Inspiration 4 Illustration

Gola Viral

2012-01-31T08:38:00.000-08:00

This was my first project for my third year, it wasn't a project which I would of chosen to do. This viral was created to advertise Gola in a new way, not to re brand them but to 'relocate' Gola and get people talking about the brand. This viral was churned out in the last week as I struggled with good ideas however Im pretty happy with this output with the time I had left to produce it. I wanted it to be fun and make people smile, Enjoy.

Iceland

2012-01-31T08:20:00.000-08:00

I thought id share with you some pictures of Iceland which I went to a few months ago, it was simply a beautiful place and so were the people. I would definitely go back one day. Enjoy.

Shackleton Whisky Viral/Animation

2012-01-26T06:10:00.000-08:00

Finally I've got around to putting my animation I made for the last project I mentioned here on my blog, been absent for awhile but I've still been doing work that I will be putting up on here in the next few days.

To remind you, this viral was made for a project about some McKinley whisky that was found not long ago in Antarctica, it was left there over 100 years ago by some explorers lead by a man named Shackleton. This animation tells you about that story and how it was left in the ice for over 100 years.

Shackleton Whisky

2011-05-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

This is my latest completed project, it was to brand a new type of whisky. The whisky was a reintroducing of a recipe from Whyte and Mckay that was lost long time ago but was found again in the form of some crates of whisky found buried in the ice under a hut in the Antarctic. It was left there by Ernest Shackleton and his crew in 1909 who were on a Antarctic expedition to be the first to the south pole but they weren't successful and had to flee on their ship Nimrod and left behind supplies including the whisky that was left forgotten for over 100 years, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12202880

I decided to concentrate on the background story to the whisky as thats whats unique about it. On the Glenmorangie website they have some virals/mini animations telling you about different aspects of the whisky which I loved and wanted to do one for Shackleton whisky brand. Using my own illustrations and photo's I made a frame by frame animation telling you about the rich background to the whisky.

I could't attach the animation itself so here some screenshots of the animation to give you an idea of what its like:

This is only a sample of the frames to give you a idea as their are 365 of them!

Le Paris!

2011-04-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

I've recently just returned from Paris and got to test drive my new camera which I guarded for dear life! Here are a selection of my photo's :

Notre Dame

Parisan sunset.

Louvre.

Some of the amazing architecture in the Louvre.

Mona Lisa, which was tiny!

Most impressive beautiful painting, the moment Napoleon took the crown from the pope and put it on his own head.

Underneath the glass pyramid Louvre.

Arc de Triomphe

Eiffel Tower

Locks on 'Lovers Bridge'.

Glass pyramid in the Louvre.

Eiffel Tower lit up at night.

Click on the photo's to make them bigger.

Bolton Abbey

2011-04-18T10:56:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures I took recently at Bolton Abbey, I took them with my new SLR Camera which I was very excited about getting. I've wanted to get one for awhile as I do love taking photo's and I've been wanting to experiment and get better with them.
Click on the Photo's to make them bigger:

Hallmark Christmas Cards 2012

2011-03-10T02:16:00.000-08:00

This is my latest completed project for university in conjunction with Hallmark cards, I produced five cards that had to show a unique theme that was chosen based on the up and coming trends for christmas/winter 2012. I chose a classic theme of winter wonderland using classic black and white but with added nut browns, greys and hints of the pastel pink to create a romantic twist. They are yet to be judged so fingers crossed.

P.s sorry if you can't see them individually, click on the image to see them bigger.

Christmas Card Competition

2011-03-10T02:06:00.000-08:00

This is a post I forgot to do a while back. This is my design for a Christmas Card Competition at University with a chance to win abit of money and going to a printers to see your own design being printed. I came an unofficial 3rd as my card got a mention and I got invited to go to the printers which I was unable to go to. I was fairly happy with that to say this only took me an hour or so with a few ribbons, stars and a camera.

New York Sketchbook

2011-03-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

After my recent trip to New York I had to produce a sketchbook celebrating the city and this is the result. It was produced in a neat little sketchbook that you can fold out and also flick through it like a sketchbook so I tried to make my illustrations flow so it would work when you folded it out and if you saw it page by page. All the illustrations were based on the photos i had took while i was there and they were done in indian ink. Enjoy.

New York! New York!

2011-02-26T14:16:00.000-08:00

Its abit late i must admit but i went to New York in mid january and got some amazing photo's of the city, Ive never been to America before and I will never forget my experience there. It was a trip with my university and we were given freedom and could do whatever we wished. I think the highlight of my time there was going up the Empire State Building to the observatory just before sunset and seeing the city in all its glory at night. Here's just a few of the photo's i would like to share with you.

Times Square

Central park looking onto the city

Looking across the river at Brooklyn from Manhatten

New York from the top of Empire State just before sunset

New York from the top of the Empire State at night

Me walking across Brooklyn Bridge

Wall of type: part 2

2011-01-08T12:24:00.000-08:00

For the second part of this project I had to produce 12 illustrations in at least 6 different media's based on this wall of type we had just built. We had to present the illustrations in a appropriate way to advertise the company Steadtler who sell arts materials. So I decided to produce a sample book using my illustrations although I don't have a photo of the finished sample book put together just the final illustrations which are below.

Wall of Type: Part 1

2011-01-08T12:09:00.000-08:00

The wall of type was my latest project at university where we had to each make a letter or symbol (I made scissors) each, then the lecturers put them together on our studio window as a wall hence the name. I got to make scissors which wasn't the easiest shape to make but i came up with this but it definitely wasn't the best as will see in the photo's below.

Making the scissors:

The type had to be free standing and between 50cm to a metre high using any materials that were light weight. I made my scissors out of foamboard which I then joined together at the top so it could stand on its own, then in between the gaps of the foamboard cut-outs I put tracing paper, which i used as i needed a translucent material so i could make it into a light feature.

The wall of type:

Heres my scissors in the wall although for some reason they never put the light in it which annoyed me as that was the whole point!

Under Milk Wood

2010-11-20T14:19:00.000-08:00

I recently completed this brief at university to illustrate the play 'Under Milk Wood' by Dylan Thomas. I had to produce three character illustrations, a location illustration and a front cover design. These illustrations were to be viewed along side the radio broadcast of the play. The play is based in a fictional seaside village called Llareggub, it starts at night and focus's on the dreams of the village folk and then as the sun rises explores the morning activities in the everyday life of the village folk.

Here are my final pieces:

I did them in Oil pastels which is a medium I haven't really used before but Im happy with how they turned out, I then put them in photoshop and adjusted a few things some more than others. One thing I did realise was my typography skills need improving.

Under the Mystical Wood

2010-11-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

This is an old Sketchbook front cover I did awhile ago I was just looking through my old work recently and I still really like this. You may not really see it on this photo but it the trees i embossed by using Mod-rock first I then painted the design on top using Acrylics.

iPhoto Experiment

2010-10-11T15:17:00.000-07:00

Recently I've discovered alot of new capabilities of iphoto on my Macbook which I got nearly a year ago. One of them was adjusting/changing photo's that you have stored/imported on iphoto. I put all my photos on iphoto now as I think its a really good place to organise and store them to create an image bank of both personal photos and those random photo's of all sorts of interesting places and buildings etc which can be used for reference for my work too. Anyway this photo below was just something I messed around with on the edit settings in iphoto and I really liked the results.

Naive Art- Guido Vedovato

2010-10-11T09:33:00.000-07:00

For my most recent project Ive been looking at a artist style/movement called Naive Art. Its Art which has been produced with a childlike quality in its subject or technique. It classically will include simple colours or shapes, some have a strong use of distorted perspective and pattern/texture.

This lead me on to discover this artist Guido Vedovato; who's work really stood out, id never seen anything like it. I love the colours, the composition in his work and his characters which remind me of picasso's work. Very cubist influence in the style which I love.

These are but a few of his works please go look at his website for these and more! http://www.guido-vedovato.it/

Work for the YSP

2010-09-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

This will probly be my last university review post which you may be glad of because I know I certainly am :)

This project was a group project which included an advertiser, 2 illustrators(including me) and 2 graphic designers. The project was to look at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park's (YSP) friends scheme and basically improve it by choosing a very specific target audience and designing at least 5 products that are aimed specifically at the chosen target audience that they could buy at the YSP shop. We were also to come up with an event to promote the friends scheme and YSP to this target audience, a online campaign and online shop that the products could be sold on, a press release for the event, a unique sketchbook design that can be mass produced, a point of sale display where the sketchbooks would be shown and lastly to also to present ideas that could be done in the future.

Our group decided to choose parents with at least one blind/visually impaired child and one able-sighted child, which I thought was a very challenging but rewarding audience to aim at. We blogged everything to do with this project so please take a look at our ideas here; http://yspuniproject.blogspot.com/

My main role in this project was to design and produce the sketchbook design aimed at our target audience. So here is the final product which took alot of time and effort but I was pretty happy with the result. The design is a simplified version of one of the sculptures in the YSP done in layers of ink and special embossed paint that i made myself by mixing Acrylics and salt so then the visually impaired child can make out the shapes. I also did them in 5 different bright colours to also appeal to the able sighted children. To find out exactly the stages i went through heres a post about the process:
http://yspuniproject.blogspot.com/2010/03/final-sketchbook-designs.html

Bordeaux

2010-09-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

I may of mentioned that recently I went to France and while I was there I visited the amazing and beautiful city of Bordeaux. I felt I had to share some of the photographs I took there, if I ever get the chance I will definitely go back its such a massive city with lots of things to see and do.

For these and more please visit my Flickr.

Da Vinci: The Genius Exhibition at MOSI

2010-09-12T11:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was lucky enough to go see the most amazing exhibition showing the true genius of Leonardo Da Vinci. As I have mentioned before he is a big inspiration to my work and one of my favourite Artists but he wasn't just an artist he was also an inventor, scientist, engineer, sculpture, anatomist, Biologist, musician, architect, philosopher.. he was all these and much more. This is what the exhibition ' Da Vinci: The Genius' was set to show and achieve, never has there ever been one exhibition to show all of Da Vinci's in depth knowledge and genius in all of the many subjects. So I had to go and see it.

"Leonardo’s legacy of genius is preserved primarily in his codices; tiny notebooks of categorised

drawings and writings on a multitude of subjects. Unravelling the mysteries of these codices and bringing to life the inventions, ideas and philosophies of this great man is essentially the journey of the Da Vinci -The Genius exhibition. This is not an exhibit of original artefacts; Leonardo never actually produced the majority of what he designed, what little remains has failed the test of time. This exhibition provides a tangible and easy to understand exploration into the diversity of ideas that consumed arguably the greatest mind the world has ever known."

Quote from the exhibition site: http://davincithegenius.com/traveling-exhibition.php

I saw the exhibition at The Museum of Science and Technology (MOSI) in Manchester and it actually ends today when the exhibition had already been extended from June as it was so popular. It is a traveling exhibition that is going all around the world and it was well worth the £5 I payed to see it. The exhibition had everything, the secrets behind his most famous works Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and The Vitruvian Man and prototypes made from his sketches of many of his inventions in the codices, also his Anatomical studies/sketches which I absolutely love and lots more. It was an amazing experience and I found out how much more of a genius he was than I originally thought! Please if you get chance, go see it! Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photo's so I took these off of the exhibition site which you have to go check out: http://davincithegenius.com/index.php

New Blog Header

2010-09-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

Had the other blog header for awhile so I designed this one as a replacement!

NEW

OLD

Please tell me what you think! better than the old Inspiration 4 Illustration header?

Hybrid

2010-09-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

Another university review this time on a project where I had to produce some hybrid images. I experimented with the Giraffe and Corkscrew which I had to combine to create a hybrid. I found this project quite hard to get into at first and I wanted to come up with hybrids that weren't the obvious, I wanted them to be different.

These are some of the experiments and ideas I came up with:

The finals didn't turn out quite how I would of wanted them so I just want to show you this one, the illustration is called 'Screwed'.

Check out these and more on my flickr too!

My New Flickr!

2010-09-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry haven't been any posts for a few days but been pre-occupied with my new flickr page which you may have noticed appearing on the side there. Lots of stuff going on there at the moment so please take a look and make me a contact! would greatly appreciate it! It has most of the my work you have seen on here and more, photographs that I have taken and sketches, my illustrations and more.

So yeah please go and click on the my flickr! :)

Macaroons!

2010-09-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

I know this post is totally off topic to my usual stuff but i just had to mention it. I went to france for a few weeks not long ago and I do have a really big love for food but especially sweet things so I tried some proper french macaroons. They are amazing! I've never tasted anything like them and I've had a fascination with them ever since.

I first tasted them while me and my boyfriend were walking through the centre of Bordeaux and we stopped at a Boulangerie (French Bakery) called Paul and saw them we just had to try them. I got a vanilla and my boyfriend got a bright green pistachio one... so there we were sat in a French cafe in Bordeaux eating macaroons with a lovely cup of tea it was a amazing!

So for the rest of the holiday I was on a mission to try all sorts of sizes and flavours of macaroons!

These macaroons we bought from a macaroon stall at a french market in a village called Riberac in the south of France in Dordorgne. We got coconut, raspberry, another pistachio, chocolate, nut and caramel.

I've never mentioned it before but I also love baking too and since I've been back in England I've been inspired to try and bake some myself, so hopefully on a totally off topic post I will post the results.

The Crouching Man

2010-08-31T09:46:00.000-07:00

Going to start posting quite a few of photographs I've taken of interesting places and things as i do quite like and take alot of photographs mostly of very random things.

So heres my first, The Crouching Man.

These are Photographs that I took and really love of some little paper sculptures I made awhile back. They were just little study's of the human form, which i have expressed before is a subject i have based alot of my art upon.

Overheard

2010-08-31T09:28:00.000-07:00

Little Note: My first post for a while i know, been very busy last few weeks been on holiday and working so its been hard to keep blogging but starting uni again soon so lots of blogs to come in the next few weeks.

Another university review post, this one on a project called Overheard. The project was based on the idea of writing down things that we have overheard in a conversation in all sorts of different situations also making rough sketches/drawings of the people involved in the conversations then to produce a book based on them. I chose to concentrate my project on my little sister, i noted what she said and conversations she had with loads of different family members and drew the situations.

I wanted to produce my book in a children's book style and so i hand drew all the images and writing using ink and colouring pencils.

This was the end result, didn't turn out quite how i wanted it but i was happy with the front cover.

Leonardo Da Vinci

2010-07-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite artists, Leonardo Da Vinci was one of my first artist inspiration. I became interested in him when i was at school and also in the renaissance period itself too. I started off as someone who was very fine art based and thats where my love of art started, only recently have I took the path of an illustrator and illustration. So Leonardo Da Vinci remains a big inspiration of mine along with other fine artists.

My favourite pieces of his work aren't his paintings, what fascinated me was his sketches of the human body which is another reason why I took an interest in him as I share his fascination with the shape and tone of the human form. I love how his sketched looked so effortless and quick yet the proportions of the body and the form where so perfect.

What I admire most about Da Vinci was his approach to his work, he wasn't just an artist he was a scientist and an inventor. Much of my early work was in a similar style to his, below are some very old sketches on some work sheets of mine of his work.

Kleenex Tissue Illustrations

2010-07-22T03:14:00.000-07:00

I have to show you this Kleenex tissue box as I love the illustrations on it.

Loved the idea and the comic book style they are done in, I thought they were a great way to make a tissue box way more interesting and fun!

Mid-Summer Nights Dream

2010-07-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

Right like I promised another old acrylic painting of mine done a couple of years ago for my A-levels. It was based on the theme 'mid-summer nights dream' hence the name. Done on a board covered with Canvas thats around roughly 5ft by 2 ft, the bottom half I did with acrylics and then the media gradually changes as Ive added more water to the paint then used inks for the top half. The woman's face and the hair were all based on photo's i had taken of my mum and the butterflies found images that i used as reference. Was feeling experimental and wanted to see how it turned out, I think i came to the conclusion that it would of looked better all painted.

Sorry about the photo's there not the best so might retake them and replace these ones as there is something in the corner covering some of the painting so not a entirely clear view of it. I also filled a sketchbook with work on this and did a graphite drawing based on the same theme so will dig them out to show you. Oh and I still own this painting if anyone is interested in buying it :)

Stay tuned for loads more work!

Acrylic Door Painting

2010-07-19T13:13:00.000-07:00

Found these pics of an old painting of mine which I did on a massive 7ft Old door. It was done for my GCSE final piece about 4 years ago so I thought I challenge myself. At the time I was going through a painting phase and loved acrylics so its mostly done in acrylics but the bottom part of the door I covered in coloured tissue paper first then painted over it. The painting if I remember rightly was based on natural forms and as you may see includes self portrait too which i wasn't entirely confident about or happy with in the end.

Unfortunately the painting doesn't exist anymore as couldn't keep or store a 7 ft door around my small house so all thats left are these photo's, shame really as I was quite proud of it at the time. Hope you like it :) will also be digging out and showing you some more of my old paintings and work this week so stay tuned for that.

Also lots more NEW personal work coming soon!

Working with Adobe programs

2010-07-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

For this project I had to produce a 3 pieces of computer generated work using the Adobe programs: Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign. Each one was created using old illustrations and photographs I had taken which were then manipulated and changed using the Adobe programs.

PHOTOSHOP

This one I used illustrations that I had done for a book called 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' By Hunter S. Thompson, as you can see they depict very gruesome scenes and I decided to make this and my illustrator piece along the same theme. I also used some old interesting photo's.

ILLUSTRATOR

Similar to the photoshop one I used illustrations that i did awhile back, also some found images.

INDESIGN

This one turned out different to the other two which I didnt intend but I still quite like the result. I used some old photo's which I manipulated in Photoshop and created some text with a scan and using the pen tool in Illustrator.

Project Colourstory

2010-07-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

I decided to get rid of my university review page as I thought it was too long a entry for anyone to be bothered to read and so Im reposting it the stuff that i put on it and putting all the rest of the work that I was going to put on that page with the rest of my blog.

Anyway, so heres my first university review post on the project Colourstory.

This Project was based on a colour and the colour that I chose was Grey, exploring the meanings and feelings the colour creates. I had two main ideas for this project the first I explored was the Grey wolf. They are normally portrayed as an aggressive, evil creature in literature and films but I wanted to explore the other side the real grey wolf, who is a shy, pack/family orientated creature. To do this I was going to investigate its behaviour in the wild, its features portraying certain feelings etc.

The second idea which I decided to then carry on the project with was the Black & White photographs. The grayscale qualities within them are unique and something which don't appear in colour photographs. They show age, the passing of time and the past all of which I find interesting. So to take it a step further I collected Black and White photographs from my own family archives and found some amazing qualities and history in them.

These are 3 of my final pieces on this project all done using Ink and water, I love the different tones that ink has made to show the details of the people in the photographs I have used as reference.

Will post more work soon!

Sam Webber

2010-07-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

I know its been awhile since I last posted but haven't had alot of inspiration recently and been busy of late but i do have quite a few posts lined up so I promise it won't be another month before i post something else.

I have mentioned this Illustrator before in a post but i love his work so much I want to do a whole post dedicated to him only. Sam Webber is a Illustrator who lives in New York, his work is a good mix of painting (Acrylics and watercolour mainly), inks and digital which I love.

The Paper Soldier

As you might have guessed I love using inks in my own work and really like the detail you can achieve with them, i love this piece especially the contrast of colour and the texture of the bark.

Here are some more of my favourites which I haven't showed you before:

Illustrations for Dc/Vertigo Comics - 'House of Mystery'

Illustrations for the book: 'Lord of The Flies'

One of his experimental pieces: 'Pillar of Salt'

'Smoke'

I love the way he utilises the medium he uses in each piece and the colours, also how he combines surrealism with realistic nature of the figures and faces in his work. Go visit his site to see all these and much more: http://sampaints.com

Look out for my next post full of new personal work!!

Elfwood: Eric Chen

2010-05-02T05:34:00.000-07:00

Love these pieces by a Fantasy/Sci-Fi artist named Eric Chen again from the site Elfwood: http://www.elfwood.com/. They have been computer generated I think done in Photoshop. I love how perfect the proportions are in the bodies and how they have a 'purity' about them.

"Storm song"

http://www.elfwood.com/~ericisnow/Storm-Song.2727151.html

"Lost"

http://www.elfwood.com/~ericisnow/Lost.2727152.html

"Sorceress of the emerald glade"

http://www.elfwood.com/~ericisnow/Sorceress-of-the-emerald-glade.3557496.html

"Swan Song"

http://www.elfwood.com/~ericisnow/Swan-Song.3552197.html

Elfwood: Sci-Fi and Fantasy Art

2010-04-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I discovered the wonderful world of Fantasy and Sci-Fi Art through this amazing site called Elfwood (http://www.elfwood.com). I used to spend hours looking through the site as they have 100's of galleries of both amateur and practising artists/illustrators of fantasy and Sci-Fi work. I went through a long phase of playing fantasy/Sci-Fi PC games and got very addicted to it, I got into the whole genre, the art, the games, the films and the books. I still love them now.

Here are some pieces that caught my eye and examples of what you will see on the site:

Selina Fenech: http://www.elfwood.com/~almira/Stolen-in-her-Sleep.2505016.html

http://www.elfwood.com/~almira/Along-the-Forest-Path.2504980.html

I have abit of an obsession with winged creatures/Angels

http://www.elfwood.com/~almira/Fallen-4.2505004.html

There are plenty of Manga and Anime art on the site

Jenna 'Kaikisuka' Linn Barton: http://www.elfwood.com/~kaikisuka2/When-It-Rains-It-Pours.3470238.html

Natalia P. Gutierrez: http://www.elfwood.com/~natalia007/Up-at-the-skys.3072385.html

She has some amazing dragons check them out!

http://www.elfwood.com/~natalia007/From-the-moonlight.3072363.html

http://www.elfwood.com/~natalia007/Lord-of-the-Ocean.3538155.html

Rae A Anderson http://www.elfwood.com/~raeanne/The-Slipper.3140980.html

Adele Loreinne: http://www.elfwood.com/~adele/Forsaken.2483901.html

Rachel Anne Marks: http://www.elfwood.com/~pixydust/Lost-In-You.3122948.html

Please visit the site for these and much, much more amazing Fantasy/Sci-Fi art!: http://www.elfwood.com/

Illustrator Inspiration

2010-04-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

I havent done a post in a while been rather busy of late with university deadlines. Following on from my last post on children illustrators, I came across another children's illustrator called Penny Weber. Her work appeals to me as it is realistic yet still cartoon, this style is something which I've aimed for in my recent work on a university project.

Im a big fan of hand drawn illustration which you may have noticed as this is the way I practice in my work. I love the process of producing them hand drawn and experimentation with media. Although I do love digital pieces also, I think there are qualities in hand drawn that I appreciate and appeal to me more which aren't in digitally produced illustrations. Here are my favourite illustrations of Penny Weber:

I love the media and colours used in these illustrations and the fun they convey. Visit her site where all these and more of her illustrations are: http://www.pennyweberart.com/

Children's Illustration Inspiration

2010-04-04T06:49:00.000-07:00

Only in the last year have I really developed an interest in Children's book illustration. When I was at college I illustrated a short children's story and found it really fun, which I will find and post it on here. So now Im at Uni I think its the perfect time to explore this path more in my Uni briefs/projects and see ifs its something I would want to do in the future maybe as a career (hopefully if I get that far!).

So at the moment one of the briefs i am working on which I may of mentioned before is 'Overheard' where I note down the conversations I hear and draw the scene from observation etc. I've decided to concentrate mine on my little sister (she is 3) and Ive been following her around and drawing, taking note of what she says etc and now Im going to make it into a little children's book.

So I decided to get some inspiration from current children's illustrators to see the range of styles and media etc. I didn't want to look at the obvious really famous ones such as Quentin Blake as Im not looking for that kind of style, so all the following illustrators I found from this site: http://www.childrensillustrators.com/

Kate Daubney:

Bernhard Oberdieck:

Lorraine Dey:

Dave Hill:

Alayna Paquette:

Elizabeth Buttler:

Julia Noonan:

Jennifer Zivoin:

Will upload some of my work from this project soon.

Photoshop Experimentation

2010-03-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

As i have previously said, Im not very experienced with using Adobe programs but by using and experimenting with them Im learning and getting better...hopefully :). Plus I have to use them in my Degree and in the Design industry you cant avoid them.

So for a project in a module of my degree called Intro to digital I have done these digital pieces using some old work and arranging them into a final piece hopefully showing the use of layers.

For the First Experiment I used a photograph of a Paper sculpture which i made a while ago. The sculpture is made out of paper and wrapped in wire to create it shape. I wanted to make this image have the feel of one of those polaroid snapshots of a criminal. These images show some of my progress on manipulating this photo:

Original Photo:

Enhanced Version where I changed it a grayscale image, used filters and changed the contrast etc:

Another version where i messed around with lighting effects:

For my second experiment I again used a old photo graph of my brother, in which I wanted him to look scared, frightened and maybe abit startled. There is a theme running through each experiment as at the end I put them together into one piece. So for this image I wanted to exaggerate the feelings the photo already express, to make him look like he is hiding his face from something horrible or gruesome.

Original Photograph:

Enhanced version, I cut him from the background and changed the exposure,contrast, levels etc:

Another version in grayscale, I used this version for the final piece as it is grayscale too:

For my third experiment I used a scan which I have posted before on this blog. Its an illustration of a situation/line in a book I was illustrating a while ago called 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'. The book is full of drug taking, hallucinations and shocking scenes hence its shown in the illustrations. The aim here was to make the the great dane look like it was colliding into the girl and so I tried to introduce movement into the image.

Original Scan:

Enhanced version, changed the image to grayscale but kept the colour of the blood:

Final Version, exaggerated the colour of the blood and used blur to give the image movement:

For the final experiment I used another scan again from the illustrations i did for the book 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'. For this image I wanted to make it look more 3D so made the body and the hands two layers so i could use filters on the body and mess with the sharpness and colour of the hands to bring them forward. Here is the result:

Original Scan:

Enhanced Version:

Will upload the final image soon in which I bought all the experiments together into one piece.

Imperial War Museum; Don McCullin and Photojournalism

2010-02-21T07:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday me and my boyfriend went to the Imperial War Museum in Salford/Manchester. The Musuem had two main exhibitions on, one was the main exhibition which holds all the memorabilia from wars that start at 1914 to the modern day, this exhibition never changes. The other however was an exhibition of Don McCullin's work.

Don McCullin is a internationally known Photojournalist who over his career captured mainly in black and white pictures of war by visiting war zones. This includes civil war in Biafra, Nigeria, in which he captured civilians starving in terrible conditions. These photos were truly shocking. Also his work of the Vietnam War and the Northern Ireland conflict which are particularly high regarded works. I found his work powerful and touching, he took photos from both the soldiers perpective but also the victims too. He seemed to me a recorder of the true colours of war, his photos told the story of the real life soldiers and victims. He described himself as 'a War Junkie', to me he is a brave and very lucky man because of the horrific things he has seen but also the fact that he wasn't killed himself because many a time he put himself in personal danger and seen follow journalists and soldiers he was travelling with killed.

Shell shocked Soldier; Vietnam War 1968

To me his work is an amazing catalogue of the experiances of wars that he documented but also a document of his life and what he has seen, i found his life and story a fascinating one.

If you are interested in photography/ journalism or war then please go visit the Imperial War Musuem and Don McCullins exhibition!

Here are some of the photos I saw and that are being exhibited at the Imperial War Museum (including the one above):

Dead Soldier and personal belongings; Vietnam War.

Injured Soldier; Vietnam War.

Starving Mother and Child; Biafra/Nigeria civil war.

Turkish women mourns the death of her husband, victim of Greek/Turkish civil war; Cyprus 1964

Starving Albino Child; Biafra.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas work for new project

2010-02-04T04:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday i dug up some old work i did last year, Im using it for a new project/brief Im working on at university in my Intro to Digital module. The brief is basically that we have to complete a piece of work using Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign adobe programs. Firstly we have started the photoshop piece in which we have to show the use of layers by taking screen grabs showing the process. We have to include photography work, our own scanned

illustrations/work and found images incorporated into one piece.

Ive decided to use some work I did in my foundation year at college last year, the work is a series of illustrations for the book 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. The original illustrations where done by an illustrator called Ralph Steadman.

These are some examples of the illustration he did for the book. Visit his site:

http://www.ralphsteadman.com/

Heres some of my Illustrations with the quotes for some of the scenes in the book:

'Were right in the middle of a Fucking retile zoo! And somebody's giving booze to these goddamn things!'

' He did not scream when he pulled out his eyes'

'Wednesday night police said Innes seemed to be in a deeply depressed state and so impervious to pain that he did not scream when he pulled out his eyes'

Not sure what quote I was illustrating here but a girl in an alley is being attacked by rapid great dane dogs.

'So impervious to pain that he did not scream when he pulled out his eyes'

'Right next to me a huge reptile was gnawing on a women's neck'

'All my well re-hearsed lines fell apart under that women's stoney glare'

I plan to use these scanned pieces not sure which ones yet i also have scanned some found paper of different colours and textures as a background for the photoshop piece but haven't chosen photograph's yet. Will blog the results soon.

Discovering Illustrators

2010-01-28T12:14:00.000-08:00

For one of my lectures at university called Drawing for visual communication, we were shown examples of work by illustrators who our Lecturer thought were influencial and ones who had inspired him in his own work. The lecture was to show composition in pieces of illustration and how effective the use of space/scale/colour etc could be, to create an effective piece. So during the lecture I took all the illustrators he mentioned down and researched their work. I have chosen to share the Illustrators which I found to be inspiring to me.

At the moment I am working on a brief called 'Overheard' for this particular module. The idea is to go to different locations however bizarre or everyday and listen to conversations you have 'Overheard' hence the name and produce an artist book about a conversation or a location. Ive found it quite challenging and have lost direction with the project. So I decided to look at the works of practising illustrators to try and break through this brick wall I have come up against.

Sam Webber:

I am a big fan of using traditional media and ways to create work and so naturally when I came across Sam Webber's paintings (most likely scanned and touched up in photoshop) I was inspired and loved these particular pieces below. Why not visit his site; http://sampaints.com/

Memory Of A Wind

For a short Story by Rachel Swisky;

' Agamenon Sacrifices his daughter, Ighigenia, so that he may have wind to sail his warships to Troy'

Eros

The New Yorker

For another short story by Alice Munro;

'A Widow crafts an elaborate lie to save her own life'

Matt Duckett:

Again Matt Duckett uses traditional painting in his work and also does Installations. I've always had a fascination with drawing and painting people and Matt's work reminds me of my life drawing sessions at college and my work during my A-levels. To see more visit his site; http://matthewduckett.com/

Albert Bertolin;

I found Albert Bertolin' s Illustrations very different to any I've seen before, their very childlike. They remind me of a child's doodles as they look like there done in felt tips, they capture a child's wild imagination. Visit his site;

http://www.heliumcowboy.com/hc_digilog/farzar_bertolin/

Nina Chakirabarti;

One particular piece captured my eye when browsing on her website; . I love the idea of taken found images in this case a magazine cover and drawing/painting on top of it. Visit her site;

http://www.ninachakrabarti.com/

Posters for Elland WMC

2010-01-21T11:48:00.000-08:00

Recently I was asked to design and print two posters for Elland Working Men's Club. My friend works there and had heard that the club needed somebody to do some posters for them as the guy who usually did them charged £10 per A2 poster done in Marker pen and so they wanted them done for less. My friend mentioned it to me and so I thought it would was a good idea plus I could earn a bit of money too.

I'm not the best at digital design and found it boring and laborious, but since starting uni where we have a Intro To Digital module, I've realised its a valuable skill to have especially in Communication design which is my field. So I'm going to spend time using Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign as much as i can (I have to do this anyway for uni) until hopefully I can enjoy using it and being creative with them.

I decided I would do the posters digitally but I didn't want to do them too fancy or spend lots of time on them because I wasn't being paid a huge amount. I used word to do them although now I've done them I wish I had used photoshop.

I enjoyed the experience which was the main thing and I earned abit of money in the process.

The posters were to promote two different events at the club. The first was 'Tetley's promotion night' and the second is a audition night for acts to perform to see if the club would hire them to perform during this year.

I produced two posters but printed three copies of each. The posters are hung up now in Elland Working Men's club!