Visual Distortion

The Idea of this Exercise was to push us towards a deliberate stylization.

I began with drawing a dog from the internet.

I then tried to distill his features down using the minimum amount of lines! This was not easy... I regretted choosing this kind of a dog, but I persevered.

After this I collected a stack of magazines to use for the collage versions of the dogs.  My choice of textures and surreal elements added different dimensions to the original dog, changing or enhancing different aspect of his character quite a bit. This carried through to the drawn versions of each one. My children helped me name the different dogs that emerged!

banana split

Moustachio

Spike

I realised that I had 3 very different dogs on my hands now, so I made a little scene for them, where Moustachio became the teacher and the others two little dogs with a mischievous side

Mr Moustachio's PE lesson

I took Moustachio and did a more detailed drawing of him. It was interesting that I would never have come up with a dog like this without pushing through the process of creating the collages. Unfortunately he is poles apart from the original dog the characteristics of which are more apparent in Banana Split and Spike - playfulness, fluffiness etc. 

I decided to try something else and painted Moustachio on silk and expanded his character with a few quick images created by collaging tissue and paper and silk offcuts. 

Moustachio doesn't like baths, because he is quite vain and thinks his colours might run.

Moustachio has a bath

 He likes to think he is capable of deep existential thoughts

Moustachio thinking

 And he dreams of being a country lord

dreaming of the country

And owning his own park.

Moustachio goes for a walk in the Park

I got a lot out of this exercise, although I allowed Moustachio to dictate his own personality, I think that I have learnt quite a bit about ways to delve into the business of stylization.

Menu Card

The brief was to create an illustration for a bright sophisticated quality fish restaurant. The establishment was bright and airy and the ingredients fresh. 

Step 1 - Out and About. I took a walk along the street and looked at cookbooks in shops and discovered a real trend for lino cut style images.  I took a few photos with my phone so apologies for the quality!

I then had a quick brainstorm in the Sketbook focussing on clarity of image... sophistication of subject matter and possible compositions

The best images seemed to be the simplest, most sophisticated and stylish. I liked the use of ink as it was traditional, light and airy, fresh feeling but yet quite contemporary. I liked the sardines as an image but thought maybe that Sardines might be a bit too 'peasant foody'. I didn't like the ones that had cooked food on them, I thought it was better to go for the fresh ingredients than the finished dish which would be better served by photos. Eventually I opted for a crayfish but stuck with the ink style. 

I played with the image on the computer to see what it would be like in different colours and with a bit of texture. 

I then placed it on an invented DL menu card (recipes courtesy of Rick Stein)

And felt that maybe a little bit of colour would be a good idea. 

However I also wanted to play with the word 'fish' a bit more and so I did a second version incorporating the letters into the design.

And then tried this on the menu card

 I think that probably I like the first design better and the colour scheme would depend on the colours of the restaurant.