OUIL504- Printed Picture- Doubts

I have started having doubts about the work I am producing in the brief and weather it actually fits what the brief is asking. I was wondering weather using textures within a digitally produced method is really enough of a printed kind of thing.

The pot that I have as a running element through my prints could also be classed as using 'printed elements' as the brief requires, as it works with overlayed colours, albeit digital (though the same outcome could be produced with screen printing).



By using the green and pink colours, they can be overlayed to create a more purple colour (I think) so I guess this could be classed as a printed element.

Having talked to other students, they are doing pretty much the same as me (only using texture and digital) so I guess I'm sound. 

OUIL504- Printed Pictures- Shape and Texture

Having worked on developing my ideas and refining which plants I want to work on, I began to introduce some of my scanned textures into the shapes, and even added hand drawn elements to certain ones instead of just using the pen tool.




I really like the way this has turned out. I think the contrast between 'rough' and 'clean' works really well. I definitely want to begin using these more in my practice.

OUIL504- Printed Pictures- Developing Roughs

From the roughs I have developed a few of the images digitally and am now trying to work out composition and how the images will look best on print.



The idea for these ones was always to have them start out really flat, which they do. I will now look to develop the images further and add in the printed textures to add depth.

I decided to go with quite bold colours, not something I usually do, but I wanted to play with overlayed colours. I chose green, for obvious reasons, and the second colour I chose was pink. I thought the pink would represent Burroughs' flamboyant personality, and I really liked how the green and pink work together to create a deep purple colour.

OUIL504- Printed Pictures- Idea Generation

After experimenting with different processes, I have decided that I want to produce my prints digitally. I really want to work more with digital elements but with a lot more handmade textures and elements within. This process is the most enjoyable for me and I believe goes hand in hand with the work I want to produce.

So with the idea generation, I wanted to move as far away from my author as possible without completely losing the link. If I'm perfectly honest, I am bored to tears with my author, and with the brief in general in many ways. I feel almost limited with where I can go with this brief working directly with the author so have decided to move away from that.

So I decided to do more research into my author, about his hobbies, interests and just normal things he liked, farther that the things he was typically known for. One of the things I was intrigued by was that William Burroughs was a real lover of plants and flower arranging, and in an interview said it was one of his biggest passions.

I was interested in this especially because I like the idea of taking something natural and working with it in quite a structured 'digital' way. I thought about what plants Burroughs would have come across on his travels in the different countries he went to. And made a short list of plants he would have encountered. I then went on to produce initial sketches and developed versions.

I want the images initially to be quite flat and graphical, and then used the scanned printed textures to enhance how the images look.

OUIL504- Printed Pictures- Screenprinting

I didn't think it was possible to be generally quite terrible at something very simple, until I tried screenprinting. I really cant seem to get it right, each time I try it something goes wrong, The colours bleed, the screen is too small, the image is backwards, always something.

I do actually quite like how screenprints look. I think the aesthetic is something that can easily be recreated digitally but I think for physical prints, there's just something about a screenprint that has the edge over digital, I think it might be how tactile they can be compared to digital prints, there's just something special about them.

However for this brief, this is as far as my screenprinting will go, glad I tried it, I will look towards using the screenprinted images and manipulating them digitally.

Laughably, the two images above were the best ones that came out of my brief relationship with screenprinting. I exposed the images onto screens that were too small so could properly push the colour through. I kind of like the almost shadow like mistakes behind however.

Also I'm told the colour I used is blue and not green. 

OUIL504- Printed Pictures- Experimentation- Mono

I have continued to work with mono, as I think it can achieve the same textural qualities as lino, but the process is much more immediate. I think texture is what I am missing within my work, and I think mixing digital elements with texture is something I definitely should look into, if not to just give it a more natural look. I have begun to collect textures, which I have scanned in and begun to use withing my digital work.

 

The process has been really beneficial, and I have started to expand on the 'typical' process by using other materials and blocking the image in certain ways, which has lead me to start achieving some really interesting results. 

OUIL503- Responsive- Best Cover Design

I roanomly stumbled across a book in the library today called 'Best Book Design'. he book is great and will definitely be useful for the Penguin Book briefs. It explains a lot about layout and graphic design and ypography, as well as just showing off some really cool book covers which were actually quite inspiring.

I'll definitely be referencing this book a lot whilst starting to design the covers. 

OUIL504- Moving Pictures Proposal

BA (Hons) Illustration - Level 05

OUIL504 Illustration: Process & Production

STUDIO BRIEF 3 PROJECT PROPOSAL: Production & Presentation of my Moving Pictures

I intend to produce ……

I would love to be able to produce the 30 second short, however, the clips will be broken up into different sections so I may just have to create three 10 second stings if I don’t have the time.

The content will focus on (identify 3 specific themes, texts or concepts)

1.     Burroughs interests and sporadic attitude towards them 2.     Loneliness, one single solitary figure 3.     Burroughs’ non-stop lifestyle

I will be aiming to communicate (identify 3 specific messages, ideas, moods etc.)

1.     Burroughs’ loneliness 2.     Both dark and light-hearted at certain points. 3.     Burroughs’ gentle but harsh personality

To an audience of ….. (name 3 characteristics)

1.     Interested in Burroughs/ his work 2.     Teens/adults (some drug use) 3.     Have an interest in literature

OUIL504- Printed Pictures- Experimentation- Lino

I have been playing around with lino recently, and I have really enjoyed doing it. I thought I would find the process tedious, given that we are at a particular time constraint with the brief, and lino does take quite a while to produce a single image. I like the aesthetic it creates, the process is still quite clean and clinical but definitely keeps a handmade touch, which is definitely what my process needed. I will hopefully try and pull some of these elements into my work for this brief.

I think the main thing I like about lino printing is the textures it can create. It's really easy to create thick,bold shapes with little texture, and by leaving the print dry you can get some really interesting textures. 

OUIL503- In Cold Blood- Cover 1 Initial Ideas

I wanted to make my first cover for In Cold Blood really simple and graphic, as I think for book designs this generally works quite well. For me, the biggest part of the book is the mystery side of it, so I thought it important that I be quite ambiguous in the design and the concept behind it.

I wanted to focus on the blood, as this forensic side of the story is an integral part of it. My initial, and favourite idea was to have a few bold blood drops falling on the cover, I think this pretty much explains what the book is all about and would fit in with the bold and graphic aesthetic I was going for.

A simple blood drip icon is immediately recognisable to everyone in the world, and I wanted to play on that immediacy, which works well especially for a book cover.

I began by roughing out general layouts of the cover, focusing on where the symbols would sit and where the text would work around it. I though one large symbol in the centre of the cover would work better than lots of smaller blood spots as that could look quite messy and not clear.

OUIL504- ST4- Animated Shorts

Eliot Lim
Eliot Lim is an illustrator, graphic designer, animator and art director who produces some incredible shorts both as personal projects and as paid work. His work is incredible and I especially love his transitions from frame to frame. Obviously this kind of thing may  be impossible for me to recreate as my minimal knowledge of AE would probably limit me. We'll see. He also exclusively used AE.

https://vimeo.com/150635087

Andre Da Loba
Andre uses a lot of pint in his animated shorts. Which really ties in with the current brief, especially the following link which almost resembles an animated screenprint. Good Stuff.

https://vimeo.com/78389117

OUIL503- In Cold Blood- Covers

One other brief I have chosen for the responsive module is another Penguin book cover, this time the non-fiction adult book 'In Cold Blood'. I chose this brief because once again, I feel the almost graphical illustrations that are coming out from penguin recently really fit in with how I make images, and I would love to create book covers as a career after uni.

I have little knowledge about what the book is about. The investigation into the murder of 4 members of the Clutter family in 1959. I am intregued by the investigative nature of the book, and the dark imagery that could be used in the brief.

Some of the imagery I would like to look at is:

Farmhouse/ farmlands

Investigative materials eg magnifying glasses etc

Criminal Imagery and Blood

I am really excited to start looking into typography and graphic design and mixing the two aspects into my practice.

Here are examples of previous covers that I like.

I love the simplicity of this one. I feel it really captures the essence of the book, with the rough torn edges and the bold article style lettering it really explains the book.

I love the emptiness and use of space in this one, and although it is not necessarily illustrated, I think a lot of the aspects add to the mystery and coldness of the book.

OUIL504- Printed Pictures- New Ideas

So for the most part I was pretty happy with my initial idea for the Printed Pictures brief. However, having considered the vast amount of time we have on this brief for experimentation and play I have decided to scrap the first ideas, and instead focus on working with other methods and see where the processes take me with the ideas. I want to now focus on the textural side of the processes. Before, with my original prints, I was kidding myself into producing digital prints designed to look like monoprints, which felt a bit pointless and a bit like a con. I know that I like working digitally the most and that's the way I want to move my practice, so now I am aiming to work digitally, but now instead of faking it to look printed, I want to use printed elements to enhance the digital work I produce. 

OUIL504- Printed Pictures- Lino Print + Textures

Similar to mono print, I really enjoy the actual process of lino printing. I feel that the process takes too long and really doesn't fit the general aesthetic of my work. I don't really want to spend too much more time lino printing, however, I really like some of the textures that can be achieved by lino printing, and definitely think they can be transferred into some of my digital work as overlay textures.

I think this might be the way I want to go with this brief. I am really enjoying collecting textures to use in digital work and am really enjoying the way it is affecting the way my work ends up looking. I am definitely going to carry on using textures within digital work, and am becoming increasingly interested in recreating printed features digitally using brushes and textures and am starting to get some pretty interesting results.

OUIL504- Printed Pictures- Dilemma

I'm starting to really struggle with where I want to go with this brief. After pretty much finishing 5 prints to a level at which they were ready for finals, I have realised that I am really not enjoying making the current prints, so I am going to change.

I think the main problem with my current prints is that 1, they're too similar to the work I made in the first brief, and I wanted to explore other ideas. And 2, I think, I have become complacent in using the printed elements digitally and I think it's just too much of a direct link. I think I've overlooked the actual process and beauty of monoprinting; using a templated image to create new work, but having each one of the prints be completely individual in some way, be in the odd 'mistake' or textural differences. I think I need to continue exploring other print methods before finalising. 

OUIL504- Printed Pictures- 3 of 5 Resolved Prints

Here are 3 of the 5 prints that are pretty much ready to print. I am fairly happy with the outcomes, although I do think they could look a bit cleaner.
I really like the textures created in these prints, I wish I had the skill to be able to produce these purely through monoprint but I do actually like how they're almost graphic looking through the digital manipulation.

OUIL503- Responsive- Group Discussion

Today we had a group feedback session talking about our work so far and where we are going with the responsive brief. We discussed rational of the briefs and weather the briefs we had chosen were fitting within our work and the general aesthetic of what we produce.

I discussed using the penguin briefs as a way of trying to combine my graphic looking work with actual graphic design and using type and layout to actually design a product. Which is something I am very interested in.

We also discussed the technical considerations, talking about how I could produce a physical prototype of the book covers to give an actual demonstration of how the final cover would look. This would not only benefit me but I could also consider sending penguin an image to give them a better view of how it would look to produce.

Time considerations were something I wanted to discuss, talking about the amount of work we had to produce and the amount of time we had to do in. We talked about maybe focussing on o e larger brief and then following up with two or more separate smaller briefs. This is probably something I would prefer to do. I think I just need to consider when I need to have started/ completed each individual brief. Maybe I should draw up a time schedule and maybe even stick to it.

Again the balance of briefs is something that I think a lot of people are worrying about. I'm going to try and look at it in the same way I looked at cop last year, just try and produce as much work as I can, whilst not sacrificing any of the briefs.

Secret 7 was also something that was mentioned which I had not really looked much into in the past, however it does seem really interesting and is definitely something I want to explore throughout the module as it combines my interest in art and music nicely.

OUIL503- In Cold Blood Cover- Cover 2 Initial Ideas

I want to experiment with the use of type again with this cover, so I thought about finding a way to use image within the lettering to crate the text.

I thought about picking out certain letters within the title to be able to work with, and my initial thoughts turned to the 'O's in blood. I thought these would be the easiest to work with and wouldn't need that much manipulation to be able to be used within another image.

I thought about what objects or ideas I could use within these 'O's. So I looked into what objects were used in the crime and possibly the investigation as well. The two main objects that I thought about were the binoculars used to spy on the family and the shotgun used as a murder weapon.

I went on to rough out how these could be used within the words and try to figure out a layout that worked well enough.

OUIL503- Brush Creation- Brief 2

Start date: 06/11/2016

Deadline: 13/11/2016

Brief
'Create a non-repeating 'dusty' texture brush to be used in Photoshop'.

Research

I began by researching dusty textures and how they could be recreated in Photoshop. I mainly used the web for this, ruling out any physical research as it would be too hard to work around such small elements.

Development
 I then moved on to creating the brush, the hardest part about this was making it impossible for the brush to be truly non repeating, something that is quite difficult when working in Photoshop.

Evaluation

Once I felt I had made something the client would like, I sent it off to them and took payment over PayPal, the process is staring to get much smoother now, and I feel much less uncomfortable about talking about pricing with clients.

Below is the final outcome of the brush, this one is quite hard to demonstrate as it is quite subtle and it's quite hard to demonstrate the non repeating element of the brush.

OUIL504- Illustrators

David Doran
I love David Dorans illustrations. Especially his use of character and shape within all of his images. His work is heavily shape based, focusiong on simple block shapes with texture heavily involved as well. As far as I'm aware, David's process starts off by working out compositions and ideas in a sketchbook then working digitally to block out shapes and work out colour. I think this is definitely why his work still has a 'hand made' feel to it.




Possibly my favourite part about David's work is his use of colour. His incredibly simple colour palettes give a really bold and harsh look, but coupled with the soft edges of the shapes it really balances out nicely.

Jeremy Booth
Another illustrator whose work I really like is Jeremy Booth. Again his use of shape and character is prominent in his work. Jeremy's process again starts of hand-drawn, working in sketchbooks to work out compositions and shape. However, in contrast to David's process, Jeremy does not scan in his work and work over the top of it; rather he recreates the image completely from scratch digitally and works from there. Which is why his work looks much more clean and digital that David's.

OUIL504- Study Task 2

Mark Conlan



Mark is an illustrator who I have been made aware of in the past, however more recently I have been taking a real interest in his work. Mark's visual language is quite simple, he uses a lot of shape and texture and conveys messages in very obvious ways, such as the bubble in the above image.

He has a great way of conveying mood in simple ways, through his colour choice of very subtle markings on figures or objects.

Mark's process starts with initial ideas, then a working rough is created by hand which is then scanned in to photoshop, transferred and traced using the brush tool and then textures are added in after. He seems to have the process streamlined if his instagram is anything to go by.

Cecile Gariepy

Cecile's work is really fun and full of humour. Again, she is heavily influenced by shape, but unlike Mark, she uses very little texture within her work. Most of he work features characters, which make it easy to convey an image, especially within her editorial illustrations which usually involve some sort of human element.

Cecile's process is mainly digital, I imagine she does rough by hand but most of her illustrations are started from scratch digitally.

OUIL503- Brush Design- Brief 1

Start date: 28/10/2016

Deadline: 04/11/2016

The first brief I received after starting the module was from a local graphic designer who asked about creating a marker pen replica brush for Photoshop. Replica brushes are something I have gotten used to creating so it wasn't too much of a hassle.

Research
I started by establishing exactly what kind of marker pen Luke was asking for, we discussed what he would be using it for and what the limitations of the brush would be.

He explained the brush was mainly to be used as a graphic element and not as a tool to produce other works, this meant the brush only needed to replicate the marker visually, and any replicated functionality would be a bonus.

I then tested many markers, sent my findings to Luke and went forward to produce the brush.

Development
The development of this brush was actually quite simple and didn't really take too long, so the deadline me and the client agreed wasn't an issue at all. The brush was constructed completely digitally and no analogue process was necessary, which saved a lot of time.

Outcome & PricingOverall, the brush was completed across 3 days, taking a total work time from receiving the brief to sending the final version off was around 7 hours.

As I stated, the pricing is a difficult one for me, digital products are sometimes lost in the fact that there is no physical product, so clients can undervalue the time and effort that go into them and do not pay accordingly. We agreed a set price for the brush at the start of the brief, as I usually don't like charging an hourly rate. We also agreed that the brush was not exclusive to the client and I was free to distribute as I pleased and that he was not to distribute the brush himself.
Below is the final outcome for the brush.

OUIL503- Responsive- Book Covers

To kick of the thinking for this brief, I have collected some images of my favourite book covers, and a short description of what I like about them.


I love the aesthetic of the original penguin covers, and I think that these are still some of the best designed covers to be made. Really simple with an abstract but interesting concepts.


I really love the thought behind the typeface in these two. I need to look into this more as I have never really looked that much into the use of type in my work.


I really like how bold and obnoxious this cover is. With the bold vibrant pinks against a plain white background, it really makes the book stand out. 

OUIL504- Printed Picture Progress

After playing around with roughs and ideas for the brief I continued to move forward with playing around with some printed image. I have decided that the best method that will work for me will be to use a lot of mono printed elements but composed and edited digitally, which will hopefully give me the handmade element I was looking to bring to my work, without losing the graphical aesthetics.

I have really enjoyed using monoprint, it's swift and I've managed to get some interesting textures into my work. Im loving the imperfection it brings to my work.





For me, the thing I am finding most interesting with this brief is the textures I'm pulling from the monoprints, I think this is exactly what my practice needed and I think its working perfectly by combining graphic and handmade elements. I also really like the rough edges created by mono, I think it really lends itself to the general mood of the images.

OUIL503- Brush Design

A large proportion of the work I do at the minute comes from photoshop brush design. Most of the work comes though word of mouth from others I have worked for but I am looking towards making this an actual income in the future.

Because of this, I wanted to make these briefs an actual part of my responsive module, this gives me more time to evaluate how I work and the work I am producing.

Although the process so far has been quite successful, there are a couple of things I struggle with. Pricing is the main issue so far, I struggle to keep a consistent price point between briefs, as working hours can vary quite differently between each one. Secondly is the timing issue, because of other work commitments, I am struggling to keep on top of the work rate required of me. These are issues I will hopefully be able to address in the coming weeks during SB1.