lo, his secret lover, I thought it was an awesome tale and something I could really play around with. I took inspiration from the approach of ancient Greek artwork on pottery for the endpapers, using only a combination of an off-black, an orange, and an off-white.
How was this job different than others?
I wasn’t really given much of a brief, and I was free to explore more of what I wanted to do. It’s been a while since I had a personal project, so I wanted to make the most of it, and draw the stuff I like drawing most.
What was the initial thought process behind the cover idea?
I wanted to start the story of Argus and lo in the middle, so that the cover would be intriguing to grab attention, but not necessarily give everything away about what this story was. Most people won’t ever have heard the story anyway, so I just wanted to create some form of ambiguous narrative for people to explore.
Any other general thoughts on the project?
I’m really proud of the results. I think I’m going to have to do some more work on Ancient Greek fables when I next have some free time.
