revisiting the Museum Posters

I had some useful feedback from my Tutor about the over-cluttered nature of some of my images... so I've been having another look at the Museum Posters and trying to distill the two that I did as collages.

I think that this is a lot clearer and simpler. It has more focus like this. I would probably redo it slightly but I am happy with this as a visual.

I like the teenage idea. It comes across more strongly simplified I think.

I then had a go at simplifying the Children's war right down using the idea of a chalk board. 

I have learnt a lot from going back and having another go at this, but I'm still glad I went through the whole process, I learnt a lot about how to use the computer and manipulate images - all part of the learning process!

Assignment 4 - Post 4 - Lost

Finally I returned to the 'Lost' idea as the texture that I had achieved in the Discovery illustration seemed to suggest rainy streets, and I wanted to see if I could work up the sketch of Lamby on the street with communters walking past would work using this media. I rather like the result, and might try to add a bit of a tint to it.

lost monoprint - detail a bit lost

lost monoprint touched up

finished Lost monoprint tinted with Guache

I rather like the finished Lost print with hand colour, it's cold and rainy feeling.

Assingment 4 - Post 3 - Discovery

'Discovery' - I did several pencil and pastel versions of the T-Rex skull. Going to the internet to assist with more detail on the skull, I played with high contrast to bring out the bones.

I decided that to encapsulate the word 'Discovery' I needed to include the child and the image should be a glimpse inside his imagination as it is fired by the discovery. To this end, I wanted to create a feeling of the magic of discovery around him, so I decided to use a jungle texture in the background. I considered adding flesh to the bones in some areas, but that idea felt a bit heavy handed, so I went for my orginal idea of the Lizard eye appearing animated. I also moved the child to opposite the T-Rex so that it had more a feeling of the child approaching the T-Rex and reaching out to touch him.

In the first black and white sketch I went for a dreamscape, but decided that this might be pushing the brief a bit far. So I put the boy into a more static setting and a suggestion of the primordial jungle of his imagination in the background. I tried this image in Pastels..

I had intended to use this as a visual, but actually I rather liked the pastel and the tinted paper which had a bone colour to it. I had wanted to keep the dino and the boys face quite stark to unite them and make them stand out from the lush background. I liked the red eye which could either be a Dino eye or a parrot or something in the jungle.

colour enhanced - pastel

However, in the spirit of discovery myself, I wondered if the image needed to be a bit more 'earthy' - as initially I had wanted a bit more of a 'fossil' feeling. I wanted to experiment with the surface texture... so I had a play on the computer to see what a monochrome image would look like.

black and white version

sepia version

In a last ditch attempt to crack it I collaged two of the images together so that the stone colour gradually gives way to the vibrant greens and the bright red of the eye as the T-rex extends to the child. Perhaps this one best sums up a sense of 'Discovery'.

Last attempt!

My worry is that I'm not sure if this quite works as an image although I like the idea behind it. Perhaps I needed to use different software to move between the monochrome and the colour versions.... it's not as smooth a transition as I would like.

Just for fun, I took the image right out of the literal and into the realm of dreamscape... by inverting the colours of the original pastel drawing.

pastel Discovery - with colour inverted (experiment)

For some reason, I can't put my finger on, this one rather appeals to me....

I decided to try to get some earthiness back into the image by attempting some acrylic monoprints in a sepia paint to give a more 'stone' like feeling. Printing with Acrylic is new to me, I have always used printers ink before and it's got some advantages.

monoprint 1 with acrylics on mirror

I didn't have my brayer with me, so I had to use a brush to lay the paint onto the mirror, which gives a rougher finish. I quite like the result as an image, but it's a bit difficult to read. So I decided to have a play in the computer and brighten the colours a bit... but it's still a bit too difficult to read.

monoprint 1 colour enhanced on computer

I quite like the reds picked out by the computer, it gives it a fiery quality.  My 2nd monoprint was a drawn through monoprint, and I rather like the image... it has a look of a cave painting about it...

monoprint 2 

This was a bit too indistinct for me, perhaps, although I really like the textures in the image.

Monoprint 3 also drawn through and hand tinted

I was quite pleased with this result... the scratchyness of it works quite well for the stony excavated feel I was trying to achieve. Unfortunately I think the child's face is a bit too indistict. Perhaps I could have changed this in the computer.

As ever, I seem to get rather obsessed by fiddling with images, and all my good intentions of following the brief exactly seem to have gone to pot, as I never really came up with a visual (unless you count the small image in my sketchbook) and still haven't decided which end product works best!

Assignment 4 - 2nd post

I began to have doubts about the T-Rex and decided to have a think about 'Lost' - I felt that the idea of a lost cuddly toy epitomised the word 'Lost' for me and set about sketching a particularly floppy sad looking lamby belonging to my 5 yearold, which I placed on the ground as if he had been left in a gutter.

I felt that it was better with Lamby cut off in the frame, but he didn't look lost enough, just dropped!
So I tried him in the gutter, a bit like the shocking images of the discarded babies in Korea that the newscasters put us through a few years ago.

Possibly the addition of the legs is pushing the 'still life' idea too far.... I rather like the image though. There is a sense of jeopardy, that Lamby is about to be trampled. 

Assigment 4 - Magazine Illustration - 1st thoughts

In this Assignment we were asked to create an illustration based on a still life for a magazine. The topics I was most interested in were Discovery and Lost.

I began with Spider grams for both...

The idea of fossils and a child's discovery appealed for 'Discovery'. My uncle has a T-Rex skull and I had taken some pictures of my son touching it, last summer, so I decided to sketch from that. I also accumulated some fossils and geologist's paraphernalia for some still life sketches.

I wanted to introduce an element of the moment of discovery... so that could either be the moment that an ammonite was opened up to reveal its intricate inside....

Or the process of washing fossils to reveal their detail..

Or the point at which a child makes and discovery about the world about them... e.g. feeling the teeth of a t-rex and that discovery triggering the imagination.

At this stage I was drawn to doing a painting in acrylics and making the T-Rex appear animated in places to reinforce the feeling of discovery - perhaps with lizard like eyes flashing from inside the head.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

For this exercise we were asked to collect a lot of different characters from magazines etc and collate them. I have put together a scrap book with different types in it, which I intend to add to but far to many to post here.

I started with a spider diagram to help me think of an interesting character for an ageing rock star, too tight jeans, after a bad gig, drowning his sorrows in the local bar. He's not completely rubbish and comes alive on stage, but not talented enough to make it big.

I then tried to draw him from the side and the back. 

After that I tried to push his characteristics a little further, distorting his skinny legs, and his embarrassingly tight jeans, his jowls and his scruffy hair.

Trying to get some expression into a jowly slightly depressed individual proved quite tricky.

I am quite pleased with some of the images and I feel like they pretty much all look like the same individual, but his range of expressions is very limited.

I took a young thrusting trainee journalist for my second character, quite a sweet baby face but a steely determination to succeed because of her talent rather than looks.

In repeating her, I realised how important hair position and stylisation can be in creating a consistant character. Also however simple the eyes they must have some defining feature; in this case I tried to keep a suggestion of heavyness - showing her serious nature.

Next I tried two other very different characters just to get the feel of repeating a face in different poses.

pretty lady

inventor (not very good one)

I learnt a great deal from this exercise, it was very enjoyable, now the challenge is to put what I have learnt into a style that is more my own. I love the extreme and grotesque characters of Quentin Blake, Ralph Steadman, Dave Mckean, some of the ones that I created here are a bit too comic booky as I was concentrating on consistency, the next thing would be to put a bit more style into the mix... but it's a start.

Tattoos

This Exercise did not immediately appeal as I don't have any tattoos and don't intend to get any, but my 5 yearold is very keen and kept me going.

I found an interesting site regarding the history of tattoos on the internet and discovered how ancient the art of tattooing is... (5000 years). I was also surprised just how many cultures have a rich history of tattooing. Reasons for getting tattoos range from status plays, beautification, identification and medicine.

Tattoos have been used for masculine shows of strength (all over) aesthetic reasons (Persian ladies), theraputic (Iron-Age), punishment (Ancient Romans and Greeks), branding (Nazi camps).

There are some incredible images available on the internet as well.

The sheer number of tattoos amazed me on this man

These tattoos are more in keeping with the breif

Freak Show or work of art?

This almost looks like a lace bodice top

All this aside, we were asked to design a tattoo based on the word 'Mum' which could also be used as a card. So, as ever, I began with a visual brainstorm. 

Page of ideas including a celtic interlocking bracelet design

At the same time as doing this exercise I had borrowed book called 'Hand Job: A Catalogue of Type - by Michael Perry. I was impressed by the  imaginative ways that letters of the alphabet can be rendered. 

I think that this must by Perry himself

By Adam Hayes

Fascinatingly wierd rendering of words - 'The Be Cause', 'Be Kind' and 'Help me please' by Luke Ramsey

This was the Front Cover of a Royal College of Art Magazine

However, I imagined that I were designing a tattoo for a friend and decided that they would probably like something quite small and subtle, so the idea of a 'friendship bracelet' came about. I thought that I could repeat an interlinking 'MUM' to create a bracelet effect around the wrist. This could then be adapted for the card.

I created the Card using a lino-cut 

And then had a play with it in the computer to see if i could get a more Earth Mother feeling!

I then cut the MUM out to see if it would work as a tattoo in it's own right. I don't think it does. So I went back to the bracelet idea.

I like the friendship bracelet idea which hasn't developed much from my first sketchbook page. Below is a large font version of the 'chains' in the friendship bracelet and a small logo style interlocked Mum for a small tattoo.