'Make Your Mark' Brief: Picture Books and Evaluation.

To finish the project, I decided to go with the picture book idea that I mentioned previously. Constructing these was fairly difficult, as I couldn't decide how I wanted them to open. Having them pop out (like paper pop up books) proved too difficult an idea, so I settled for something much less elaborate. My first one is about the backpack/badges idea. I combined many of the techniques I had used when experimenting with ideas, and picked out my favourites. This included white on black imagery, bypass printing and blind drawing.

For my second book, I use similar techniques, applying my favourite processes to create final images. For the hands, this included more collage, bypass printing, scans and text. This book was shorter, because I felt like what I had was strong enough to run with.

Evaluation.

Initially generating ideas for this project was difficult, I thought I'd have many ideas but I got quite stuck. Tasks like the quickfire questions/100 things I love were very useful, and are simple, thought provoking challenges that I'd do again. I got to try many new processes, including collagraph printing, experimenting with type and working more graphically (which I then continued to do throughout the project!). I'm definitely happy with the work I have produced, although ideas for themes were lacking. Moving forward, I need to push myself to explore further ideas and concepts which will give me a wider range of materials to work with, and generally make life easier!

'Make Your Mark' brief: Observational work.

I'm nearing the end of the project, and have been experimenting with more observational work, and the idea of having all the badges on one page (like previously). I've been working with mixed materials and just trying out different layouts on the page. Here are two badges in continuous line/collage. I really like both of these, I think the image on the right is stronger, with the little bit of black on white imagery.

The next two are mixed, one is all the badges collectively, and the other is a simple observational image of my hands, bringing it back to the previous project idea. I love the card outline in the first image.

This is quite a short post, but I thought I should show little bits of progress in between. I spoke to my tutor about rounding up the project, and we talked about doing little picture books, and looking at both the badges/hands idea (why I included both). I think it's a great idea and finalising both main ideas would be a good way to finish this project for me. 

'Make your Mark' Brief: My Backpack/Badges.

 We're continuing to explore different ideas for our brief. At the minute I'm looking at my little black backpack and my badges. I actually got my backpack at Chesterfield market, since then I've always had badges and brooches that I've attached to it. The problem is I'm always losing or breaking these badges, so they're always being replaced or changed around. I thought this would be an interesting thing to document. I started with a couple of collage/pen/ink illustrations of my backpack and a few of my badges.

I really like how this first piece came out, although for the text ('and all the badges I've loved and lost'.) I wished I had used a sea green/dark green colour. I think it would have worked much better. 

This is two of my badges, one broken and one surviving. It's a shame the colouring on the frog didn't quite work as I think it would have made a nice page! 

Minimalistic collage of a woman brooch I had. This is growing on me. Initially I wasn't sure, but I like the minimal colours and the use of white space.

A quick blind drawing/ink drawing of some buttons and badge pins. I think what works is the limited colour and the mix of detail and basic line.

Same as above really, but with my broken frog pin. 

Another of a pin in ink detail, with collage areas of another broken brooch. I'm really enjoying what I'm doing so far, but I need to expand it further. I'm thinking of illustrating the entire collection, just producing more work. I think I'll do this along with experimenting with bypass printing over my Independent Study days, as well as that I'd like to keep working on the hands idea. 

On another note, this is my 40th blog post! Worth a miniature celebration.

'Make your Mark' Brief: Habits/Independent Study.

At the beginning of the week, we spent the day focusing on one possible theme. From my mind map I decided to start looking at the idea of my habits, specifically the rather bad habit of cracking my fingers and wrists. I started off doing some observational drawings and A3 pieces (using varied drawing techniques and media) focusing on my hands in pushed and strange positions. I also began experimenting with type, referencing the sounds my wrists/fingers make when I crack them: 'snap' 'pop' 'crack' 'click'. My initial experiments were okay but needed more research and exploration, they looked a little messy. I liked the idea of incorporating type though!

After this, we made our own paper to work on out of different pieces left over, or from the collage box. I tried to keep the colour really quiet with a few bits of print. However, not all my materials worked, as one of them had a resistant layer so I couldn't use ink over it properly! I finished all three pieces and they didn't look quite right, they were too busy. Our tutor suggested using block/negative space areas to quieten down the busier areas. This really helped, and I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out.

After this, I looked into more areas of type, I went through magazines and cut out appropriate letters in many different styles, settling on a few that I liked. For our first day of independent study we were to round up our work on this theme. I tried using the scanner and bypass printing to overlap my hands. It worked once, but the colour was too dark and I was wasting ink, so I used the failed ones for collage material.

To finish off this theme, I kept trying things out with the scanner and bypass printing, using my previous work to create new pieces. I wanted to refine and simplify what I'd done and create some more graphic spreads. My first one was more simple, I quite like it but I'm not sure it properly works as a spread. I'm still unsure about how busy it is! 

I prefer my second one, for this I scanned some elements of type over the previous work, and also included some bold block shapes, and more white space to calm it down a little. I think the colours flow better, and it's generally nicer to look at! I really enjoyed exploring this theme, I need to stop focusing so much on hands though, time to move on to another few ideas. It was nice to start having a go with type too, as I've not really done that yet. I'm pleased with my outcomes, however I think I should try something a little different for my next theme.

'Make your Mark' Brief: Collagraph Printing.

We got to try out collagraph printing, one of the ways of doing this is cutting into layers of card, and adding layers/materials to alter the depth and texture. We had to use a viewfinder and pick different elements out from our sketchbook to turn into prints. Keeping with the brief, I decided to use parts of the graphic spreads we did earlier in the week. 

I tried to keep the shapes quite blocky and simple, but have lots of altering heights and bits of crossover. I also added some mesh material to give it texture. The actual cutting was okay, it was remembering which bits needed to be higher/lower in order for it to look a certain way that was the more difficult part!

The printing itself was really quick! I love how these came out, I'm glad I stuck to solid shapes and used the mesh material. I like how in some areas of overlap shapes have been isolated and so are completely white against the background. I think I'll definitely use this method of printing again, and maybe experiment with more colour than just black/white. 

I think this one (below) is my favourite, the lines are quite clean and the overlap worked out really well.

'Make your Mark' Brief.

This is the beginning of a brief all about 'our story'. After answering some quick fire questions I created three double page spreads of graphic responses based on my answers. I was using my favourite colours (Dark red/sea green) and shapes (circles), and also letters and numbers (B, S, I, 8...). I was trying to maintain a balance of shapes and colours across the pages, so it flowed, and also keep a balance between the shapes and the white page.

My first response was fairly simple, I was just experimenting with different shapes and techniques. I like the textured brown paper and also the cut out shapes, but overall it needs more to it. More overlap and texture, and better use of space.

For my second response, I used bypass printing to create further depth in the overlap and colour, and less actual cut out card. I liked this piece, it flows better than the first, and the colours are generally quite muted with little pops of red/green. 

For my last response, again I used bypass printing. The brown paper came out a funny dull pink colour, I quite liked it though and just used it. I think this last piece has a defined colour palette, and the greater use of black/grey sort of complements that. I'm happy with the responses. It was nice learning different elements of graphic design and how far it stretches. I think I managed to keep elements of me in there too with the shapes and letters! 

Independent Study, 'Reconstructed faces'.

As part of our Independent study days, we had to explore the idea of a 'reconstructed face' over a number of double spreads in our sketchbooks. I did a few thumbnails to explore different ideas and decided I wanted to start with something very straight forward. I did some basic collages using only a few photos, and then for the second, I reprinted the first image in a lower saturation, so the new additions to the image would stand out. I liked how you could still piece together the faces despite them being broken up, and the colours are quite calm and muted, but with some pinks/blues to bring it out.

For the second spread, I wanted to vary the media I was using. As well as collage and magazine cut outs, I decided to use thread as an alternative to drawing. I tried to create this idea of connection, and to join the different features of the face. Again, the first image was quite simple, but for the second I decided to create features with the thread and well as just using it to connect. I liked how these turned out, and despite the different elements I think they work together to create one face or image.

For my last spread I wanted to do something different. I did some blind drawing of different facial features and then scanned them into photoshop. Like I did previously with the hands, I rearranged the different elements to make a face. I did a little bit of colouring too. For this tasks I had to think of a variety of different ways to approach the phrase, which can be quite challenging. I enjoyed getting to work with media I've not used in a while too, like the thread! 

Daily Drawings/Journal Entry.

As part of the Visual Communication pathway stage we have daily observational drawing tasks, I've really been enjoying this challenge, and also managed to get other people involved drawing blind continuous line portraits the other night! I thought I'd share a few of my favourites from the last few days. These are from the blind/continuous line portraits, and objects (from a list we made) in block/negative shape collage.

Cecelia

Maddy

Pesto, I liked the muted colours here, but wish you couldn't see the crack in the negative green area!

Pens/Books, I think the layout and colour works well as a double page spread.

Maddy/Cecelia Spread. I'm enjoying the daily tasks and think it's really getting me used to the pace of this pathway! I'll try and share more of my favourites along the way.

Body Parts: Experimenting with Photoshop.

As part of my brief, I started looking towards recreating a collage but in a kind of more illustrative/graphic style. It started just from some observational drawings I was doing of my hands, which I then decided to scan in! 

I haven't used photoshop properly in a long time, but I do have a basic knowledge of how to work it. So I decided to try and teach myself how to colour in drawings using photoshop. To begin with I was doing really simple ones, playing around with the sizes and areas of colour. I liked how these looked, however the lines are a little sloppy (and are throughout!).

You can see the heavy lines around the fingernails below, I think this is mainly to do with the original drawing, so if I do more I will have to be more careful.

After this, I learnt how to rotate the brushes! This gave me much more options in terms of placement and composition, which I then started to take into more consideration. I made the images busier this time and tried to create connections within the image. I think the use of colour is more fluent too and they look more like a set.

For my last two images I wanted to be a little more experimental. Finished you can see that it was less about the drawings and more about colour blocking and experimenting with overlapping the images. I think the last two look great and I'm happy with how the idea evolved as I was working through it. (Again, I apologise for the really close up shabby lines in the second image!) I think this was a great place to start in terms of trying to work within the pathway I'll hopefully be moving on to! Re-training myself in photoshop was frustrating but fun too, I'd like to come back to this way of working at a further point and experiment with more possibilities. 

'Body Parts' Brief: Day One.

We were set a new brief for the next two weeks, the title is 'Body Parts'. The brief is completely open and in our control, which is both exciting and a little unnerving. We started off just covering the brief and then it was up to us! I did a quick mind map in my sketchbook covering possible areas of interest, and then went to do some artist research. I found two artists yesterday who's work inspired possible ideas for experimenting within this brief.

The first was Nicolai Howalt, the images were from a series he did called 3x1, where he documented a stay with a family.

I thought these images were so simplistic but striking. In terms of 'Body Parts' I hadn't thought about being so obvious with ideas, but looking through his work I thought it may be a good place to start. I love how the hands (both right) are so controlling in the images.

The next artist I looked at was Isidro Ferrer.

I loved his work, I printed off much more that this but these were some of my favourites! His work is clever and witty and something I would like to look into doing more! It was very similar to what we were doing today.

As well as artist research, we worked on creating different images/objects out of separate parts. It was the beginning of the 'Body Parts' brief and gave us an idea of the different ways we can interpret the phrase. I had so many different objects to choose from, and I tried to be quite imaginative with the shapes and what I was doing. 

A drip and a hook, I like the drip but i'm not sure it's obvious what it is. The hook was a little too obvious.

A question mark and a scooter, I'm happy with both of these. I think the simplicity of the question mark works well, and the yellow material with the colourful scooter is appealing.

A telephone and a dragonfly. These were the last two I did and I'd finally got my head round what worked and what didn't. These are probably my favourites from the day.

Playing around with the nails and creating different emotions.

A bare coat hanger, and one with a shirt on it. I don't like the shirt, I should have found a thinner material to do the outline, it just looks a bit off and awkward.

A man, and another face.

A face and an eye, The eye was probably the only one where I layered materials up.

A face and a chest of drawers, the drawers were the first thing I did, and I think you can tell. It's too simplistic and not really clear what it is.

Overall I had a really interesting day, and I have come away with a few ideas on where to start with this brief. I'm excited to get started and experiment with different possibilities.