Artist Research: Chad McCail

So when I went to my second portfolio visit with Synergy Sheffield I learned quite a lot, but when the guys had a look at my portfolio itself I was also directed to the work of Chad McCail.

Taz, one of the members, saw my portfolio and was drawn to the work I did for the Heinz Salad Cream advert, where I had line drawings with a lot of block and similar colours. He used McCail in his dissertation so showed me the similarities we have. I quite liked the fact that I was shown another artist that had a similar style to the one I used for the advert because I was at a time of low confidence when I was creating work like, that, so it ws actually a big confidence boost to see that other work like mine had interest/ was being commissioned!

However, I have moved on to a new style now anyway, but this kind of art and illustration is a good reference to come back to for the earlier stages of my work. The development of my images start off with a lot more drawing than printing, so McCail might be a guy to keep an eye on.

However, I think that McCail’s work, for me, is a bit too clean. There is a lot less personality than I have seen in a lot of other artists work recently, so it’s not the direction I really want to go in. It seems to be the kind of work one would see in an instruction manual, almost too robotic.