Silhouettes

Began to draw out some silhouettes of the dancers online, but i also got a friend to do some moves for me to photograph as primary research.

Dance!

Time to think about content and what the designs are going to be. As me and my friend Georgia Clark both decided to work on lanterns we've decided to team up but work on different aspects of the designs. Georgia being more interested in type is developing some text and interesting time to go onto the lanters where as I'm focussing on figures and silhouettes and actual imagery.

Because the whole point of this festival is a celebration of multi-cultural music and dance I've decided to look at different kinds of dance and movements, as well as patterns disticnt to certain cultures. 

Did some quick research on different dances: 

Secondary Research

After doing a bit of research online about the different types of lanterns I could use, I decided that there are 3 main ones that I should focus on. 

 The average and most popular of lanters would be beautiful and a great way to advertise the event as they're eye-catching and can be set off at some point if wanted. They're also not too hard to get hold of to use for experimentation.

 These floating lanterns I thought could be used for areas where there are fountains, for example the train station or outside the town hall. they also don't look too difficult to make myself (or atleast attempt them).

As you can see it is quite easy to put designs onto these bags. They also look amazing in bulk. Will definitely be trying these out if only for my own amusement and don't end up using them for the project!!

Lanterns

I've decided to focus on designing images to go onto chinese lanterns for this alight project. I've always been interested in candles and lights and shadows. I drew out some initial ideas of how I could approach the project. Started out by looking at different kinds of lanters and what could be done with them.

The most comon and most popular lanterns at the moment are the sky lanterns, being used in films, adverts and for festivals. Designs could be printed on to them, either imagery or text and places around the city as decoration and advertisement for the event.

I also thought about showdows and silhouettes. Designs could be cut out of the lanterns so that when lit they project the designs onto nearby walls/surfaces.

Another simpler and possibly cheaper idea would be paper bags. These would be easier to print onto as they are flat and can be cut into without ruining the product. 

24hr Brief

As a little project to get us going frazer set us a 24hr brief that looked at coming up with an illustration to go with a speech about britain and british culture.

I started out buy drawing out things that make me think of britain or british culture until there was one good enough to use and develop. (photos to come later)

After a brief chat with frazer I decided to go ahead with the little drawing of the mustache and monocle. The concept was 'fake britain'. Taking things that weren't british and making it look like or come across as if it were.
From there I started thinking too hard and was making it more complicated than it had to be. I moved away from the monocle and decided to focus on a pipe, and though of a plastic childs pipe made out of plastic and  blows bubbles as a way of showing how people in britain try and portray this image but are infact fake.

I was ridiculously busy that day and had had no sleep for the past 3 days so my time management was ridiculous and I didnt manage to finish the project on time. I did get round to doing some potato prints but decided they were no good for the image I wanted to use.

If I'd managed my time more carefully and focussed a bit more I'd have tried out these last images in water colour to show the delecacy of the bubbles and how the image can be shattered at any moment.

Utter Confusion

The begining of this project was extremely confusing. When given the briefing from the client she seemed to contradict herself A LOT and we were told different things by different tutors. It seemed more sense to work in groups across specialisms so that logos. brands and designs would all link but we then heard that wasnt allowed. We were told we could focus on any part of the project even if that didn't fit in with your specialism, and then were told we weren't!

In the end each specialism was given a more focussed brief from tutors.

Point of this post: Getting briefs from clients in the real world (outside of uni) can be frustrating, confusing and make you pull your hair out!! But you have to stick with it if you'd like a career.

Alight / Cultural Olympiad

Alight is a multi-cultural music and dance festival being held on the 3rd March 2012 in sheffield and will consist of three different parts; Alight, Twilight and Into the Night. A whole range of products are needed for the event to advertise and use during performances. We've been asked to design posters, flyers, animations and all sorts to advertise the event in and around sheffield.

Although this event is in partnership with the Olympics we're not allowed to mention or use any logos associated with them.. (confusing i know)..

Audiences for the three events will be different, which should be concisdered when thinking about design.

To check out the official website for alight go to : Alight Music Nation

Action Plan

There are so many things I could put on my action plan as I feel there is a lot that I should be doing that I haven't got round to yet. But the main 5 would be this.

1. Aquire necessary tech skills (using Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign etc.)

2. Continuously searching for new and upcoming artists and keeping myself informed on what is happening in my specialist area in particular. This inlcudes reading more books and magazines on illustration.

3. Create an eyecatching and impressive CV to send out to potential clients.

4. Enter competitions and possibly look for placements and work experience.

5. Keep sketchbooks and set myself projects to motivate myself and develop my skills further and keep my mind stimulated for new projects. Improve on figure drawing!!

These should be on-going tasks but I would like to have achieved these by the time I graduate.

Final Outcomes

For my final idea i decided to present all 3 on one sheet of A3. This way they're all linked and fit together as they are all simple monoprints. Printing them any bigger would have caused them to blur. The colours didn't quite come out as dark as I wanted but I'm happy enough with the end result. I chose a grainy paper to print onto instead of shiny paper as i thought it fitted with the monoprints better. 

Double Printing Sessions

I went in to the print room to do my monoprints of dogs and skateboards and such. Some were quite successful and i decided to use a few in my final 3, others I wasnt so happy about so I went back the next day and printed new images onto the same sheets of paper.

The feet I drew at a later date, using people that were stood with me in the print room at the time. I then went into the mac room to scan and photoshop my images together to make 3 final ideas. 

Skateboarding Dogs!

My second conceptual idea is a skateboard for dogs. To do this I collected images of dogs running to then draw onto skateboards. I did infact find that some dogs can skateboard!!

Dogs and Ant Farms.

Just a little bit of secondary research as I haven't any access to dogs or ant farms.

I used these dog images to do some quick sketches and monoprints and put the dog digging and the machine together to make it look like it was searching for it.

Conceptual Ideas

 Drawing out my ideas I found a little difficult. The conceptual part of this project has been the hardest for me.  I took images from my people drawing and my monoprints to try and sketch out some initial ideas for the machines.

I then started to think of how I could present the peices. After a quick talk with frazer I decided to keep them all simple monoprints. The drawing above shows the digger machine in the ground which almost looks like an ant farm.

Development.

Having 3 projects all going at once slowed things down for this project but I've tried my best to keep up. I decided to go into the print room for another session and draw out some ideas from references. I seem to draw better when drawing that way.

I started off drawing skrews for my first digger idea. I really like how they came out as you can really see the definition of the skrew bits. I then went on to draw different kinds of skrews and drill bits so I would have a choice later on. 

This first print didnt come out so well, having too much ink on the glass made it really hard to see what I'd drawn so I simply did a second print without rolling over the glass with new ink. 

The above print are the childish drawings my sister drew. I love the way they came out in monoprint. I think my final designs should be something like this as the ideas are in a way quite childish too.

Figure Drawing

After another pretty helpful session with frazer discussing our conceptual ideas, we were asked to start on our figure drawing. Wanting to stay ontop of things I thought the best place to go for people to draw was a cafe. I always find it difficult drawing in public as I'm quite selfconcious about people seeing my work, but I sat in starbucks non the less and got drawing. I quickly realised how bad I was at drawing people, especially faces! 

 

I hadnt read the brief yet so I started out using fine liners. I actually find drawing in fine liner alot easier. I'm a lot more confident and seem to just 'go for it' where as with pencil I feel I have to do tonal drawings and properly sketch and shade. I tried some pencil drawings afterwards but didnt really enjoy it at all.

 

After I got home I sat on the floor in my flatmates room and began to draw her. Hands are extremely difficult to draw, I can never get the proportions and angles right. The drawing of the feet I particularly like, as you can actual tell tha tthe front toes are curled upwards. I find drawing things at an upwards angle really difficult so I'm happy with how that came out. These initial drawings really shook me and showed me just how much work I have to do if I want to progress. Time to uy a new sketchbook? I think so.

Second Print Session

 The second print session I decided to do a few more monoprints straight onto newsprint. Drawing from reference this time. I really enjoy print and think it would work pretty well with my ideas for the drill bit, as it has that cloudy background but you can still achieve a clean line drawing.

 The black ink seemed really think and my prints werent coming out so well. I felt like this was wasted time so I changed the ink to red to see if there was a difference. The outcomes I feel were much better.

 

The last dog drawing is my favourite pritn from that day. Even though the line is rough and more of a scribble you can make out what it is and it has character. I was really pleased at the end after managing to produce atleast one successful print!

Monoprinting

I've always been a fan of printing and I really love the simplicity of monoprint. Did a little bit of research on the internet of some prints I like.

I love how easily you can capture the character of something through a simple line drawing, whether it be a crowded city scene or a maby taking its first steps.

20 Conceptual Ideas

 task was set to come up with and draw/sketch out 20 conceptual ideas for dog exercise machines. My first dawings were kind of the obvious ideas like a treadmill, but the more time I spent on it I started to think of more creative ideas. I think the most successful one would be number 10, the drill thing. A treat or something can be put in the top, the device switched on and then it drills into the groung, making the dog dig for it. I wasnt so confident with my line drawings at first but I think I managed to get my ideas down pretty well so that others can understand them.

The page above are some drawings my little sister drew. I asked her to draw some ideas for dog exercise machines and this is what she came up with in 10 minutes. There's a lot of character to her drawings and I actually really liked her ideas. I never would have thought of a pair of mechanical trousers with a GPS that transmits to your phone so you know where your dog is!

DeviantART

So I had planned to go and do some more printing in the studio at the end of this week but due to a family emergency I've had to be at home. This also meant I missed the workshop trip, which is a shame as I was really quite looking forward to it. I'll be making sure to catch up on what I missed later on. So instead of being at the workshop and spending time coming up with new dog exercise machines I took the opportunity to update my Deviant Art account. I've had the account for about 2 years now and have mainly been posting my very amature attempts at photography. I've always wanted to be able to take amazing photographs and since I bought a DSLR I've really got into it.

Check out my DeviantART account!

Bikes and Prints

 Tuesdays session was alot more productive than the last. I felt like I actually learnt something in that session which is always a good thing. At first we had a discussion about illistration and why we chose to be in that specialism. Then we were asked to draw a bike. We had 5 minutes to use whatever material we wanted to draw a bike. Nearly all of us drew the bike from a side angle. I found it really difficult rawing from my imagination and panicked for a second as i couldnt remember what the frame of the bike looked like and almost forgot it had pedels!!  Even though the wheels weren't round and the frames were all different, you could tell that they were all bikes.

  

After we'd discussed the bikes, we then had another short amount of time to come up with some wuick sketched of dog exercise machines. I also found this difficult at first and worried about the neatness andclarity of my line drawings. Not my best work but I guess that doesn't matter when they're rough sketches. 

 

After a break we collected our monoprints. I really enjoyed the print session. I think it gives a drawing an extra element and makes it both more eyecatching and interesting to the audience. I' hoping to use alot of print this year whether it be monoprinting, screen printing or etching.

 

  

 These were my first prints. I quite like the effect of putting chalk onto the slate before putting it through the press, as well as the pattern the mesh creates. However, I had done monoprinting before and had never put it through a press, and so decided to do it the way I was taught by simply placin the paper or newsprint ontop of an inked slate and drawing ontop of the paper with various different objects.

 I think I preferred the way these turned out to how the ones i put through the press came out. I like the simple line drawings and the blotching ink patches.