ASS4 - Project 1 - Tools and Materials

Exercise: Identifying tools and Materials

Here is a list below in categories of illustrators that I found that only use one type of medium:

Paper 
Jayme Mcgowen
Helen Friel
Lorraine Nam
Eiko Ojala
Mayuko Fujino
Sam Pierpoint
Jessica Palmer

Watercolour

Spiros Halaris
Michael Frith
Omar Figueroa Turcios
Tatiana Karpova
Kim Whittingham

Colour Pencils
Jennifer Harrison
Lia Selina
Morgan Davidson
Dallin Lee

Pen and Ink
Rohan Eason
Laura Fray & Jess Turley (artist duo ink inc)
Zoe Sadler
Sarah J Coleman
Ben Tallon

Collage
Michelle-Thompson
Megan Coyle
Dawn Maciocia
Lydia Coventry

From the above illustrators, I have looked at I am interested Dawn Maciocia in who uses collage:

website: https://www.dawnmaciocia.com

   I really like her style. She creates an image using a mixture of paint and different parts of the paper to create a mixed collage of animals. The are bright and very pretty. the had captured the animals well. She has grasped colours well and has a great composition in her work. She makes the animals the main focus in her art. Their movements and ways they are created in her work show that she has looked at each animal in their natural habitat, She has captured their personalities well. She also prints her original designs on cards and cushions. There are a lot of different textures and levels of her work which makes it very interesting to look at. The colours she has used create a sense of different seasons such as the first one with the badgers in she has captured winter, with no leaves on the trees and white paint marks to emphasise snow on the trees and on the ground. The berries in the foreground also remind you of winter as they are scarce that time of year which the birds need to eat. The artwork with the puffins on shows flowers on the green grass and the swirls in the sky represent the sun, which shows to me that these two puffin birds are enjoying summer time.

Overall I think she has a great style and as I'm interested in paper this is also another idea I could add to my style to also use a mix of papers even if they have writing on to add to my current style.

I am going to try her technique out on one of my old illustrations:

Here above is my attempt of using coloured paper to form an image. I used golds on the crown and cushion to give it a shimmery effect. I also added black around the poodle as Dawn does that a lot in her style. I had fun creating this and I feel I did a good job.

From the above illustrators I have looked at I am interested in Zoe Sadler who uses pen and ink

Zoe's art work is created by using watercolour and inks. She creates art with lots of character. I can see she likes to use shadows a lot to make things stand out in her art work. I like the one she has done with the submarine in the page, the submarine really stands out. She uses black outlines a lot to make items bolder too. Her composition in her art works well and there is no rule it all depends what she is drawing to where its going to be on the paper. She has fantastic tones to her illustration and this is done by using inks and watercolours. The illustration with the ship and the whales she has used dark blue for the sea and only used the shadows of the whales to evoke the mood that the ship is in deep waters. She creates texture with the black lines such as the fur texture on the fox illustration. I think her style works well to capture simple illustrations. 

I am going to try this technique out on the same old illustration I used above:

Here above is my attempt of the poodle illustration again but this time using Zoe's technique. I started off with watercolours first and then used some inks to add highlights and lowlights. I used a dark outline and used swirls to create textures of the ears. I  think my attempt went well. I like the highlights I have created. The only thing is that I did not use black lines but I thought this may have been too much. 

   Overall I have fun doing it and it was interesting to see the same illustration but in different styles. I enjoy experimenting.

The AOC illustration

    I think I mentioned previously that I left my job in December to pursue my career as an artist. I have recently taken up volunteering at a company called the Arts Of Change who use art as a way of therapy for mental illness, dementia and other issues they asked me to create an illustration to go on posters and leaflets that will be going to hospitals and doctors surgeries throughout England and Berlin.

     The brief was to create a scene using animals to promote Neuro dramatic-play. Neuro dramatic play is a therapy used to help mothers and babies bond before birth and 6 months after birth. In the illustration, had to show a mother and baby bonding. Neuro dramatic-play they use water and sand to play with to help the bonding this is how I came up with this illustration with a mother and baby whale playing in the water.

 This illustration worked well with the brief given and was made into leaflets and posters and put throughout England two weeks ago. I gave the original copy to the manager and he framed it and put it in the office so everyone can see how I create my illustrations using 3D effects with paper. He was overwhelmed with the illustration. I got paid £45.00 for it which was an added bonus and he is also asked me to do further illustrations in the near future this is a great opening for me to pursue my illustration career and was a good experience responding to a brief.

Other Illustrations

Here below is another illustration idea of a fox sleeping in his den again using paper. I really like how I'm coming on with these 3D paper effect. Sometimes I do miss drawing and sketching a finished image, so every now and then as your see below in a moment I do end up doing some drawings and really it does help me focus and create ideas for my paper illustrations

 The sketch above of an Indian girl I created whilst doodling.

Sketch above -  Child having a tantrum as she dropped her teddy

Above - Is a 3D paper illustration of a rabbit and carrots. Just expressing with paper.

ASS3 - Feedback From Tutor

Feedback from tutor

    I received my feedback from my tutor and I was so thrilled that she could see how much I have put in to make sure I get the best out of this course and experiment and learn from it.

   I love my paper style and I am glad she has noticed how much I am enjoying it and growing in confidence in my ideas in paper form.

   She did mention in ass 2 feedback that I need to put more sketches and experimentation in to my work and she was right. I found by doing this more in ass 3 that I was more confident in my work and more happy with the final outcomes.

    I am also trying out mixing my paper illustrations with digital and I think to step this up and experiment more, I am going to take on some courses to improve my digital skills so it can help me with my work development.

    Judy wrote about what tools I am using and I just want to let you know that it was not a pen knife I said the wrong tool in my blog. I have definitely been using a scalpel and various paper craft cutting tools that are especially for paper crafting. I did look at the links to the tools and I did buy some fresh blades which was a good idea as they get blunt quickly.

     I am looking froward to get stuck in to Assignment four. I feel this is going to be a great learning curve for me and improve my style and learn new ways how to use paper to create things. I hope to keep improving and evolving my style,

ASS3 - Final - A Poster

A Poster for a Music Event

    For this final assignment, I have to produce a poster for an event. I have collected a few advertisements to see how people advertise shows and music events:

      I see there's a wide variety of different styles and this depends on the type of event that is being advertised I'm now going to do some brainstorming and work out what type of poster I want to do.

   As you can see above I brainstormed and decided that I wanted to do a jazz poster. I like that it is very bold and recently I watched the film La La Land, where a man has a big passion for jazz music and I appreciated his love of it.

     I am now going to do some sketches of some ideas that I could use to create a poster:

     I like the neon Style as it reminds me of a shop flashing sign to advertise what is there. I am now going to attempt some paper examples to see what I can come up with.

Here above I created a Jazz poster by using paper, I used purple and fluorescent blues, yellows and Pink's, to create the sign. However, I feel that this group of colours especially the purple does not represent what I was trying to portray.

I'm now going to try again but this time with a black background and a different style:

    As you can see above, I tried to do the fluorescent sign, but I'm still not happy with it. I cut out the shapes of the structures and stuck it onto the black paper with the jazz writing, but I do not like it. It is not my usual standard of work. 

      I think I actually do need to do some further research into jazz music, so what I'm going to do next is search on Google for interesting images and illustrations, which I admire that are within the jazz theme.

   Here above are the images I collected. I really like the idea of perhaps using a silhouette in the poster and using other layers of paper to create colours.

I am now going to attempt to do a mood board, with the colours I feel that represent jazz music.

 I have decided to do my mood board in a saxophone shape to make it more interesting and to go with the theme.

   Hear above is my mood board I created using different bits of paper and materials that I could find around the home, that represents the colours and textures of jazz music.

    I feel happy and confident now that I can create some further illustrations that represent jazz better. I'm going to have a go at trying silhouettes for the idea that I like earlier

    As you can see above I created some illustrations. I really really like silhouette ideas and I think my aim is to do a silhouette using a whole A3 sheet of black paper and cutting it out with a knife. I really like the piano and the instruments on top, but I don't feel this would work for the type of poster I want. 

    My favorite one on here is the man playing the saxophone in front of the drum kit, I think it suits jazz music very well and it's a good representation of the theme. I am now going to redo this idea in my sketchbook so I can get a better idea of the silhouette and colours I'm going to use.

    So here we have my final illustration it is going to be made out of A3 black paper the arms may be a struggle as the one hand is separate from the rest but I think I will connect it and overlap the saxophone on to the top using yellow paper. I really like my composition and feel this will stand out on the poster.

   I am now going to begin creating my idea. I have got some tracing paper and I am going to trace over my image so I can transfer it onto black paper to cut it out.

     I am now going to get my tracing paper and stick it to the black paper and the knife board so that it doesn't move about while I'm cutting out the paper with my knife.

     As you can see above, I have cut out my silhouette. I'm really happy with it. However, I had one incident:

     As some areas were really thin, I accidentally cut off this piece but as it is a good break. I can secretly glue this together so nobody will notice. I found a pen knife to be really fun to use and I feel that my silhouette is true to my sketches.

    For the background, I decided that the Archway looked a bit too bold and I wanted it in the background. If I did it in the black silhouette it would look like it would be on the same level and would not look right. So I've decided to get an A3 sheet of yellow paper for my background and pencil in an Archway on there. Then use black freehand lines to create a sense of Archway which I am hoping will give my illustration a focal point on to the jazz man.

     As you can see above the background was a great idea using natural expressive Strokes. They work well to create an Archway. With the silhouette on top, it makes it pop out of the page. I am now going to add certain items in such as the drum the saxophone the man's collar and cuff off his shirt.

   The saxophone and drum are now in place, I really like the colour and it makes my image stand out even more.

 I have just added in the Colour of the collar and the cuff of the shirt. Again these little touches of detail work really well in my illustration.

    Now that I have done all I can do with the paper, I'm going take a photo and I've decided that I'm going to put it into Photoshop to edit it on there. Also to add words and maybe a frame around my illustration.

   As you can see above, I've started editing it in Photoshop. I have put a yellow, red and black borders around the image and I think it looks really great.  I am now going to play around with the font some more to get the right style. I have looked at a few poster ideas and feel that the jazz night title needs to be bold the Venue can be a bit smaller but it will still be on there with the location.

The final Jazz Poster

Here below is my final image:

     I am really thrilled about this illustration. I've worked hard on it and I feel it has come out really well. I really like the idea of using the silhouette and this works well as I'm using my own voice to portray a poster. I have a passion for using paper different ways and this is another option I have discovered that I can use in my work.

      I think the font goes really well. I edited the drum and the Jazz man's saxophone in Photoshop as I wasn't too keen on the detail I put on the saxophone with a pen. I have then filled it in yellow and used in orange outer glow on them. I feel this makes the image pop even more.

   I also used a bit of a shadow around the corners of the illustration. I think this gives it a dark expression when you're in a smoky jazz club watching a band. My mood, my expression, and the colours all join together to create a sense of a jazz style. 

My poster stands out, as it is vibrant and catches the viewers eye.

    Overall I have really enjoyed this assignment and enjoyed learning different ways and different things that you have to think of when creating work. Such as mock-ups, colours, the meanings and messages behind an illustration and what makes an image stand out. Also,  I have learned how to make the viewer focus on something important in an image. It has been really enjoyable and I'm looking forward to the next assignment.