Assignments

ASSIGNMENTS

Assignment 1: Greeting Card


This week I came back to my 'greetings' postcard project, with no ideas at all. At first I was so frustrated that I started feeling like a clown. Hence my first sketch:

This gave me a starting point for another sketch, describing my working conditions on the kitchen table etc:

I was supposed to be 'in the style of' Quentin Blake.  I liked it as a starting point and moved on to more ideas:

To get to this point, I had cut and pasted the paper (didn't know how to do this on the computer), and realised that the image of my son (with the axe) in his halloween costume reminded me of the boy in 'Where the wild things are'

I tried to 'adopt and adapt' some elements
like the trees, so they would be obvious
clues for people who know these books.
I tried to add shading with pencil marks
that would emulate his pen style, not sure
this was entirely successful.

Maurice Sendak

So here is my finished picture. It was made by printing the previous image in progress on art paper, then using gouache, pencils, and a pen (felt tip kind made for pen and ink).I made my image bigger than a postcard for putting in details more easily (25 x 17cm).

I'm having so many problems with this technology, I am wasting so much time with my beginner's mistakes! Here I was trying to show my finished image, plus the fact that although I can now control the size of the image in print, on paper - when it comes to what goes on the screen, how to place it, and make it in the same proportions as the original, it's the system controlling me rather than the other way at the moment. So this image should be 16.5 x 11.5 cm. I have show two here. The first one is scanned and added here. The second has been resized with photoshop elements first, and I have asked the computer to show it at that size, but look what I get (added as 'original size'). I have left it as an example of my continuing learning and battling.

Assignment 2: Point of Sale Display

The Brief:                                                                                                                                                     

To create images which will be used within a campaign for a supermarket, to package and promote a range of   seasonal foods.                                                                                                                                               

The supermarket is respected for the quality of food they supply.  They want to promote this notion of quality in their design and packaging.                                                                                                                              

The finished images will be a 'point of sale' display sited in a store near to the fruit and vegetables.  The final reproduction size will be 12 x 12 inches (30.5 cm). Your artwork can be same size or in scale.                         

What to do:

Create an illustration of fruit or vegetables.  One illustration for each of the ranges: Summer Autumn.

I had no problem thinking of summer fruits:

Tomatoes

Gouache and watercolours 

Strawberries

Gouache and watercolours

Grapes

Pen, watercolours and gouache

 I found the grapes more difficult to paint, and the strawberries the least - despite the fact that my son accidentally knocked the display of strawberries I was painting. Is it because I find them more tasty? 

Then I was thinking about autumn fruits, are these apples and pears? berries? I saw some ripe blackberries in June, seasons are shifting..., my greengrocer didn't know (!), he said we can get fruits all the time...


It was at that time that I was really going back to working on my course like I should, and I wanted to enjoy it rather than being bothered by shifting seasons...
so I decided to follow my ideas, after all my illustrations were going to 'be me' and if they were not exactly what the brief asked for, I would see to that later...

So I took thought about it. 

Here is what I decided to to:
I took pictures of children with fruits (in the end I gave them the camera and they took the pictures themselves). 
Then I chose the ones I wanted,and used them to paint portraits with fruits.

Andy with tomato eyes

Following this, I made a mood board for summer and used this to paint colours for a background.

Autumn mood board

Summer mood board

Finally I used the background to put together and finish my whole image digitally. This was exhausting as my skills with the computer are at the beginners stage (which shows when one looks at the unwanted line at the top which could have been avoided) but I'm determined to move on and keep learning. 

Summer (Andy with tomato eyes)

Here is my Autumn image for this assignment: 

To make this image, I painted a portrait from two pictures: one had Leo with a smiley face, and a pumpkin on his head, but it was not so clear that it was a pumpkin. One the other picture, the face wasn't right, but the pumpkin looked perfect. So I used paint.net and mixed the two pictures. I chose to paint it like the other pictures in the same series.

I realised that I had picked an image that did not go very well with the square format needed and decided to crop this image to see if I could get nearer to my ideal image. Here is the finished image:

Leo with pumpkin

It took me very long to assemble the scanned background, and the painting on the computer. I have learnt these skills very recently and mostly because of the finished product I wanted. 

I was very pleased with the finished image, except that it is obvious that I need to improve my 'photoshoping' technique. I have heard of the term 'feathering' and if I have time, will investigate to see if it is what I need here to improve on the merging of the two pictures.

On reflection, I am pleased with the progress I have made in this area. Other things I have to think about if I did something else like this: 

.   think of the format first - the pose (or position) of the subject and how it is going to fit that frame.

.   think of my skills and the time available. Learning something new takes a  long time, maybe well spent but  in the long run I must be able to finish within deadlines (either for a 'client' or for my course).

        I have one un-finished painting.

.   always have the final image in mind. Many of my initial pictures were not suitable - children making terrible  faces. Something else cropped up: I had given children a selection of fruits, that they picked themselves.Perhaps I should have been more in control of this too, like a film director!  

And finally, I am finally getting to grips with the presentation of my blog. It may not be perfect, but I am happier with it, and having less and less problems with it.

Here are other illustrations for this project:

the photo

my painting (oil)

Summer - Josie with cherries

I like my finished image. I also think that there are some digital software techniques that I probably don't know and could improve the image.  Despite this, I imagine that if the brief came from a client, this may not be what they are looking for exactly.  The fact that the images use oil paintings may be associated with quality.

Assignment 3: A Poster

The Brief: to design an illustration for a poster for a music event - I picked "a Jazz evening".

1. The moodboard: as usual, I found it very difficult to make one. I spent some time on the computer looking at some of my favourite posters - for a jazz festival in New Orleans, and others. I printed small images of those I liked best. In the end I decided what they had in common was mostly bright colours.

Ney Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival

Ivy Hayes

Milton (album cover)

Another influence:

Nótt, the personification of night in Norse mythology, rides her horse in this 19th century painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo.

This led to sketches of jazz players and ideas about making a poster with cherubs (I posted these in an earlier post by mistake).

I have learnt that I am not good enough to use the computer to cut and paste images. Putting it all together was done with tracing paper. I liked moving the figures around on bits of tracing paper until I was happy with the scene.  The function of my printer that can reduce or enlarge like a photocopier was also useful. 
However to decide on the final images, I had scanned my drawing and turned it in slightly different visuals.

Jazz 1

jazz 2

At this stage, I prefer "Jazz 1" as an image, but I'm not sure where the text will go.  Having no experience of making posters, I looked at the kind of thing people write on theirs:

Jazz Funk
FRIDAY 9th APRIL
8 TIL LATE
THE SANDPIT CLUB, OHIE...
TEL 669 741859






JAZZ
At the
Spotted Dog
Every
       Tuesday
                8:30 pm
Alcester St Digbeth B120NH
Drinks discounts for students
       and musicians.
Hot food Available for £1:50             etc.

Here is my poster.  I have used the computer to add text as I think it may be done, this is only to give an idea of what it could be like.  

The original painting has been made with acrylics, which I am just starting with. I still experience technical problems just to apply the paint smoothly!  I also added pencil and graphite. Unfortunately, the graphite doesn't scan well and some of the shading does not show.

It is worth noting that for the first time, I am proud of the result, despite all its little problems!



|Assignment 4: Magazine Illustration

I chose an illustration of the topic of "lost".  I wanted to work on the idea of a lost teddy. Armed with a teddy keyring, who looked not particularly happy, I placed it in various places in the house where it could look lost and sketched it.

Examples of sketches

Unfortunately, light pencil drawing doesn't show very well here, so I have made a small selection from many sketches.

                                                                                                                                      

 I worked a bit more on this sketch, in pen, watercolours and charcoal after the first round of pencil sketches.


I worked on the idea of making an image of a bear lost on a mountain of bricks, with  emergency rescue mice trying to help.

I remembered the images of Richard Scarry and thought my mice should do things and get into funny situations to make it more interesting for children.

I originally thought I would be able to make mice like this one, and would be able to put them in a cube landscape digitally. However, my scanner stopped working. I now decided to make an image with drawing and painting. I remembered a previous exercise where the image was too crowded with characters, so after my pencil sketch, I reduced the number of mice. Perhaps this is not sorted out yet, but it gives a good idea of what direction I would work towards ideally.

For this painting, I used many colours and ended up colouring the mice and mice things much less so they would stand out.  I worked on A3, much larger that I usually do. Unable to scan this image, I took a picture and will try to take a better one at a later date.
Although this was 'finished' because of the assignment is overdue, I could have worked on it more.  I wanted to add mice shadows, work on the shades of some cubes more to improve the perspective etc etc.  I also thought making another image seen from a different point of view - as seen from the floor level, and experiment with ways of closing up on the mice to be able to have more details. 

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this assignment and learnt a lot from it. I also re-discovered Richard Scarry, W. Heath Robinson, and Rube Goldberg. What a treat!

|Assignment 5: Seven Days

First ideas were based on the days of the weeks in songs on you tube, but didn't find them very inspiring. Another idea was to make small illustrations for a magazine, about the days of the week on the 5:2 diet. I started sketching ideas with a pig character.

 Reflecting on this, I thought I preferred making illustrations for children.

The Brief: the title is Seven days.
I chose to design illustrations that would be used online or in a brochure to schools, as a teaching aid.  The illustrations would be about the days of the week, and show nursery rhymes associated with the first sound of the day of the week.  For instance the sound "m" of 'Monday' would be associated with 'Mary had a little lamb', or 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary'.
The illustrations could be used for printing in a book, after consulting with a sample of schools.  I also thought of making it possible for the designs to be used for making cross stitch, but since I have started working on this assignment, I haven't had the possibility to consult friends who do cross stitch and check if this is at all possible.
Here are my roughs:

Sunday

Saturday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday.  The raindrops added in pencil, haven't scanned!

Friday 

Monday

The images I worked on were square. After uploading my pictures I have noticed that the quality has gone down and that they have been slightly changed, this is due to my scanner. There is also a large white margin around each picture.

This is an example of the design for Monday, 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary', painted in colours (gouache).

I was inspired by the children books of  Antoon Krings with their bright colorful illustrations and painterly style.

Antoon Krings

Sketchbook: