Friday 31 October 2014

Typography

The second half of the week was spent focusing on typography, which again was a totally new area for me. Drawing hand rendered type is something that I would previously have thought would be quite difficult but I have since found out that it is just the same as any other kind of observational drawing. Initially I didn't particularly like the ground as I felt it looked too bland and I would have preferred it with a colour. However after doing the type over the top I have changed my mind as I think that coloured papers on the ground would have clashed with the coloured pen and the oil pastel too much. I think the two top pieces are the two best ones as I really like the section of the Guinness bottle that I drew as the sizing of it fills the space and it isn't totally straight like the bottom two seem to be. Even though the type on the right hand side isn't straight, I feel as though it was quite well controlled to say it had been done using a stick and ink.

Top Left and Bottom Right: Guinness Bottle in Felt Tip and Oil Pastel
Top Right and Bottom Left: Paprika Tin in ink with willow stick and graphite crayon
The next piece of work we did was a linear drawing of the inside of a kitchen cupboard to try and capture type on familiar household products. This was a lengthy process as each item in the cupboard had a lot of information to record on it and required a high attention to detail. One thing that I have learnt from doing this drawing is the importance of scale when drawing something like type as some of the products I drew ended up being too big for the drawing so I could only fit half of the lettering on without distorting it. By doing the drawing in fine liner pen I have become more accurate as I did not have the chance to rub out any mistakes. I would never have thought of doing a drawing of a cupboard before but it is definitely something that I will try again, possibly on a messier cupboards the one I drew here was very neat and structured so to get a more interesting drawing I will try something more chaotic.

Linear study of products and typefaces found in a kitchen cupboard
 
The final task of the typography project was to find two quotes that related to the senses and make a piece based on them. I used two song quotes that I liked and that I felt had quite strong visuals attached to them that I could translate into a typeface. The first of these quotes was from a Kodaline song called 'All I Want' and I chose the words "If I could see your face once more I'd die a happy man I'm sure". From this I decided to use the words 'I'm Sure' as I felt that I could represent them well in certain fonts. The second quote came from the Jake Bugg song 'Taste It' and the words "I can taste it in my mouth, it tastes so bittersweet" and I decided to use the word 'bittersweet'.
 
I used monochrome pens to create a chaotic ground that contrasted with the words 'I'm Sure' but after developing the idea in my sketchbook the colours looked too bland so I added in one dark blue accent colour to bring out the lines and I think this works well with the overall look of the piece. I am also happy with the use of fonts as I think that the first word has the look of something handwritten and personal which links in with the word. The typeface that I drew for the second word looks bold and has a confident look to it which fits in with the word sure. The type for 'sure' was much more difficult to draw as it required some very precise measurements to make sure each letter was spaced properly and that the thickness of each line matched up. I really like this piece as a whole as I think the words used work well with the ground and the typeface that I drew as I have created a strong visual for the words.

 
 
I am not as happy with this piece as I was the last as I think it looks quite empty due to the amount of negative space. The colours that I used to relate to the words were strong enough in their own right so I felt a ground would be too much. If I were to redo the piece I would probably try to use a ground to take up some of the piece or change the layout of the type so that both words weren't directly on top of the other and the same size. I wanted this piece to reflect the literal meanings of the words so for the word bitter I used a white wax crayon to draw the inside of a lemon out and did a yellow wash of ink over it. The wax crayon didn't resist the ink as much as I wanted it to so if I were to redo it I would use a stronger resist method so that the lemon drawing was more obvious. I think that the contrast between the fonts on the two words suits them both well and they have a good visual link to the meanings of them which is what I hoped to achieve on the piece.

Wednesday 15 October 2014

Visual Communications

During the week I spent in Visual Communications I tried out new ways of making grounds and drawing with different types of media on these grounds.  We spent a lot of time in the first session doing timed line drawings which are two things I have never really done before. My usual way of working is quite slow and laborious and I've been known to spend hours on one image in the past until I feel happy with it. These line drawings of objects relating to our 'Senses' project brief forced me to work quickly and carefully as the media used meant it was impossible to rub out. I like how each drawing is in a different place on the paper as this makes for a more interesting piece overall but I still feel as though the images could have been scaled up more so they didn't leave as much negative space. I also think that the ground worked quite well as I used the same materials on each separate section so that they would work on their own as single pieces as well mounted altogether.

Top left: Shoe in graphite crayon, Top right: Lipstick in felt tip
Bottom Left: Sunglasses in ink with stick, Bottom Right: Shoe in oil pastel
The next session involved observational drawings that were still mainly linear and still had a time limit but this time were of shoes other people in the group were wearing. I feel as though the drawings I did were not as bad as I had expected them to be seeing as I only had around a minute to do them but I was still not totally happy with them as I thought they looked quite flat and simple. However I felt the composition of the image worked quite well as each of the drawings were overlapped and facing in at different angles as well as being done in different coloured media so each image was distinctive and recognisable.
Observational linear drawings of shoes in graphite crayon and felt tip
The second half of the week was spent focusing on typography, which again was a totally new area for me. Drawing hand rendered type is something that I would previously have thought would be quite difficult but I have since found out that it is just the same as any other kind of observational drawing. Initially I didn't particularly like the ground as I felt it looked too bland and I would have preferred it with a colour. However after doing the type over the top I have changed my mind as I think that coloured papers on the ground would have clashed with the coloured pen and the oil pastel too much. I think the two top pieces are the two best ones as I really like the section of the Guinness bottle that I drew as the sizing of it fills the space and it isn't totally straight like the bottom two seem to be. Even though the type on the right hand side isn't straight, I feel as though it was quite well controlled to say it had been done using a stick and ink.

Top Left and Bottom Right: Guinness Bottle in Felt Tip and Oil Pastel
Top Right and Bottom Left: Paprika Tin in ink with willow stick and graphite crayon

Sunday 12 October 2014

Olivier Kugler


I had previously thought that most work done under the title of visual communications would have been done on a computer but since I started learning  more about it I have realised that this isn't true. One artist who particularly stood out to me was Olivier Kugler as I really like the way that he uses digital process to add colour to his hand rendered images as this combination of old and new methods creates pieces that are extremely interesting. Each line in a drawing by Kugler is so carefully considered that the image shows just as much form than it would had it been done in tone. I like the way all of the images are drawn in situ so that when witnessed the viewer is momentarily transported to what it was like to be there. The drawings are so detailed but simple at the same time that all the information is recorded without looking too busy and overworked. This image below is from a journal that Kugler did following a truck driver through Iran and for me it is on par with a photograph as it captures the images so well.

 
 
Another thing from Olivier Kuglers work that I find interesting is the recording of sounds and conversations that he hears. I like the way that he works them into the image as ordinarily this is something that would not be included in a piece of still work but by including them you get more of a sense of what was happening at the exact time he was there. The flat colour that Kugler drops into the images using photoshop is so well considered that only the smallest amounts have to be used. This is something that I have been inspired to try as previously I have only used non digital media like paint for adding colour to my work which isn't as neat or even as the colour used in these images. One of my favourite pieces is this one as the use of colour and excerpts of conversation relay so much information to the viewer than I would have previously thought possible for a piece of illustration.

Noma Bar

After learning about how important the quality of line is in visual communications I found Noma Bar's work to be of great interest as each line is so carefully considered that the finished piece of work doesn't just show one image it shows two. Working in line is totally new for me as I am used to doing work that is much more tonal than linear so to look at an artist like Noma Bar who uses only two or three blocks of flat colours has shown me a way of working that I never would have previously considered.  Another new concept for me is the idea of negative space which has been used to show multiple images. A lot of the work I have done previously has filled in all blank space but I now know that a piece can be even more effective if  the negative space is considered as much as the image itself. Noma Bar's pieces are almost like optical illusions in the sense that you have to look at them more than once in order to see both sides and I think this holds a lot of interest for the viewer and is what places them amongst some of my favourite graphic design work.
 
Tea For Two

 
  

Wednesday 8 October 2014

Article on Illustration

When looking for articles on Visual Communications artists I found one that interested me greatly in the current edition of Creative Review Magazine. The article was part of the fashion issue the magazine currently has out for Autumn 2014 and was called Bags of Style by Antonia Wilson. I hope to continue studying fashion in the future and have looked at bags before but in a totally different context. In the past I have researched the rise of ethical, sustainable carrier bags and the 'I am not a plastic bag' campaign by Anya Hindmarch.
 This article was the first time I have seen carrier bags as art forms and it was easy to picture some of the illustrations on them exhibited properly. Many well known brands were featured in the article from high street to designer with H and M and Chanel as well as lesser known ones like Biba and Fiorucci.
 

 

 

 
 
 
Something that this article has taught me is that an illustration doesn't have to be overthought and over worked as even the most simple well considered idea can still create a beautiful image. For example the Chanel bag only has 3 components, a lipstick, the outline of a face and the company name yet it works as whole image so well. The Celtic style logo for Biba is so beautiful that the bag needs nothing else but the name to go along with it and it is this idea of keeping things simple to make a bold statement that I find so interesting.


Costumologist Workshop

As part of the Rivers Project we had the opportunity to work with two costumologists from Liverpool who are involved in the Derwent Pulse river project. Our task to create something wearable from the corrugated building material Corex that would light up was challenging but enjoyable. Not only did we have to design and create an actual garment but we also had to make sure it used the strips of LED's. The armor like outfit that I made consisted of a corset and helmet but it didn't have much impact until we took it to the photography studio. There we experimented with long exposure photography and different light settings which made for a much more exciting outcome.

 

 
 



 
 
 

Rivers Project

The first three weeks of the Foundation course was spent on the Rivers Project, during which I did a lot of varied work, much of which involved new techniques that I was unfamiliar with. I found the experience very valuable as it has taught me about things like working on grounds, mark making and continuous line drawings. This is just some of the work that I did:


Continuous Line/Blind drawing of objects found in Rivers
Mark making techniques with Indian ink
Drawing of rope found by river

Drawings of rope found by River

 
Primary study of the roof of a mill in collage
Image created on a journey
Barcodes based on colours/tones found in a stretch of river
Final piece of the rivers project based on barcodes, using primary source work