Collage (Continued...)

I spent this week creating a narrative story around Christopher Lee's Dracula entitled: 'Where's My Yoyo?'.
I created these images by going through the film and taking screenshots.

I then printed these images out, cut them up, threw them back together in humorous ways before working on them again in Photoshop adding half tone and manipulating the colour.

I really like the visual outcome of using halftone, however, I only really made use of the Colour Halftone in the Filter setting. At some point I want to teach myself the proper bitmap halftone process. Ultimately, having felt that my skill with a pen and brush isn't the strongest, its good to finally identify a method of illustration that is quick, enjoyable and effective to me. This feels like a strong avenue for me to follow.

Find a Seat: Initial Research Crit

Today, in the studio, we discussed with each other where we had chosen to sit and observe. I received good feedback that suggested I should potentially follow forward with several areas from my studies. These were; Pigeons, my preconceptions of people, rule breaking, peoples clothing and how it affects judgement and people making excuses for themselves.

(Initial Research Crit Sheets)

All of these areas have potential to study further, however some have a stronger appeal to me. But I must also take into account further research - will there be a rich enough pool of research for me to find and use? What will give me the most information to work with?

Find a Seat: Observational Notes

When I got home tonight after my third observational sitting I began the task of transferring my rough notes onto Word Documents so that they would be better organised and easier to read later on.

This was a surprisingly arduous task, but my notes look much more presentable.

Here is the ephemera from:
York Station

York Cinema

Fulford police Station

Find a Seat: Observational Sitting 3

For my third seat I visited Fulford Police Station in York. However my visit was faced with a few issues; firstly I couldn't take any photographs whatsoever within the police station and secondly I couldn't record any information about anyone within the building.

During the last 15 minutes two female officers were kind enough to tell me a bit about working at the station. They began by telling me the opening times. Most visitors are here for bail signings, questioning, lost property, recovery and foreign students signing forms. They are generally unsure of whats coming through the doors on a day to day basis, it could be anything from assault to burglary. Its a hard job but very fulfilling with lots of admin. Tea is essential for them to get through the day.

Find a Seat: Observational Sitting 2

For my second seat I visited the Reel Cinema in York.

This was quite an isolated experience and I had to take as many photos as I could before the screen went dark.

Here are a selection of the photos I took:

Collage

We began working with collage this week. As soon as Matt finished his lecture I began to have ideas. I think I'm going to really enjoy working with collage.

My favourite idea is to create a narrative story that follows the story from Christopher Lee's Dracula but in a comedic tone using collage.

Here are some scamps I have created in preparation:

Find a Seat: Observational Sitting 1

On Monday we were introduced to Visual Narratives, our first brief and the first task of that brief. We were told to sit in three separate places observing, taking notes and thinking about the location we are in. The research we gather from these places will lead directly into the second task in this brief.

On the way home I decided to complete my first observation at the train station in York. I found a seat at the Costa Coffee situated between station there and prepared myself for an hour of bitter cold note taking.

I began by taking photos of my seat and the surround areas visible from my seat before being approached by the security staff at the station almost immediately. I had to explain that I was completing a brief for my course. Although they were polite this irritated me. We really do live in a culture of fear where someone simply taking a photograph is considered a potential threat.

I also asked three ladies; whether they travel by train often, do they enjoy it and is there anything they don't like? The average response was that they travel once a month or so by train, the travelling isn't too bad but it is too expensive and stressful with not enough stations in the country.

Here are some photos from my first observational sitting:

Texture (Continued...)

I continued this week with texture. Using a sponge and Quink I played around by dabbing it on a sheet of paper. I later scanned this into Photoshop to create images reminiscent of blood to use later.

I then began work on Dracula shapes using my Indian ink and a matchstick. The end result can also be seen glued onto the above Quink sheet.

After this I played around combining several of my images together with the blood texture in Photoshop.

After completing these pieces I went back to my extensively textured piece from earlier in the week, using the same digital process on it. However, I used a different background texture and I don't feel the colouring worked well within the imagery resulting in the piece being engulfed with darkness.

I felt I went further today in the respect of creating a completed illustration than I have done before. This is possibly because I have used a selection of illustrative processes rather than just one or two as I usually do. This is something I should keep in mind going forward.

End of Module: Self Evaluation

I have come a long way in the short space of time since starting this module. It didn’t feel like I had when I first thought about it but the evidence suggests otherwise. In a professional sense I have learnt to work in a group better, allowing me to criticise in a productive manner as well as receive critical feedback to enhance my own work. In a stylistic sense, my work has evolved, not drastically, but I am already using tools that I would never have considered before like brush pens or matchsticks.

Tools that I previously had used before are becoming better developed too, such as my Photoshop skills. I have learnt more in the past few weeks about the software than I have since first finding out about it. This is something I want to learn more about and will have to create time outside of studio time to do this. Concept work is something I have also used in the past, although unintentionally and unwittingly. Now I feel that I am aware of the uses of concept work and will use it to produce more realised work than I have in the past.

As I stated earlier I have begun using a brush pen and matchsticks, these have altered my line work greatly and I will look further into different means of creating lines. Although I do like my brush pen, I feel that it has limitations so more interesting methods like matchsticks will be more useful as my work evolves further.

Although my work has moved on somewhat from when I first started this module it’s only through rigorous experimentation that it can go farther. However experimentation is not my strong point at the moment and it is something that I’m going to have to work on if I want to discover more varied means of illustration making. In a professional capacity, I really need to keep on top of my blog. There were several points within this module when I fell behind with it and this will hamper me later on should I not learn from my mistakes here.

From this I can say there are several points I need to pick up on moving forward. Firstly, I need to keep on top of my blog as I just stated. This also applies to my work in general. I need to be more organised with myself and my work. There were several instances within this project where I let myself down due to poor organisation and I can’t let it happen any more. I also need to experiment more to create a more varied and visually interesting style. This experimentation can take place during the development process of my future projects as these both topics are heavily reliant on each other and are both areas I need to work on.

Finally I feel I need to be more motivated and committed to my work. As can been seen by the quantity of work, I only really began to commit myself for the latter briefs. I need to maintain the attitude I had at the end of this module for the rest of my career.

End of Module: Feedback

Having completed our last brief we spent today giving each other feedback on our module work as a whole rather than just the last brief.

My feedback was quite good however there was a few points raised that I am very aware of. I do not show enough development work. I admit I do think of an idea and push it into its final stages too quickly. I need to step back somewhat and experiment more to wield different results. I also need to organise and label my physical work for the module ready to be handed in on Monday.

(My peer feedback for the module)

Following this I wrote on a self evaluation sheet for the end of the module. I will use this as a reference point for when I write my End of Module Self Evaluation.

A Matter of Opinion: Final Stages

I've decided to push ahead with Photoshop as I want more experience with it having not had the best results earlier in the module (Studio Brief 2). With this in mind I chose to draw my pieces on A4 sized paper and scan it into Photoshop at a higher dpi so I can enlarge it there.

I sketched the images in pencil before going over them in Indian ink to give them some depth. I took a lot of inspiration from Luke Pearson, whose book 'Hilda and the Midnight Giant' I recently read and I think this shows. After this I outlined them with my brush pen and scanned them into Photoshop.

(Finished inked pieces)

As I've been ill I worked from home using my old laptop which runs Photoshop CS3. It is prone to closing without warning and did so many times to my frustration, however I eventually finished the images despite this setback and test printed them at A4 size. 

(A4 Printouts)

The next morning before our classes I printed the images off in the Digital Print Room onto A2 sized paper before trimming them to lose the 'A' format.

(My Final Outcome: printing and cut)

Looking back I didn't use as wide a range of media as I had contemplated to at one point, however I experimented and felt the tools I did choose were for the best visually. Furthermore I am happy with the outcome, if I was unhappy than I feel something must have gone wrong for me.

A Matter of Opinion: Further Development

Following our critiques on Friday I began to develop my work further, concentrating on the literacy addiction images. I began by drawing the third and final developed image which had been troubling me for a while. I was originally going to use a narrative box as the border but felt it was to distant in feel to the thought and speech bubble. However I thought of using a scream bubble - this is used within comics for loud speech and could convey the importance of the final image where the character is completely lost to literacy.

(Stock image of scream bubble)

I then took note of my peer feed back and experimented somewhat with different media. The most interesting tool I used was a matchstick to create line work. I creates a quite interesting effect, however I don't think it'll be suitable for this piece as drawing with a matchstick on an A3+ size piece of paper sounds very tedious!

(Head concepts experimentation)

Once I had made these I asked my girlfriend which of them looked the most visually appealing and she chose the Indian ink head outline with a brush pen. I then chose to draw one of the pieces on an A3 sheet to see how it would feel. Although I felt the brush pen was strong I tried to add shading with a fine liner. This seemed to make the picture look really heavy. Maybe I shouldn't add shading? I also coloured the image using pencil crayon. This was time consuming but looked okay. I may use pencil crayons more in the future but not for this. I really want to use Photoshop some more after our tutorials, I may use this to colour my images.

(Media experimentation)

Texture

We discussed texture today. After realising my joy of quick image making last week I decided to test myself by working on a piece with a large amount of  texture which was somewhat a test for myself as I struggle to be patient enough with intricate pieces. However I stuck to it and was very happy with the results.

Shape (Continued...)

Feeling inspired by the work of Noma Bar I continued with my shape related pieces this week using Adobe Illustrator. I created two images both designed with the purpose of letting the shape speak for the whole image. With little to no detail present, the remaining untouched areas will hopefully be created within the audiences own minds.

I quite enjoyed the work on Illustrator, it is something that I would like to go back to at some point in the future.

After this I looked at shape creation using Indian Ink. I began by creating a shape using my brush and then adding additional line work around it. I really enjoyed this method of creating illustrations as the images rely more on shape rather than line. These pieces were created extremely quickly. I'm staring to feel that maybe spending time on an illustration trying to make it precise isn't the best method of image creation for myself.