OUIL403 Visual Skills-A day in the life (Drafting Finals)

After scanning in my final roughs into the computer, I adjusted the levels of the images to get a more crisp outline without losing any touches to the image which retain a handmade feel. 

After playing with a few different colour schemes I decided to use a few textures. Using a dry Copic marker I scribbled smoky shapes onto paper and scanned it in. I then overlayed this effect onto parts of my images where appropriate.


Once I had adjusted the levels of the images, I began to clear up any blemishes which could be seen, and creating neater lines. I then began to play with the colour of the images. Adding background colour and filling in the main features of the images.
I decided to avoid tones and shades, as I wanted the images to have a simple colour scheme to not distract from the focus idea of the illustration. 

After playing around with the textures, I decided that it made the images look a bit cluttered and scruffy so decided to leave them out. I decided I wanted the overall images to look much simpler than I was making them, so decided to stick to a colour scheme of black, white and green. This not only fit in with the article, but it allowed me to demonstrate all I needed to (black for smoke, white for negative space, and green for accent) without overcomplicating the image.

OUIL403 Visual Skills-A day in the life (Idea Development)

After the crit session, I went away with a fresh view on how I was looking at my images. The crit was extremely useful, by having my piers look at the images without knowing what the article was about, I helped me to understand that as much as the image has to look good, it also has a purpose to serve, to illustrate the general message of the article.

Thankfully, Mario was able to easily identify what the images were trying to illustrate, so I thik the idea is there, I just need to focus on making the image look professional.

The first thing I looked at was the development of composition in the images. Because the idea of the images was pretty clear, I simply needed to develop the aesthetics whilst still remembering to not lose the message.

Once I was happy with the look of the final image, I drew up more drafts of the image to scan into the computer. I decided to hand craft the initial part of the image, and process the image further digitally; this gives me the opportunity to try different colour and composition without having to restart.

Although digital enhancement will give a neat and professional feel, which suits my style, it is at risk of losing a hand made feel- something I feel should be preserved.

OUIL403 Visual Skills- A day in the life (Initial Ideas)

After investigating the story a bit more and documenting what I needed to find out more about and what objects I needed to investigate further, I started drawing very rough initial sketches to get some ideas down.

The article we were given had a few different points to it- firstly it was about air pollution and it's dangers in general, then moved onto a more specific story about the VW scandal earlier this year, then finally moved onto political corruption and about covering up the huge issue of UK emissions.

I decided against focussing on just one story, and therefore decided that each of the three images we were to produce would focus on a separate part of the story.

I jotted down some key words and subjects that I should use for each subject. For air pollution I thought the focus should be mainly based around smoke and factories, and a general image of dirt and illness. 

For the VW scandal part of the article, I decided to base the image around the corruption of VW, and the awareness they had that they were putting peoples health at risk. 

The political scandal was, for me, the hardest to illustrate, as finding a direct representation of political deception and ignorance was something I found to be an almost metaphorical matter. I therefore decided to go with a metaphor and illustrate that, 'an elephant in the room' which no one wanted to talk about, and was simply being ignored.

Line Drawing

My work is usually quite structured and clean. So fluid and reactive line drawing is not something I've ever really done. We were asked to pick an image and draw it 20 times to develop how we look at the object and how the image develops.

Although I did enjoy the session at first, I soon started to feel that although I was reacting to what I saw on the page, I was just making bad drawings almost on purpose...

However, I actually kind of like the drawings I made, especially the bikes, and in particular the one in the bottom right corner of the image below. I feel that particular image shoes a good understanding of how the bike looks in the image, but illustrates it in a more interesting way.

I will continue to develop and learn to understand how to illustrate fluidly.   

Sketchbook Seminar

During the seminar I realised that I really do spend too much tome worrying about weather my work looks presentable and realised that sketchbooks are for initial responses and ideas, not for finished illustrations.

I chose to focus on Treehouses, Lodges and Sheds, as I like the idea of making something really structural look quite interesting and fluid.

OUIL403 Visual Skills- Typology (Final Image and Evaluation)

Once the title and border had been created, I went on to add in the A-Z letters and wrote the name of the subjects underneath them as well as adding final tonal details to the images.

EvaluationOverall, I'm fairly happy with the final outcome of the brief and I think it fits the brief quite well. I'm really happy with the style used in the poster, I think it creates quite a funny contrast to have such a serious and clinical style used with a really silly subject. However I think the poster really could have used some colour, but because of the requirement for the poster to me monochrome, this was not possible.

Looking back, some of the images could have done with a bit more refinement and are possibly a bit simple, however I do like the simplicity of the images.

OUIL403 Visual Skills- Typology (Final Stages)

After refining the ideas for the final images, I went on to start with the final image. I started by drawing borders around the edge and outlining space for the title before going on to layout where the final images would go. I tried to avoid a gridded layout as I though the idea was quite juvenile and needed a 'messier' layout whilst still looking clean.

Having researched other typology posters, I finally decided on a looser layout where the images could sit comfortably in-between each other without using a gridded method which I thought would look a bit boring for this idea.

I chose to have the images in order from A-Z but the have them almost forming around each other into the space. The difficulty of this was deciding how big each of the images was as it could not be measured out. It did take a couple of tempts to get right as I couldn't the size of some of the images right, but got there in the end.

Once all of the images had been laid out and I was happy with the composition of the image I started to go over the images in fineliner and refine them. The process was slow (around 13 hours) to outline everything but I'm quite happy with the clean look of it.

Once all of the images had been outlined I went on to create the title. I decided to again go with quite a clinical style, and the effect was easy to achieve.

OUIL403 Visual Skills- Typology (Idea Development)

The next process of the Typology Brief was to develop the rough, initial sketches made in the first part. I decided to draw out the images and refine them as if they were on the final image.

I toyed with the idea of having all of the subjects shaped like penises, however I later changed my mind and chose a more discreet way of displaying the subjects. The next idea was to have the subjects for each letter drawn out very clinically in fine-liner with really neat linework, then to go over the images at a later stage in a thick, rough pen and almost graffiti over them to make them look like penises.

I then looked at the use of a grey copic marker to illustrate shade and colour, however was unsure weather this fit in with the 'monochrome' requirement of the brief so decided in the end to leave it out.

I then went on to look into the layout of the final image as well as sketching out rough ideas for the title of the poster.

OUIL403 Visual Skills- Typology (Initial Ideas)

 For the first part of the brief we were asked to produce 10 A-Z lists, containing a rough sketch for each letter. I started the process by writing out lists and choosing my favourites, but quickly learned that the best was to actually develop an idea was to start drawing things from one list and deciding through a process of elimination which ones would work.

After producing some lists I had an idea of which one I wanted to do, the group crit also helped me decide by asking other people what they thought of the ideas.

The final three I was torn between were:

- A-Z of Procrastination
- A-Z Guide to a panicked phonetic alphabet.
- A-Z of things that look a bit 'penisy'

Although my favourite in the was originally the Procrastination idea, I have decided not to go with it as a lot of the topics are situational, and would be harder to illustrate as floating spots.

The phonetic alphabet, I felt, would be easy to illustrate because I could literally choose any word that I wanted, so could choose the easiest to illustrate. However I have decided that I wanted to do something a bit more challenging and interesting.

The Penisy idea was by far the most popular in the group crit, and is in my opinion the most entertaining of my ideas. I also feel I could do a lot with the idea, and had ideas thought out how I wanted the final image would work, so have decided to go with this one and further develop it.

Observational Drawing

Today we did another session of observational drawing. I enjoyed this much more than the sessions last week, probably because I was able to take more time with the images and not rush.

We experimented with drawing from reference (drawing from a sourced image such as a photograph) and observational drawing (drawing from a live object or model). I'm not sure I had a preference between the two, although I felt I could put more expression in the observational drawings because the model was there infront of me and I could see the textures and form more clearly.

I found making multiple drawings of the same thing really helpful. It got much easier to understand the form of the plant and create more gestures and natural looking lines, I found understanding the thing I'm drawing to be really helpful.

We only used ink and brushes today, which I really enjoyed. I found it much easier to put in gestural lines into the picture, although I think my control of the brush could do with some work.

Below are my three favourite images I produced today. 

Visual Language- Observational Drawing

I think in general, the main reason I didn't enjoy the observational drawing is because it's not something I've ever really been good at. I found myself getting frustrated at myself because what I was seeing wasn't being translated on the page.

I think my main problem is rushing the work; I would try and rush one thing, trying to get it too perfect and then move onto another object. In hindsight I should have either taken more time on one object, or quickly get the main points down without as much detail.

I full understand why this is important to our work, understanding shape and form is vital to what we do, and this is something I will continue to practice and hopefully get better at through the year. I will continue to blog my developments of my observational drawings throughout the year, done in my own time, to monitor my (hopeful) improvement.