Line - Dynamic Poses

Today we were informed about the seven primary functions of line, which are:

• To convey its own intrinsic beauty
• To divide or limit an area/space
• To delineate a thought/symbol
• To define a form by edge or contour
• To catch and direct the eye over a given course
• To produce a grey/tonal gradiation
• To create a design or arrangement

Illustrators renown for their use of line work:

Ben Shahn

Ceri Amphlett

David Hockney

Picasso

Task and Aims
Our task is week is to produce four drawings of three chosen 'dynamic poses' relating to our chosen theme. We have to draw each pose three times using different media and tools, and they have to be constricted to monochrome.

Intentions
Pay attention to the quality of line, and take into consideration the seven functions of line when producing these images.

Work Made

Evaluation of Outcomes

Admittedly I did rush some of these drawings to get them completed in time for the deadline, so next time I shall give myself plenty of time to engage in the activity fully to produce the best outcome. I also need to consider the fact that it is important to document my development against the learning outcomes to enable to progress.

Visual research- I was quite playful within my first image. I used materials that I wasn't familiar with (graphite and dip-pen) and overlayed them to make an interesting image. I feel that I could have experimented more with ideas and speculation, for example I could have further explored themes such as facial expressions more subjectively.

Problem analysis- The variations of my drawings are quite successful by using different drawing techniques, however I could have pushed myself further and out of my comfort zone by exploring unfamiliar processes, such as collage/using different processes etc.

Visual variation- I did experiment to a certain level, but I could have pushed the boat out further. I could in future explore further into sports artists and illustrators and find out how they encourage their practices.

Professionalism and presentation- I tried to focus on composition and layout of my drawings within the pages, however with figurative drawing I am not very accurate in measuring the correct space for the figure (hence why the bottom diver has no feet). This is something that I need to work on.

Day In The Life 2

15 roughs and feedback

In response to the first task, I have developed some ideas into 15 roughs for three potential illustrations to go with the article 'Apple, Facebook pay female employees to freeze eggs'. 

I made a list of key words before starting my roughs, consisting of:

• freezing
• eggs
• workplace
• maternity
• pregnancy
• time 
• constriction
• mother
• success 
• baby
• baby cash

A lot of my ideas developed from using a combination of these words, almost in a sort of 'catchphrase' style to communicate with the reader, without coming across as being biased or having an opinion on the article.

An example of this is taking two of the most important words, 'eggs' and 'freezing' and playing around with different concepts; drawing things I associate with freezing like wooly hats and scarves, snow and ice cube trays. Also with eggs; the concept of physical eggs, mothers microscopic eggs , egg and spoon races and mothers eggs being fertilised. I tried to look for analogies in the text that I could emphasise and illustrate, an example of this is 'baby cash', so I thought I could show this via a diagrammatic illustration of IVF treatment, with pound signs emerging from the fluid being injected into the mothers egg.

For my colour way I chose white, pink and blue. As well as the colours complimenting each other, pastel shades of pink and blue are commonly associated with the sex of new born babies, pink representing girls and blue representing boys. As well as a deeper blue being used for the Facebook logo, and varying shades of each colour being able to create depth.

We were put into groups of four for a peer review session on our rough drawings. Whilst our work was being reviewed, we weren't allowed to speak to our group but instead we were to let them interpret our work, also they were the ones that would choose the three roughs that would become final illustrations to go alongside the editorial piece.

My group gave me some positive feedback, commenting on how the colour scheme presents my ideas effectively about maternity, and how it communicates without a biased opinion to a wide audience, in particular targeting females.

Their favourite rough from each category included the women in a business suit carrying a brief case in one hand, and a baby carrier in the other (square format), they liked the idea of the male and female sections of the fridge for the portrait format, but they also liked the eggs wearing wooly hats due to the play on the concept. The last decision was a little difficult due to my best ideas being presented within the landscape format, but they thought the great egg race tied was the most effective idea, and also it would tie in well and work as a set with the other two images.

I will take time this week to perfect and refine the three images that have been chosen, and I may consider trying to enhance my illustrations by using photoshop to give a more professional finish.

Line

Sketchbook work- Olympic Games

Task and Aims
Last week we were given the task of choosing a set theme to explore for a number of weeks, and to produce a series of drawings in our sketchbooks. 

Intentions
I chose 'Olympic Games' as my theme because I wanted to develop my figurative drawing skills and to explore different elements to the games, for example poster design etc.

Work Made
I often repeated the same drawing twice or three times over to gain a better understanding of it, for example drawing it in different ways to grasp the structure and anatomy of it.

I have used different drawing techniques, for example continuous line and blind drawing alongside quick paintbrush strokes and a similar kind of style with a brush pen.

Artist Reference

I also had a look at Otl Aicher's Munich 1972 posters as reference. I admire the way that he has taken a photographic, high contrast approach and used a, limited pallet with contrasting colours, making each poster work well as a set and become more recognisable.

Evaluation of Outcomes

This exercise has been beneficial in terms of practising and improving drawing from reference, and in particular drawing figure in movement. I think I need to relax more when image making and not worry about keeping my sketchbook neat, this way my observations will be more expressive.

Photoshop Induction 2

Adding colour

Task and Aims

Progressing from last weeks introductory session, today we focused on adding colour to the image we had scanned in to eventually produce five treatments.

Intentions

To learn about different methods of using colour, and gain some basic principles of application before producing my five finished images.

There are many selection processes which can be used to add colour for example, polygonal selection, lasso selection and magic wand selection. It is also possible to increase and decrease the hardness and opacity of brushes being used, as well as the opacity of each layer.

Work Made

Evaluation of Outcomes

Through experimentation, I produced these three images, using different selection tools, methods and responses to colour. I do need a lot more practise using photoshop because I still feel like I am predominantly experimenting at the moment, not producing the most professional results, and also I am spending quite a long time editing each image. However with time and practise this will improve. I also need to get into the habit of screen shooting the process in which I edit each image! 

Day in the Life 1

We were given a new brief today under the title of 'Day in the Life', which is centred around editorial illustration, i.e. anything that accompanies an article which could include a newspaper, magazine, blog etc.

The brief is to: Produce three illustrations that visually communicate your response to a given text. Your illustrations should be produced using 2 colours plus stock (background colour). Designed to work in 200x200mm, 105x200mm and 290x105mm.

We were shown some work done by editorial illustrators which allowed us to analyse how they had responded to their given articles. Jullien goes out of her way to make her illustrations as simple yet as easy to read and effective as possible, for example this illustration shows a man who has been on his iPhone for too long and has resulted in sunburn. Aspinall's work has more depth, with the illustration being split into three small scenes with more going on in each. His work uses three colours, so it would be helpful to use him as reference when figuring out a colour way to use for the end illustration that I produce.

Jean Jullien

Marc Aspinall

My article is entitled 'Apple, Facebook pay female employees to freeze eggs'. It is explaining how large male dominated companies, particularly those within 'silicon valley' are considering opening up the possibility of offering to freeze female employees eggs, so that they do not have to worry about the consequences of starting a family affecting the success in their career.

Obviously this is an article which could easily spring up an ethical debate about sexism, unnatural conception, womens rights etc which are all very broad concepts which could be challenging to illustrate- especially without the use of words.

I struggled to get started on some ideas today, maybe due to being slightly overwhelmed with having a fresh article to dissect and have the pressure to produce good ideas from it which effectively communicate visually to the viewer. We have to produce 5 roughs/scamps for each measurement box by Friday so in the mean time I will further explore the article and attempt to come up with some interesting visual responses.

Initially 6-Evaluation

The finished poster- The A-Z of Hipsters

As a group we had half an hour to walk around the studio and give feedback on 
everyone's posters, using the 'eye' symbol for visual effect and the 'light-bulb'
for concept and ideas. Looking around there was some amazing work done by my class
mates, and that always makes me critique my own work. The posters that I was drawn
to the most were the ones that had humorous concepts for example 'alternative uses for fruit and vegetables' and 'animals carrying out human tasks', however I did 
receive some feedback on my own work commenting on the concept being humorous.

I also admired the posters that used a monochrome other than black, which made them
really stand out, and in some ways be more adventurous with the way in which they
applied the colour. Although this was sometimes according to theme. Another idea that I thought worked well was the use of narrative. For example using a character in each illustration to explain the action or meaning, this enhanced the level of consistency and kept things flowing.

Looking at my finished poster I am happy with the final outcome. I believe my strengths lie within the composition, concept and variety in techniques used. However my weaknesses include the concept not being 100% clear to the viewer unless they were familiar with the topic. Also some drawings are more simplistic than others and this could come across as being drawn with less care an effort. In the future I could consider using some of the things I admired in others' work, e.g. a deeper use of narrative and exploration of colour.

Initially 5

I eventually chose to do the 'A-Z of Hipsters' for the theme of my poster and began to plan the layout today.

I Planned out on scrap A1 where each drawing will be placed,

then used the light box to trace the area onto the quality

A1 sheet. 

After planning out the position of each illustration, I pencilled 

them in following the addition of black and grey pen detail.

                     

Photoshop Induction 1

Task and Aims

To learn the basic principles of scanning an image and manipulating it within photoshop. Aim to produce five photoshop treatments of one image from the last session.

Intentions

To become more aware with artistic skills in manipulating illustration, as opposed to photographs.

Firstly we learned how to use the scanner correctly, adjusting the dots per image to 300 to gain the maximum resolution for the picture, making a selection of the area we want to scan and adjusting the colour to greyscale to make sure that the image is just black and white.

Once the image had successfully scanned into the computer, I then rotated it 180 degrees so it wasn't upside down.

The next step was to open the image in photoshop, and then set the image size to A4 size. I initially struggled with this because I got the proportions wrong but I was able to amend this towards the end of the process.

It is possible to create a set crop scale by going to the ratio drop down bar and creating a custom preset, in which I put the dimensions for an A4 sheet.

Here is the outcome, I didn't take the scale into account properly, hence the white outline has appeared on my image.

For the time being I cropped the image out of the white border and then focused on adjusting the levels, so that the creasing of the paper wouldn't show in the image. To do this I brought the white level in, which increased the level of white and decreased the level of grey in the photograph, leaving me with a cleaner image.

After amending my image to the suitable A4 resolution, I was eventually happy with it.

We then worked on a default image exploring how to transform a poor quality photograph of an image.

The image is dark, out of proportion to a flat image and has a pen in the middle of it. To amend this, I selected an area to work in and then selected the transform tool and pulled the top of the image outwards so that it was equal to the width of the bottom of the image.

So that the image ended up looking like this..

I then pulled the picture upwards to prevent it from looking squashed

And finally cropping the image to the correct size and amended the levels.

Evaluation

It has been useful to learn the importance of image resolution, and refresh my basic skills in Photoshop. I am excited to start experimenting with colour and shape and overall develop my digital skills.

Initially 4

Over the weekend I really got my head down and focused on my drawings, completing
six alphabet sheets.

'Alternative uses for a fork'

My favourite drawing from the series, 'jousting with a fork' 

'vegetable weapon', 'weightlift', 'xylophone sticks'

                                I was really able to use my imagination within this

                theme by coming up with obscure concepts and creating

                characters to illustrate the message. I might consider

                developing this at a later stage by combining the

                fineliner with different materials to give the drawings

                a greater sense of depth rather than just looking like

                a rough.

'Iconic Hairstyles'

I didn't really flourish on this theme as I found it 

relatively dull, lacking in imagination. I was just

simply drawing hair.

'Dance Moves/Styles'

I spent quite a long time on this alphabet, researching

different dance styles as well as compiling them with

ones that I am already familiar with. I used a brush pen

to create a stronger sense of bodily stance, movement 

and fluidity within the dancers.

Arabesque, Breakdance, Charleston, 'Dougie'

'Typical Teenagers'

'Myths/Commonly believed lies'

'Fictional characters that no one ever admitted to having a crush on'

'Traits of an anxious/awkward person'

Peer Review Session/Feedback

As a class we briefly went through what a group crit should entail. What is helpful, what is unhelpful and what we should gain from it as well as contribute to it. For example we should individually take interest in others' work showing them

respect and take enthusiasm in their work, when possible giving them advice on how

they can develop their work further or providing practitioners for them to study without being rude, patronising or giving unjustified answers.

Working in groups of four, it was really interesting to see how the different people in my group worked as individuals, and what they are interested in themselves and how that came across in their ideas.

I received some really kind, but honest feedback that was very constructive, and helped me see where my strengths and weaknesses lie within this project.

I was praised for my ideas being captivating and being appealing to a wide range of people when presented as a poster, which really gave me a motivational boost. My weaknesses arose within two of the themes, hairstyles and dog breeds being rather drab and not very imaginative, which I can say is true due to the difficulty of thinking of ten different individual and interesting themes to produce a whole alphabet for. 

The advice my group gave me for developing my final artwork was to carefully consider a layout for the poster by using photocopies of scamps and a lightbox to create an ideal arrangement, and also to choose which theme and style of working suits me the most.

I then filled in a self-evaluation form reflecting upon my own work and how I have performed. This includes the processes I went through to exhaust my ideas, how I intend to develop my work further and how I intend to generate the final piece of artwork.