Wednesday 17 November 2010
Reflection of the brief so far
I'm finding the brief enjoyable so far, I'm fairly pleased with the visuals I have created though I'm struggling to identify a style that feels like it's mine. I'm caught between my realistic approach to a brief and the more cartoon and edgy style. I think this is a problem that I might always have. I think my realistic illustrations are stronger and I know when I've produced good piece by the amount of hours I've put into it. It seems as though my approach of illustration changes to fulfil the needs of the brief. My final project last year saw me take on the cartoon approach to draw the celebrities which worked very well due to it's humorous topic, but when I compare that to what I am doing currently it looks as though a different artist has designed them.
Where I'm at
It's been a couple of weeks since my last post so time to think through the project thus far and where I'm going to next.
Following my research into schizophrenia and mental illness I have defined my idea and began to create visuals. With not long to go until the deadline I have to structure my time carefully with fakery, dissertation and my job.
So the idea, I've decided to create visuals based on the visions my nan has which is caused by dementia. It's a very personal subject which I don't want to run through in depth on my blog. But I have decided to compile my illustrations into a doctors notes styled document, perhaps formed in a brown A4 folder. The idea is to write a very non descriptive note as if it is written by a doctor, to then turn the page to see my illustrative response to the note and how my nan perceives it. I intend to make the illustrations realistic so that the audience can see the reality of the illness but then realising that is perhaps a fake world. I'm also looking into creating realistic imagery and altering the piece so that it is more surreal but still interpreted as very real and true. This seems a bit too difficult to explain on here, so I will upload visuals soon.
Wednesday 27 October 2010
Tuesday 26 October 2010
Neat Photoshop tutorial
Really interesting Photoshop tutorial that I would like to follow up in my own work. Look at how I could combine my illustration into a more photo realistic image. Would be interesting to combine several illustrations and photographs together into a form of collage to see if I could achieve this delusional world of the mental patient.
Monday 25 October 2010
The Rorschach Test
My research has lead me to take the 'Rorschach test'. Supposedly it understands your personality and whether you've got problems.
I saw:
1. an alien
2. 2 people high fiving
3. 2 humans and a butterfly
4. a ram's head/ mask
5. insect/ moth
6. a star with the shape of jesus statue (rio de janeiro)
7. two rabbits facing each other
8 two leopards climbing
9. ?
10. eiffel tower
More insightful case study
I've found another case study into a form of Schizophrenia. It's based around the life of January Schofield, 6, who has a very severe case of Schizophrenia and has imaginary friends. She's been on heavy medication and this is her story:
So far in this project it has been difficult to find actual case studies of mental delusion that contains actual interviews and recording of the patients visions which I want to be the focus. My initial ideas for this Fakery project is to investigate as many case studies as possible and select one that provides a strong insight into the patients mind. I want to know what the patient hallucinates, how they react to people in the real world, what medication they're on etc. Then take their descriptions of their visions and illustrate them to communicate their "fake" world.
Re-Focus
When I find myself procrastinating I know it's time to write a post to attempt to re-focus. So here I am... This morning I've been structuring my dissertation which has gone reasonably well, collected quotes, read extracts from my books etc.. Now I'm sat here no longer wanting to read books, I want to start something more creative!! I've got to work on my Fakery project, which is still in it's research stage and it's suppressing my desire to draw, maybe I just need some sort of doodle break?
The plan is as follows; move onto the Fakery project and leave the dissertation for now. Find more case studies around 'mental delusion' - make notes and doodle some ideas. If this fails draw a monkey with a spinning bow tie.
Friday 22 October 2010
Some inspiration
http://abduzeedo.com/hip-hop-illustrated-portraits
This is the kind of style or art that inspires me and I relate my own style to these illustrations. I want to be able to combine my hand drawn skills and digital abilities together as well as this and take it beyond this level!
It's been a while...
Well, back into the full swing of uni 3rd year. Started back a couple of weeks ago and have already completedone project. 'Significance of numbers' - really good project to get my mind working once again and the short deadline ensured that I found my idea and stuck with it. Initially I went with the idea of the code system to find products in the stockroom at work and how I could produce a diagram/ visual map to display the co
des and their placement within the stockroom. To me, this would be a really helpful poster but to the audience it wasn't the most exciting idea!So, I had a tutorial and bounced ideas off of friends and kept the idea of looking at trainers/ shoes in particular and thinking about all the numbers associated to the making of the shoe.. flight codes, distance it's travelled, size, cost to make etc etc. And this is what I produced:
I wanted to make the work powerful and immediately eye catching. On one level the viewer will see it as an advertisement for a Nike shoe but as they start to look into the art they see all these numbers and statistics that show the Nike corporation for what they really are. As I'm now in my 3rd year I am going to consider exactly what I want out of each project and consider how I want my portfolio to come across because that is the most important part.
Friday 12 March 2010
Tuesday 2 March 2010
Arrrrgh!
Having a bit of a panic for no reason. Feeling a bit like I'm not good enough to master the skills of Photoshop and digital illustration. Not good.
Basic Photoshop - Pen tool tutorial
http://www.melissaclifton.com/tutorial-pentool.html
Tutorial to kickstart my research into using the Pen tool more effectively.
Also looked at: (bit more in depth)
Monday 22 February 2010
Essay and Professional Project
My essay research is underway though I am struggling to find myself the appropriate images and title. I want to focus my essay around my Professional project and look at editorial illustration, perhaps looking at how it's changed from as far as back as the Gutenberg press. I'm unsure whether this will give me enough to write about so I will run it past my tutor today.
Last Friday we handed in the Learning Agreement and over the weekend I've bought myself a couple of books based upon contemporary illustration which should provide me with inspiration and initiate the ideas process for the project. I need to ensure that I structure my time well and research thoroughly so that I produce the best possible outcome. I've found that I already have an idea of how I want it the work to look which I need to leave and develop ideas based from the research.
Wednesday 17 February 2010
Steinberg lecture
Today we had a lecture with Anna Steinberg who is a freelance illustrator. She gave a presentation and provided advice on how to get yourself set up as a freelance illustrator which was really helpful and refreshing. I had the chance to have a quick chat with her and showed her my portfolio. She identified that my work needs to have more cohesion as the work doesn't seem to have a consistent style which I agree with to an extent. From my point of view I am still exploring different ways I communicate through my illustration. I'm unsure that I have established my own style, I think it's something that will come naturally over time.
At this moment in time I'm trying to decide whether to move onto Illustration for my 3rd year or to continue with Visual Communication. My worry is that my illustration hasn't developed enough over the last couple of years to get me onto the illustration course. I need to have a chat with my tutors and a chat with a tutor over on the illustration course to give me some direction. If I were to continue on my current course I feel I could still carry on with the work and run my own self initiated illustration alongside which I have been currently doing.
To help me make my decision I definitely need to sit down and have a chat with tutors, peers and family. Take all of that advice on board and ultimately make my decision.
Where do I see myself in the future? Where does my passion lie?
Friday 12 February 2010
Animal Farm Event
The Animal Farm fund raiser went really well and apparently the Panda screen prints I did sold really well! Which I can't quite believe but it was a great night and very rewarding seeing my work sell.Wednesday 10 February 2010
Professional Project thinking
Tomorrow I have to present my initial ideas for my professional project. Right now I think I have got an idea in a mine field of other thoughts. I'm struggling to produce one solid idea to present for tomorrow so I think I am going to have pull together my ideas and run through a couple and hopefully I can gain feedback that provides me with one solid idea so I can give myself some direction. I'm feeling confident that I will present well and this will build upon my confidence to present on front of several people.
Monday 8 February 2010
Fund Raiser and ycn meeting
Me and Ben met up today to progress with the competition brief and then prepare work for the fund raiser on Wednesday at Sixty Million Postcards. Out of the screen prints I produced 5 were good enough for sale and another 4 will be sold in a separate bargain bucket as they didn't turn out as well as the others.
Thursday 4 February 2010
Professional Project launch
So the professional project has launched, the day that seemed so far away when I arrived back at uni in October and somehow it's here. This morning I felt confident of my idea and the direction I was heading but now it seems that what I thought was going to work probably wouldn't after a good discussion with peers on the course.
I find myself lost on day one which is a very strange feeling, as this usually happens at least a week in! Though I think it's good that I've woken up and realised this is my opportunity to create the best piece(s) of my career so far. It's highly unlikely that I will have a chance as good as this to design whatever I want. I know that I want to produce a more illustrative based outcome, however I don't want to shut off other possibilities with this golden opportunity. My initial idea was to create a brief where I designed a Graphic novel, which I would create and develop characters, storyline, setting, layout, typography and overall design. I saw myself designing the whole thing, but I had sat back and asked myself; What do I see myself doing in ten years? Even five years!? Where would I want to be in the future? These questions I can't seem to answer, but I think I can answer them with the Professional project. Maybe that's what my project should be about, my journey to find the answers, my dreams and ambition.
Who knows... All I know is that I am going to push myself as far as I can because I don't want to look back and have regrets.
Wednesday 3 February 2010
Tuesday 2 February 2010
Bleeding Heart Boy
Spent the last hour or so working on the Storyboard brief. I'm currently drawing up a human heart from different angles, I'm not entirely sure how the drawings will be used but I've designed a fairly detailed heart from 4 angles which I will watercolour with a deep red. I will upload the first set of storyboards over the next few days then look to the second script.
I've found it difficult liaising with a client who is based in a different part of the country as it is so much easier to understand the brief and what the client wants in a meeting. It's certainly been more challenging working on this brief as it's difficult to understand what exactly the client wants. Without being face to face you can't gain the level of feedback needed on the work you send over so I have to improvise with what I understand and my interpretation. I've also found it difficult to retain contact with the client due to being busy, so I've learnt that I need to chase up clients a lot to ensure I can continue to work on the brief. I think in the future I must chase the client up on a more regular basis and make sure I ask for a telephone number if they are in a part of the country that isn't easy to reach in such a short time frame. By taking on this Live brief I've developed a better understanding of how to approach a client in a professional and friendly manner. When chasing up a client I have found that you have to be wise to how you word your message to ensure you are friendly but assertive.
Competition brief meeting
Yesterday myself, Ben and Luke arranged to meet up to launch our competition brief properly. We began to research into famous British musicians from past decades. The album covers all had similar elements running through their designs. We gathered as much imagery as possible and made note of what we thought worked.
Our task is to create a campaign concept for the Great British Music Experience so we've decided that we're going to design a series of 4 posters, each from a different decade. We're starting from the 60s and ending with a poster for the 90s as we feel this is manageable and we can execute our idea well. After a couple of hours I think we all had several ideas that we could run with, so it was agreed that we would all attempt designing roughs of potential layouts and styles. I aim to put together 3 or 4 different designs and then arrange to meet up with everyone again so we can have a look at our designs and have a small critique betweens us. Hopefully we can combine all of our styles to form an overall look and provide continuity throughout the series of posters.
Thursday 28 January 2010
PPRD Tutorial
Had a tutorial this morning to help with the development of my blog, competition and live brief. I now have a better understanding on where I need to improve my work and have a better sense of direction. I've learnt that I need to be more reflective with my blog posts and explain what I've learnt from the sessions.
Myself and Ben are going to the library to pick up a couple of books on the History of British musics so we can kick start the YCN brief. We're thinking of researching into the origins of British musicians and somehow working this into are work.
PPRD - Storyboards
I took on a Live brief a few weeks ago which I have been asked to draw up storyboards for a script. The script is for a green screen project called Bleeding Heart Boy. I've completed the script and I am currently working on a second script. I've also designed a logo for the project.
Screen Printing
Here are a couple of the prints from the screen printing session. I screen printed the Poker Panda!
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Screen Printing
Today I screen printed for the very first time. To begin with I found it difficult to spread the ink evenly and then distribute it well enough to get the best print. After a couple of prints I started to get the hang of it and really enjoyed the session. Though I'm not convinced I'm a natural at screen printing, but overall I am really pleased with the prints for the Animal Farm fundraiser.
Thursday 21 January 2010
Website Design
This is the original Home page I was going to use originally until I problems with the repeat background.
Website
Over the last 5 or 6 weeks I've been putting together my Online Portfolio which for me has been a struggle. I built the site mainly in Flash with Action Script 2.0 which was pretty good going considering other people on the course built theirs entirely on Dreamweaver and it sounded incredibly painful! On the whole I enjoyed the freedom of designing your own site and thinking how to reflect your personality and style but as for the construction of the site.... well that's another thing. It seemed pretty plain sailing until I encountered numerous problems with the Action script. Then when I thought I was near to taking it into Dreamweaver the Flash file had magically deleted itself, leading me to re-build the whole thing! Thankfully it wasn't too stressful to put back together again. The background of my site had a grid which I wanted to repeat throughout the browser on Dreamweaver which caused problems when lining up around Flash site. So I decided to alter the site slightly and create a new background that would fit with the background in all browsers. I have decided to buy my own domain name which should have my site up and running in the near future.
Sunday 3 January 2010
It's been a while...
I've not been blogging in a while so I thought I would re-initiate my motivation after the xmas period by starting here. So I've been building my online portfolio as part of my uni work throughout the last few weeks. I put together several different versions using both Flash and Dreamweaver. I think I will develop my Flash website and put in some animation too. Then once I'm happy with it I will brace myself for the stress of importing it to Dreamweaver and finding the site doesn't work in all browsers...
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