Illustration 1: Illustration Sketchbooks
Section: Assignment two:
This assignment and exercises expands on a couple of topics touched in assignment one. The use of mark making, using experimental methods and working with mistakes and forms of drawing using these points.
At this early stage of the assignment and reading through the introduction, I am feeling quite open to how my sketchbook/s will develop and from this I am going to just see how I feel as I work through the exercises and research and find what fits for me and can still improve my skills and sketchbook keeping.
Including mark making and experimental work, both I intend to see how that is discovered in my sketchbooks. I have touched on this briefly previously, and it has remained as exercises, so it may come into play within my new sketchbook overview.
I have already taken a small pocket sized sketchbook that was used for approximately three pages, it has dotted paper and the paper is a ivory, cream colour. I did three very poor watercolour sketches some time ago in the book, I never went any further with it. A trait already discussed in assignment one.
I have basically just commandeered this book for everyday, due to work and other commitments I think this is going to be handy to have on my desk at work and use it as frequently as I can. I am not going to press myself to sketch everyday or assign myself to for example: ink drawings. I think I will just progress with it and keep it as a day to day diary and if something I like is free, it may get adhered in, or a photo I may like. I am going to see if I can work on this being as much as an experiment as the ark making and let both guide me through the experience.
Exercise 2.0: Rapid Sketches
From this exercise I am thinking the points raised by limiting time within my sketches I can capture marks that though may not necessarily be precise or accurate, the are inspired and born from what I can see in front of me and my interpretation of the objects.
My first step to this, I took a jam jar with daffodils, some stones, shells and a pine cone, arranged them quite freely in a space as my starting point. For the first attempts I used A3 paper, a 1/4 inch brush and some watered down acrylic to give a bit of free movement.
My timing limit was set for three minutes. The photo above is my very first work. I have created something that looks like the image that was there. I think I have tried too hard to capture detail, rather than think of spaces, and the shapes. For instance, I have spent too much time emphasising the jar and the stems and concentrated on making sure all the forms are present.
Second attempt, again sticking within the same materials and tools. I took more of an approach to signify one part of the still life. I have been a bit more stronger here now that I can look back at the work, I have been braver to saturate my brush and be stronger at making the petal shapes and the stems, overall it is not too bad, but I am aware I am still basically drawing with a brush.
Third attempt, I was not giving up yet, so rather than two I ended up doing four drawings at three minutes from different positions. This one I started to draw again! I think I can tell this by the front facing flower head, I then have managed to step forward to more prominent line making, The rushed brush marks of the stems looks quite bold and it does actually still connect up to make a whole image. Whether that is relevant, I don't know as yet.
Fourth attempt, this one is from an above angle, from the four, this so far is my favourite. I think it shows I have almost paced myself within the time boundary and got some good mark making down on the paper.
The next stage, I changed materials. I went to watercolour textured card and a black water based brush marker. When I did the first four with paint, I found the need to keep wetting brush with the paint took precious time up and sometimes the dry brush marks worked, sometimes they didn't. I spritzed the watercolour card and left it for a minute or two to absorb the water. I wanted to use the marker and with the pages being damp, it does mean I can have only a percentage of marking control and how the marks will develop once reacting with the dampened card.
These were slightly larger than A4, the time set was one minute, I did two of each here, two had a wet surface and two I worked on dry watercolour card. The mark making is completely different. The definite line making works but I did quite like to bleeding of the marker. I might try this again in the future but soak the card and see how the lines will react to such a porous surface and how the lines won't have any control once they are on the card.
From this stage, I then went into another direction of materials and tools. I upped the surface area to A2 paper and a thick wedge of charcoal. I also brought the time down. The first two, I worked at 30 seconds. Then the second bout of two pictures I brought it down to 20 seconds, and then 15 seconds for the last one. By using the side of the charcoal and then the smallest edge do define darker and stronger lines created some great shapes.
It is very interesting the difference in fluidity and space used between using the different surface areas and tools.
By using the sides of the charcoal it allowed me to create some large sweeps of movement that represented the objects. By restricting the time spent, I had to balance the appropriate time between visual study and productivity in making a record.
I found that by the reduction of time, the less time there was to be methodical in putting down markings, this meant that impulsive behaving occurs in making snap decisions on mark making. I think from this method I had became more native in the marks as it was natural and unprocessed.
The last attempt was pushing to just 15 seconds, this meant I started with just forcing out line work with barely a thought of what was occurring from the eye to the hand. And I think this is very interesting. The use of doing this on larger paper may seem a waste of space, but I think it meant my restrictions on time and observation is compensated by the ability to run free with the charcoal and not worry about space confinement.
The lines also represent quite a lot of movement and their form may not be accurate but I don't think that is necessarily the purpose.
I think going from the beginning of the exercise to the last one there is less detail, but more interest, the choice of medium and tools can also help create fluidity and movement in the results.
Exercise 2.1: Limited Line Drawings
My first steps to this exercise was to try and grasp the concepts of Gestalt Theory, and the two references of M.C. Escher and Noma Bar.
Firstly, I started looking at what the Gestalt theory consisted of.
"Gestalt theory emphasises that the whole of anything is greater than its parts. That is, the attributes of the whole are not deducible from analysis of the parts in isolation. The word "Gestalt" is used in modern German to mean the way a thing has been placed or "put together".
Encyclopaedia Britannia, Inc. (28/11/2019), Gestalt Psychology, URL: https://www.britanica.com/science/gestalt-psychology, (accessed 01/03/2020).
There are six design principles: 1. Figure-ground (some of the focus or figure on some of the background), 2. Similarity (Placing objects with similarities in a group, this could be colour, shape, font, texture, etc..) 3. Proximity (Belief in that we group objects close to each other.) 4. Closure (Mind closes objects that are not necessarily there). 5. Continuity ( Theory of objects in alignment until interrupted). 6. Order - (Symmetry and attractive elements of design.)
I understand the basis of the principles but they became much clearer once I had searched for images of M.C Escher and Noma Bar. Immediately the explanations of the theory became visible. Especially by Noma Bar's work.
The first attempt, for my subject I used a small plate of fruit. Three small oranges, two apples and some grapes. My understanding is to work from the beginning of forming and mark making to record what I can see, but work on the basis of minimising the lines.
The start of this I worked with holding this in mind and trying to also be fairly light with my lines.
Progression. The second sketch, I started to break down the areas of the fruit, so I separated them but by form and shape rather than as separated as individual objects. I did find myself adding lines, and afterwards, thinking if they needed to exist or was I adding the line for the sake of sketching, rather than thinking about what is in front of me and what I can visually see.
How about one single outline? Does this wok? I can see some element is visible and the recognition of a plate or a bowl is acknowledged, but not necessarily correct. But is this our brain filling in the blanks?
Is that a potato or an orange? I worked on the principle of outlines, not worrying about detail, or tones, textures, accuracy. In some respects the limitation on using less lines actually can bring in a clarity and simplify the sketch. I quite like this version.
This time, trying more lines but smaller lines to represent the shapes and areas which are casting shadows or deeper tones within the fruit.
Using a little inspiration from Noma Bar and the use of bringing in a balance of the foreground and background to tell a story to the viewer who has to decide what it is they are looking at. I have used the gaps in the fruit and the areas of shade to decide where the lines will fall. Though it is not complex and there is no secondary image in the back ground, it is still letting the viewer fill in the blanks.
I found this exercise useful and can follow the principles of it being a useful tool to learn to do. It can develop sketches into other things and it is good idea for note making in sketchbook keeping.
Overall I think I grasped the concept of the limitations of limited line work and why it can be as effective or as important as a full illustrative piece. I think the beginnings of the exercise with the fruit on the plate was probably a bit adventurous but I worked on the principle of the exercise and developed it. The bottle, though the other end of the scale in being rather basic and simple I think worked quite well. I did enjoy developing this beyond the exercise.
Exercise 2.2: Investigating a Process
I was a little unsure how to move forward with this exercise and was not incredibly confident in understanding what the processes were exactly. I think the idea is to take the materials or mediums and just see how they can develop used in different or non-expected formats.
My first venture I took watercolours. Watercolours are easy to use, but they just tend, for me to provide a quick colour adding element and are often used in this way in sketchbooks or used in a very traditional format.
I sectioned some pages in my sketchbook and looked at using the watercolours as colour alone, blocking, over writing in a secondary colour when dry, then a third etc. Also the mixing, less water, defining and over laying the same colour again and again to lose any opaqueness.
Splattering, watering down, lines, mixing as solid undiluted colours.
I also looked at using on different materials and then trying them on different materials in different ways, drawing a pineapple. I made notes within my book of anything I found interesting or liked/disliked.
This process, I repeated with some other materials. Black thick marker and also alcohol inks in liquid format. I used various papers, materials etc. to work on. With the marker I found some foam packaging out of the waste bin, it was like a squishy plastic but made an interesting surface to work on. I also used photo paper, yupo paper and plain paper to work the inks. All my tests and trials, I placed in my sketchbook and also kept my not so successful experiments within the sketchbook!
Exercise 2.3: Blind Contour Drawing
From the initial introduction the part two. There is reference to Allison . I wanted to try the facial studies to see how I could fair doing this method and to find if studying facial features would project well as blind contour drawing. I can see the connection and process of eye to hand, and how we relate what we see to what we put on our surfaces. I liked this, it created some really great drawings, afterwards some looked like the person I sketched, but some were unrecognisable. The best thing about this, is I was not precious about how they would turn out. I tried my best not to look down as to how my hand was moving. It was very difficult and some occasions I found myself looking down and then finding that hard not to influence where I restarted the line from.
By trying to draw the same face from different angles, it was quite good fun though apparently not very flattering!
I quite liked the fact on one of these contour drawings the face looks like a face and I managed to almost locate the eye in the correct place but then went on to give the face a second profile.
More facial drawings. I tried to be less swift, and take more time in going slower on the details and connecting what I was looking at and what my hand was actually doing. No looking down, just complete slow and controlled movement. I did not up the pencil. I kept movement on the paper, when I stopped, I held the pencil still with nib still in place, but by going a lot slower and more methodical I could almost be more precise with recall on the previous line drawing. Looking at this, I think it shows in the top profile and the second one as though it is not by any means accurate it does show detail, features etc. It is interesting seeing the motion of eye to coordination to the drawing with the disconnection of constantly revising the lines and marks.
I had another go, but this was from one of my online model ebooks. I tried to draw the girl sat at a chair, I used oil pastels, seeing if these were as fluid as the crayon and a smoother thicker paper that may help the oil to slide with ease. I did try to not look at all but as I did, but I did keep trying. I quite enjoy looking at her disjointed lines and the accidental question mark of the facial outline of her cheeks matches the quizzical open mouthed stare into the distance!
I was still wanted to exercise the process of this blind contour drawing and worked this time in ink to see if the fluid movement worked with the contouring and aligning the nib and the visual together in a different way. The ink does smudge but I don't mind this. I think the way the hand interprets the visuals is intriguing. I also find it quite amazing how we can still capture expression and similarity of features to the model, even though our study is purely what we see and no checking on what we are producing.
I tried to concentrate on detailing the eyes and thinking strategically how I worked around the eyes, thinking where the lines were leading to and how I normally draw and my hand movements but not actually looking or restricting my natural movement. I am liking these four studies. I like the way I managed to pick the eyes looking in a direction, and though one eye is a bit of a miss, it still looks like the model is side glancing.
Using a double page I worked on three different studies, I integrated them by not worrying if I crossed over or intruded into each space. I used a thick Lyra soft pencil, it has four colour waxes running through it, It gives some interest to the studies, the way the colour changes along the lines. I did find working on a bigger scale a little harder as the sweeps extend and to replace or retrace my line with out looking was trickier but I was surprised that all three actually did look like faces and apart from the third I think the emotions of the faces are capturing. These studies are all completely different, and I think if I look at the first ones to the last ones neither suggest I have drawn them, which is good as it means there is another way of drawing in me that is there to be tapped into.
I am pleased I chose to do faces though I appreciate it should maybe have been objects or a still life arrangement, I think I interpreted this quite well as a method and an exercise, and I actually think I will use this in personal and other parts of the course work.
Exercise 2.4: Drawing with tea bags
This exercise looks at exploring the uses of unusual materials and a step away from the usual. I remember at school, a very long time ago..where I did a scene using food sources as my paint. I can't quite remember the details but think I did a painting of a robin on a branch made up of brown sauce, ketchup, mint sauce and probably a few other cupboard finds much to my fathers distaste. I knew at the time that it was quite an "out there" way of creating art, but it must have worked because I can remember being quite enthralled at the project.
Rather than going down the root (no pun intended), of beetroot and other self inking food sources, I looked at everyday kitchen objects. I know there is a tonne of other things out there, but sometimes the most ordinary items have makings for finding something new!
I opted for: Wooden Spoon, Fork, Scouring sponge, kitchen paper towel and matches.
Each object, I used acrylic paint and made a spread in my sketchbook of mark making.
First the spoon, the obvious tool for drawing is the handle, but it can be dabbed, dragged and scratched into the paint. Its negative side is the absorbing qualities for mark making, it soon sucked up the paint. The positive was not only the handle, but the basin of the spoon dipped and dragged made some beautiful strokes, also the edge if the spoon made some shapes and curves.
Fork gave properties for scratching and dabbing. I found that it dragged and made good repeating lines with the prongs but the paint did not run very well from the metal, so the better or more successful method of marking came from dabbing or swiping across the surface. Though, by using the prongs there was a couple of very textural effects that came through. The stronger lines would work well in making structural drawings.
Scouring sponge has two sides as in textures, one is the sponge, the other is the scouring side, which is harsh and scratchy. The sponge also carries the angular edges, this can be dipped and used to make striking lines and these can be deepened and thicker by pressure and angled swipes. The sponge corners can be for finer detail but it has no strength so any pressure and the shape mutates underneath application.
The swiping of the scouring side was interesting, within the swipes there becomes other shapes and markings. Also second generation pressing, meant that after an initial application, the second one still applies paint but in a softer, less saturated manner.
Kitchen roll. I am guessing not a lot of people would think that kitchen roll would be much good, well, in fairness, yes, it is a bit weak, but the beginnings were good. Blotting, swishing in smooth motion and twisting the paper to make a shape and scrunching it up and then stamping it worked well too. Though the negative side is that it became quickly soaked in the paint and became a bit of a useless tool as the material structure was disintegrated, however, the soaked paper could be dried out and used for collage or something else at a later date.
Matches, I thought would be easy, a pointed tool. dip and draw, easy. Well, like the wooden spoon, the medium soon soaked into the wooden tool. I managed to get some lines by dabbing the edge of the stick and also the base of the stick, plus laying it down flat and rotating and swishing it across the surface. The secondary purpose, which initially I had not thought of until I was discussing this with someone, was to strike the match and try drawing/mark making with the burnt end. Though this did work it is quite a short lived experience as the burnt end soon wears away and the markings are quite feeble. The could be good in a context where they might work successfully to build up. But the minimal lines are still interesting.
I created a piece using the scouring sponges and acrylic, I wanted to use block colours and be quite minimal as using the sponge did give me a larger tool to use than for instance the spoon or matches. I started creating the background and the beginning part was dabbing, but then I thought if I used the scourer side as if washing the mug with the circular action.
This process on the watercolour card resulted in a mottled and quite textural background.
Once this had dried, I had washed and rinsed the sponged and worked in white to develop the shape of the mug of tea using the sponge edge to give form and shape. By dabbing secondary I made the shadows of the mug. Once dried, the red acrylic was applied, by scrunching the sponge and dabbing quite tightly. Afterwards I did go back and rework the white again to add light fractions.
Though, I don't think I have got the full progression of using materials as yet, I have found that sometimes it takes a bit of thought process and practice to see potentials in materials and for instance, using the sponge in varied ways.
In terms of using different mediums with tools that may not be designed for that purpose, the potential is quite continual and I could look at expanding this into my own sketchbooks and experimenting with all three: Tool, medium and surface.
Exercise 2.5: Drawing with objects: a Journey scrapbook
After the research section and looking on how to use this exercise I took the task as literal experience on a day trip. I have been bought a very beautiful watercolour paper sketchbook, blue leather-bound and it has an elastic wrap that holds the book closed. I have decided that I wanted to use this ans incorporate this exercise as the gesture to start this sketchbook for a more purposeful way of diary keeping as the previous sketchbooks I have are all quite varied and in the process of being rebuilt into some form of order.
On my journey, I worked with the following tools of using pencil for quick line sketching, fine liner for going over the sketches and I also used a small watercolour pan set to add some colours. The glue stick I used was not the best so some bits ended up being adhered again, but thankfully the book elastic is quite tight and everything stayed pretty much in the book when I wasn't using it. Though there was an episode of a receipt going under a dining table!
It was a bit of a trial in some cases as the day went quick and I think as I tried to obtain objects I became a little bit more obsessed with the actual sketching on one or two. The exercise on a whole so far, has been my most enjoyable.
The first object was my parking ticket. I copied the parking ticket as best as I could and pencil sketched the car park view from the car. I was a little unsure on the incorporation of the object into the drawing, but I do like the oversized ticket. It is actually a task to think of an object as a record or as part of the picture. But I can see the relation of the drawing with the ticket but this one is quite an obvious connection.
This turned out to be really funny page. This receipt is from the shop, for some paperclips and some elastic bands. Outside, I was trying to draw a very quick sketch in the wind, in pencil. I tried using the receipt to start with but the pencil wouldn't work on the receipt, only on the paper and in attempts I nearly lost it in the wind...I ended up holding the receipt with my thumb and drawing direct in ink directly on the receipt of the shop, so the page bit of the car and the side buildings were added in after I had drawn the shop so its a little disjointed but I try not to let that bother me too much. I was just going to do the receipt and leave the pencil rough in and not do any more but I over worked it, and think if I had just left the drawing on the receipt it would have looked better than trying to get everything I see in.
I sat and added the watercolours later, but again, I probably could have left that!
Exercise 2.6: Pareidolia
Pareidolia is the tendency for incorrect perception of a stimulus as an object, pattern or meaning known to the observer, such as seeing shapes in clouds, seeing faces in inanimate objects or abstract patterns, or hearing hidden messages in music. Pareidolia can be considered a subcategory of apophenia.
Taken from:
Wikipedia (Updated March 2020) "Pareidolia" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia [Accessed 12.03.2020]
This exercise is related to the previous exercises where we view something as one object or a mixture of objects and we group them together to singular to recognise them as something else, Pareidolia is a method of the mind where we process a visual and automatically see faces or a face because our mind selects the visual and works out what we are seeing and configures something else. We may do this automatically or someone could suggest to us "Can you see the face in this item?" and we usually can recognise familiarises with eyes, noses, mouths, profiles etc.
Georgia O'Keefe presented paintings and though they are swirls, we see natural curves of bodies, or a baby in the womb, or breasts. Is this purposeful, were they painting for those suggestions to be there or do we look and automate our minds to just see what we can put into a category of an object or a thing. It is quite a deep concept when I start to actually think of the way the mind processes from eye to brain.
Justin Sutcliffe is suggested in the exercise as a point to see how his photography creates faces. The strangest thing I find with this, is that when I look at some of these images, I almost install personalities into them without even debating about the face. For example, A face of puddles in a car park at night time,with a glimmer of a reflection of a red light in the eyes and I think of it as dark and a grim character.
I do know on occasions where I have seen windows and doors and thought buildings looked like faces.
The first part of the exercise is to start investigating and collecting faces! (or not faces?)
The closed token box. I don't know what the features say, but I think it looks hungry and sad or disappointed!
It is hard to see these faces at first, but if you look the empty dodgem cars are angrily snarling at each other with spears. This looks like a battles about to begin.
I took some photos around the house, and also on a couple of different occasions while out and about on purposeful "face looking strolls" - It is a strange way with how we perceive the faces, I showed my photographs to a relative, they saw a different face in one photo to the one I had seen.
I looked at natural objects and man made, I also viewed items at different angles and moved around to see how they could change or develop.
The beach walk threw out some great faces, especially the starfish, I did not see this until after I took the photograph, as a previous discussion with a friend about not seeing them on the beach, and to find one, I was pleased to get a snap shot. Afterwards I noticed the creases and the cheeky smile.
Looking at various objects to see how faces can be formed by our imagination and the automated way we build faces as a recognition. The photograph of the church, I took this a while ago, think it was last year, when I uploaded my recent photos of pareidolia hunting I saw the face. Its a strange one as it almost looks comical. The kitchen has some really well hidden ones that are temporary such as the egg box, it is there if the box is open, but if closed it almost but disappears.
Here is a collage of some of the faces I found around the home and on walks. If you look at some objects in a different angle to the way we look at them in passing, faces can appear, for instance the berries and the leaves, It was only from an angle above the bush the eyes and mouth in the gap of the leaves appears.
I really liked the fence poking out of the sand dune, the wonky screws look like eyes and the rotting wood coming up from the sand makes the row of fence stakes look like an army of ghostly soldiers in a row. Wood is a great one for seeing faces and the beach had some good finds within the wave breakers that were worn and some covered in seaweed and barnacles.
A door handle/padlock fixture on a tatooist door. If this is turned either way it looks like a face. One is fun and cute, the other way it looks quite serious and scowling!
This piece of metal looked like a long nosed or beaked creature, with the bolt as it's eye from a side view. It could be stork like or prehistoric. The pieces in he background could do as claws, bones of the body.
This pile of nets has the perfect funny face hidden in a mass of twine and floats. The two yellow bouys look like eyes and the curved floats look like a smile. The round shape and the circular repeats make him or her a friendly face.
These look quite stark and unfriendly but the lack of feature or colour makes them somehow look like they are even more so facial like. Maybe its the darkness of the holes as eyes.
I spotted the "chain face" after I had seen the faces in the weights. The two faces are side by side. The chain face looks comical. The positioning of the eyes and nose can create a completely different style and interpreted mood of a face.
ASSIGNMENT 2
Looking at some faces of inanimate objects and seeing if I can illustratively bring them to life. The symmetry of the eyes is usually a good starting point to find a face in an object, but not essential. Like in my photographs, such as the fishing nets the eyes are not level but they still project what could be recognized as a face.
I extended my drawings into some more finds from around the house, searching mainly for everyday objects that I have around in the garage. The garage usually is the least known room as it tends to be the place that is passed through and little time spent in there. This made this quite entertaining to find the faces and surprisingly there was quite a lot to see and find. The extension, the dust mask, the old briefcase, the freezer box, the bicycle gave many faces hidden within. Looking at Keith Larsen's work was a good reference to be handed as once I had seen his work, it was the suggestive that I needed to put the ideas into practice.
Working out which face to progress with, I started working some ideas in my sketchbook and looking at what spoke to me the most and I think has some great play to work with.
I finally settled on the fence post from the sand bank on the beach. The faces are quite hidden at first glance but they hold a lot of character to be played with.
I first start looking at some of the ideas and seeing how they develop as a sketch and seeing how they look in a sketched form, I need to decide on what works for me and how I can progress it into an image. I am thinking about how the face appears and does it look easily recognisable as a drawing.
From the fence idea I have started developing from the preliminary sketches, thinking about adding more details such as arms and legs. I also am looking at whether to expand to the four pieces of fence or stay with one piece of fence. Each has a good expressive face that is easy to spot and looks quite comical.
I start to think about materials and mediums and what works best for me, I think there is quite a good scope for making the fence stakes with quite a fun and quirky twist. I have tried inks, pens, watercolour and pencils.
Coming up with one design to work from. I start to look at the grass reeds and dry branches around the fence stakes and incorporating them as limps and help expression the face. I showed this to a couple of people to see how they viewed it and all liked it, (whether polite, who knows!) and all thought it was easily seen as a character and what the object is.
Moving through this design I decided to extend the fence and try and allow for all four faces to be in the drawing. I think it works really well and the context of the old rotten fence comes to life and you can see the eyes are old rusty flat nails and the faces are all looking out from a suggested static position.
For each character or face, I look at adding arms and legs with the surrounding dried grasses coming through the sank bank. I have not developed into looking at the back grounds as that will be the next step to work with.
As in the suggestion, I work within my book and look at the previous exercises and work and scrutinise the pieces as to interesting shapes, marks, lines that will purpose for a background for my illustrative piece of the fence. I want to work out a way to impose the drawing onto a background, I am going to look at seeing how I can explore expanding the micro sections and making them larger.
Using one of my previous drawings of the subject as a help to inspire me as to what relates to the drawing. I think about what makes me think of the sand, the beach, movement of the sand, the shapes and consistency and how or if any of my micro studies with my sketch book could work. I am pleased with two or three finds that I think could work really well, but I am now working on the decision on how I can take them and make them into a background. Do I carry on and draw them as I did with the fence? do I use a different medium? do I collage? I am going to have a think and play with some photocopies and see what occurs with them. I made several A4 sized blow ups and pinned them around the desk an moved my illustration over them to see how they worked and if they could be suitable.
My favourite is this one below. This is a small tiny section of one of the A2 charcoal sketches form rapid drawing. The swishes and swirls work. It looks like sand, moving and natural shapes.
I cut out the illustration and layered it up. I was not content with the background, I decided to try and colour it a more natural beachy/sandy colour. Once I had done this I become more at ease with the piece.
The finish piece is below - overall I am pleased but I am pondering if I should have been more experimental. I was tempted to go down the route of a collage but because this was a suggestion for some reason I thought I should try something else, but then feel that maybe I was a bit too safe and fell onto what I am comfortable doing. I don't know if I should be self critical about this as such as the finished piece does look good but I am now considering if that is not necessarily the point of the exercise.
Review of sketchbook - I have now started to fill my sketchbook, and though from the first assignment section, I experimented in building my own book, I am now finding that it is already super bulky and overflowing with add-ons and pages are getting a bit tatty! So, over the next assignment or so and in between I think I am going to look at how I can keep my work in a better state and look at binding solution and also a way of preserving my work and filing/tabbing the sections for when it is ready for assessment as at the moment, I feel I am going to a route where the book is becoming almost messy!
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Section: Assignment three:
Exercise 3.0: Observation - topography where to draw. What to draw.
From this exercise I have created a A5 sketchbook. I wanted to do something a little other than what was available due to restrictions on movement within the country at the present time, so using what I have and thinking in a rather unique way, I have made a tour of the garden, it starts from stepping out to the patio and then a walk around visiting the various areas of the garden but trying the look at how I can capture moments and also micro analysis of small parts of the garden to looking at landscapes and incorporating buildings. I still stayed within boundaries of using my tool kit and looking at incorporating all the elements of the exercise. I researched into the suggested artists of fast and slow sketches. By doing this, when I had completed my sketches, I revisited and extended my studies on to some of them. Some, I have more or less left as they were done in the garden, I also added some finds to pages of that area I studied.
The research into Veronica Lawlor did give and insight into the use of tools and how to emphasise certain parts of a sketch with colour or how a simple line drawing can still give the viewer the story.
First page, stepping into the garden, I did a quite basic sketch of what you can see and what is visible. I am trying not to over draw and add too many details but keep it as a story and segment the visual telling so it does not become over crowded or confusing. I sketched the tap, but later coloured it in with watercolours.
We have sections in our garden, not overly big areas, but they are stand alone areas, so I am explaining this in each drawing to give the viewer an idea of what is here and I want it to feel like my garden through the pages. Rightly or not, I decided to add text to the pages as I think it does help.
Pencil line drawing, just left as done in situ, but I still like it and want the pages to be varied in the story and be relate-able to what is being told and the grey pencil works well on this object.
I originally sketched this in B2 pencil, I then decided to draw over the sketch in ink and give it a water wash to enhance that it is a pond and water related. I like this and and I include a little summary of the pond.
Sketched and then colour and details added later. I pressed in a piece of the bamboo into the page. I am trying also not to be to particular on revisiting the sketches as in terms of accuracy but more to keep the original sketch but enhance it with detail and structure.
This page, I have left as it was taken from outside. The paint was to add depth. The metal badge on the arbour, I tried to copy it. I used a black 1.5 nib which is the thickest I carry, I like the capture of the crow that was sat on the ground but moved pretty sharpish when released I was there.
This is what brings in the crows, they are really greedy birds. I did the sketches and then later I detailed over the base as I liked the way the shadows came through when we had a glimpse of sun. As the moment passes, the shadows blend into the surfaces, so it was a quick layer of pencil. Actual bird seed glued in book.
Looking for a view. It was exceptionally quiet, I climbed on the bench and looked over across the gardens to get some buildings and look at distances and really I think it does tell that we are within a boundary and what is in the book, is within this boundary.
This is a pen sketch, I added the text, but I am quite pleased and I think it was probably the fastest of all the sketches. But the moment is there and I am sure it explains well what is happening.
These sketches were of looking down into the cold frame and seeing the new plants growing. I had left this, but at a later date, I went back and I added colour as it shows the brightness of the new shoots. This was my favourite page. I added a photo of the frame to the picture.
These cracked pots made a great still life, there was lots of shapes and lines to be found. It is not visible on here very well, but I took a piece of the terracotta and tried mark making on the pages with it, but it was very light and scratchy. But I left it on the page and drew around it.
This was a sketch of the conservatory, the plastic really was vivid white, especially if the sun came out. To make it stand out off the page, I gave the blank areas a coat of black. I am pleased with this. I like the lack of information but the window shapes, drainpipe and the roof detail so it is easy to assess what you are looking at.
I finished with a simple drawing of the garden and the entrance to the conservatory. I kept any dower petals and reference point them in the book. Vivid colours really for a grey day so they are needed. I did not use any pencil, I did a full sketch looking at the view with a 0.4 fineliner. Overall, I think the sketches explain where you are an what is happening, though they could have been a little more exciting had they been somewhere else, though in previous exercises on Drawing 1, I have experienced drawing outside and have captured some sketches in busy places like a market place. However, I feel I have explained the story well and I guess in a sense it is still incorporating the theme of everyday, though more personal to my everyday.
Exercise 3.1: Understanding viewpoints
From the first exercise, it states a sketchbook to accommodate 20 sketches etc. As I progressed to the next exercise I realised the sketchbook I started would be too small to add these exercises in, so using an old sketchbook, I adapted and integrated the original book within it. It does make the book interesting as it changes the dynamics of the book.
These are the questions asked to consider. Though I have answered them within my sketchbook via the notes, I have made some information available here as my current thoughts.
What is the relationship between photos and the drawings you made in your sketchbook?
The relationship forms familiarity and both are a form of recall. I think we record the same things but in different ways, a photo is a very stable and accurate portrait of a moment, whereas sketches can be influenced by time, practice, method, the tools used and the emotions of the artist.
Do you see the photographs as a form of reference to possibly help inform your earlier sketches or do you consider them to be an alternative and separate form of visual language?
I think the photographs can hold a very important role in sketching and being part of the sketchbook. I think if the sketches are observations and need to be detailed or extended at a later date away form the subject then they are very valuable. Also, as previously mentioned the photographs can evoke feelings and thoughts about that time or subject.
Do they provide visual reference?
They can provide visual reference but I would not want to fully rely on them as a form of observation if possible as sometimes I think being in the moment can have an effect on the drawings outcome.
Did the process of taking the photos make you want to return to any of your sketches and develop them in some way?
The aspects from looking at the photographs did draw out some other ideas. It is a bit like doing a mind map but it is very visual. One idea leads to another, and sometimes those ideas would not have been thought if not provoked from the photos.
Exercise 3.2: Working with external visual impetus - people
Single figure:
The single figure doing different tasks, I have found sometimes when I sketch in a fast and and use contouring within my sketch, not as a full process but introducing snippets of this as I draw, it does seem to work for me at capturing a better presence of the figure and the activity, the longer study, I think I start to over think the lines and sometimes can reinforce the wrong parts of the image, this then becomes more static.
I noticed this going from quick drawings in the garden to a restudying a pencil sketch and over developing the details. Its a learning curve so I will keep practising. I feel less afraid or apprehensive about doing sketches over other sketches now, I do find that it helps push that overall story of the sketches and what is going on in the drawings.
Crowds and activities: At the current time, there is no available crowds to draw, I worked off photographs I have taken in the past. All the ones I used are from a trip to America and the people are all caught candid within my photographs.I have dome some drawings in the past of crowds and people studying. It is quite an interesting aspect to undertake. Though I did find the trick is to almost watch people with disinterest so they do not actually feel conscious or aware you are studying them. This is where fast drawing does come in well as a method of note taking and capturing moments of everyday life. To extend the exercise I worked through some pages of my sketchbook. I used ball point pen on half of the drawings and the other half I used a ink liner that is quite flexible, so it is good for fast mark making.
I looked at some of the figures in various positions and tried to add as much variations and also within the studies I kept myself looking at the photos as much as possible so that I could still try and include the skill sets of contour drawing to keep the observations as natural and as I would in normal settings. To my understanding of the observations, that not always is it required to over analyse the details but to get the detail by building up other areas, so for instance, the sketches above of the people sunning in deckchairs. I have not given them facial features as the information about what they are doing relies on the body shapes and the props around them. I found that by looking at what the subject is doing and taking the study from that point. As what they are doing refers to how the body shapes behave in stance, movement and structure.
Exercise 3.3: Illustrative Drawing
Revisiting a previous exercise is always a bit tricky as I find as the creator you go in and immediately criticise what has been done and think you should have done something else, or drawn something else. The temptation to always go with what is familiar in terms of what we can draw is often the difficult part to step away from. I am quite illustrative in my personal work and create doodles and sketches on whims, I do struggle to maintain a purpose or process to develop what I do create, so from that perspective and being honest I am now looking at my exercise one and thinking how am I going to develop from "landmarks"? After an initial set back in my mind about this exercise I decided that I would revisit what I had done and think about the parts of the subjects I feel I can progress through and make into drawings that could express that images by influencing what I put on my pages.
I started off quite methodical and did as the exercise suggested and noted words, and thought about the "landmarks" and how they convey my perception of them.
Then once I had started, i just let my ideas flow and used the sketchbook as intentions.
First page on this exercise is quite basic an I want to make it simple and just play around on the page. Looking over the pics and the photos in my sketchbook, I decided to use the arbour and try and create illustrative ways of the meanings and feelings of this place. From the basic drawings I picked out shapes, the elements, the feelings and sentiments.
Thinking about the structure and the shapes, angles and patterns, spaces and what makes the illustration work and what doesn't. I am not intending on completing a piece of work, just experiment and try and use ideas I may not normally chose to try.
Here I have been quite literal in what the arbour means, where I sit, relax and enjoy the peace and quiet of the garden. Its not a massive space but it is simple and a safe haven. All this time we are in lockdown, the space is more used than ever before. I work mainly in the evenings so all sorts of little ideas pop up. On the garden shed key, I write "Safety is not in numbers" on the tag. I have characterised the Arbour by adding eyes and an arm as it like me relaxes back!
Before I started this one, I painted in an acrylic mix the light blue background. I was thinking of the sky blue being an relaxing colour, obviously the plants etc. are not blue but I thought it would be atmospheric to the illustration. I then used a simplistic style of drawing to add in the arbour and the slabs.
I actually think this is one of my favourite pages, I just find the simplicity works really well and the lack of excessive detail does somehow suggest a peaceful moment.
I looked over the photos and started extracting colours and being a bit more traditional with my illustration. From the previous page of using the acrylic first, this time I roughly made colour swatches where I was going to draw my images and then let it dry and afterwards added my line drawing but resisted the urge to fully draw the images. Missing borders and edges and details. I am referring myself back to the simpler drawings to try and keep the images representing the feeling of sitting in a garden and resting for a few moments.
If is funny how when you come away from work and return another idea comes through that is completely different. I had looked at the photos and thought about those at different levels, that we would not normally see from a standing or sitting position. Going with this idea, I thought about looking down the path towards the arbour. We had some Hellebore plants growing, well, nearly finished now. I looked for images of them and cut them out and made them in a group with illustrative leaves to represent that feeling of looking from a different position. Made a few notes on here too. Not my favourite idea but I liked doing it. I do not normally work in collage.
Painting into the sketchbook. This was late at night, I took the basic shapes of the arbour, the leaves of the bamboo and the pots, and the slabs. I made a very simplistic symmetrical gathering of shapes and just really played about with the paint, I made a mix of a very soft sage colour to try and suggest peacefulness.
I changed again completely! This day I had in mind snapshots of the landmarks within the garden and the pieces that were relate-able to the sketches. Watercolour and inks. I just used the previous pictures and photos and played about in the squares.
While I was looking and testing ideas. I started drawing the bird table, and then noticed the shape of the arch is almost the same as the arbour. Then I thought about the bird being in the arbour, and the arbour being within the table. I bent the fence around as a form of a barrier. Quite an interesting session doing these two pages.
I decided to incorporate a couple of new ideas into my illustration. The first being using the bold move of acrylic paint to colour in the background. I used paint pens and worked a background of diamonds, (taken from the points on the arbour) and did them in relaxing colours. I sketched the birdhouse and the arbour within, the cup of coffee and book. (the usual things that end up in there!) and then on the other side, I took the darkness of the arch from inside the bird table and made it a shape on the opposite page, maybe to represent winter, or the dullness of the garden. I drew in the bird feeder and the insect home (I included this as I liked the repeat shapes) and the path. I found a magazine clipping of a starling (we get a lot of these), and put him sitting on top of the bird table roof.
Overall, not my usual work, but I am now feeling that I am creating a sketchbook that is interesting and is developing quite nicely. It is also starting to feel tactile as I keep picking it up and having a look in between sessions of course work.
Exercise 3.4: Interpretation and Communication: Suppose we make it different?
I started with some ideas and played around with the elements of the birdhouse from my previous sketches. I had a couple of ideas in mind and wanted to bring in some fun into the drawing. I wanted to retain some selective parts of my original drawings bur develop them into how they can fit within my ideas and illustration. Could work the crow from a previous sketch in my book and make him into a character? how can I change his form without taking away the entirety of the original sketch which is what I like about him?
I wanted to include a narrative that was holding some directions of fun and to take what I have studied so far and make into a form of illustration that tells a humorous story.
The original crow drawing taken and I wanted to characterise him by adding elements, I tried a cap, scarf and glasses etc, tried him sitting down, I revisited the study and looked at other bird postures and how they can be simple line drawings and then think if they can be manipulated to form humanised movements.
I was not going to stick with the crow shape as the original sketch, but try to enhance the element of it by thinning the line, extending the drawings and making him into a fully formed part of the narrative.
Taking the second element of a sketch, the bird house itself. Now, I want to turn this to an illustrative piece, but I don't want to whole copy it image for image, so I start to play with it, adding a shelf at the front, making it softer, looking at putting things like the pots in the porch of the birdhouse, making it familiar to the viewer as a place, a usual place to see a plant pot, next to a front door...I also started to think about the background and started to revisit a few sketches from the study of the garden. I have a form developing but at the moment here I can see I need to try and incorporate some of the suggestions in the SCAMPER strategies.
The idea I am started to build is to make an illustrative piece, but using methods of drawing, I want to try and change the concept of the illustration - I have in mind to make the crow character simplistic, and redefine the birdhouse and the garden scene but almost like its an imagined place and not real. I start to look at different illustrators and styles to work from.
I had started working on some ideas of paper pieces or layering by cutting out the crow.
I worked with plain card and pen, and came up with a simple design then I researched this style. I started investigating paper cuts and came across a Spanish video ( I have popped this in my research & reference for my own use later). which then led me to stop start animation, which I googled and came across some scenes from Paddington Bear.
I wanted to take the actual sketches and bring them into a flat but dimensional way. Like a stop/start animation scene. I cut some samples out and I had layered them flat to get a dimensional look but then I took it to go a step further and create something solid and 3D, as the paddington scene sample above, you can see the shadows and depth is what creates the drawings into an actual place to imagine the characters are within.
I did a few sketches to try and give myself some ideas on whether this would work or become flat and not be anything special. I want to make this fun and really spark the idea that the three sketches of the bird, the birdhouse and the garden scene can all be related to a new version of their world and become as much fun and creative as possible but retain a little bit of truth in there.
I kept working on this idea and how to process the stages into something tangible. I have worked on board and scraps and white card etc.. as all these are not in my book I have created a paperclipped wallet and secured them within the book.
Along with the deisgns I start to contemplate my style and how I can make this come together as a piece. I was a little undecided again about whether to paper cut the shapes and layer them up or whether to see if I can make this shadowed representation of the idea.
I did a few test pieces and worked on the basis of capturing that familiar style of Paddington Bear or that similarities of the illustrations within these sort of works. A lot of stop/start illustration and animation does not have much call for now due to the rise of digital art, but i think it holds an almost tactile quality that you could reach in and touch the work.
After much sampling and manipulating bits of white card I created a birdhouse, I looked at how the building works in the Paddington bear was used and how they used limited colours within the scenes and used selective shading and angles to make the flat become dimensional.
I reverted back to my sketches and used the studies of the wood and the garden to keep a simple but touch of realism to the project and make the crows home one as a viewer would at least raise a small smile to its cosy and quirky life style.
To add some humour I decided to add some household items, I made a very simple tv, I illustrated the walls with wallpaper and the floor, just beyond the door is a scattering of seeds, (taken from a sketch of the bird table). The favourite part of this is how the 3D works as a photograph of the illustration.
Because this is not going to fit into a sketchbook, but I like that, its taking the sketches from the previous pages and I have been able to turn them into something completely different but kept them with in its family.
The homour comes from now, the current situation of not going outside (the sign reads "Stay home", and that is what the crow is doing. Using some basic styles and techniques form the Paddington bear illustrations I have drawn the items and neatly left a white edge. I am really pleased how well they have turned out. Trying different angles and photographing the 3D illustration has really brought it to life.
I was a little apprehensive about this exercise as there seemed to be so many angles and requirements that at the beginning, I did feel a bit foggy about finding direction, then after reading and absorbing the brief, I understood the concept of taking what is within the sketchbook and using it to develop other pathways and they SCAMPER strategy helps contemplate how to move the ideas forward and expand them. I think the importance of fun in illustration is one that over weights other formats of story telling, as the fun aspects are sometimes obvious and sometimes hidden but it is the viewer that can withdraw them as and when they like, sometimes reality is to sharp and intrusive and the fun is put there as a demand, that you must find it funny. Whereas in illustrating, we can still be funny but the art and the story is still there to read in the drawings.
Exercise 3.5: Free Association
"My doodles are automatic drawings usually executed with little thought" John Vernon - Lord
The term doodling or doodles as any artist or creative knows is one that we do consciously and almost subconsciously with out much thought though we can recall shapes, spaces, people, lines, marks and reproduce them or recreate them or create a completely new idea from a whim.
I doodle a lot, usually on edges of paper pieces while on the telephone at work. Sometimes I do the same thing of drawing a leaf or a flower, maybe this is my inner self saying get out the office now, go into the outside world! Its calling! Other times I do squares, squiggles and a lot of nothingness. These often end up shredded or in the bin.
To sit and doodle at home is something I have not done for a long time. These days whenever I get creative it is always for a means to an end to produce something. The freedom of doodling is sometimes far and few between done these recent months.
When this exercise started, my first page, I was a little unsure? Wasting pages? Creating pages of nothingness...My first page was a triumph and when I had done three or four pages I started going back and flicking through the sketchbook to find them. As each page was filled with nonsense it became more of a game to see what I can think of next.
All my scribbles and doodles all came from memory, I started off with creating characters and then the first word I thought of, I started to draw a related object. I also did an alpha trail. Starting with A, then onwards, and the first word I had to try and draw whether a feeling or an object or an animal, my only rule was if I thought of Elephant the F had to be an object or a feeling and not an animal.
I also had creating faces session, by dedicating a page or two, I just kept revisiting adding a face every now and then.
I liked the memory doodles, one evening, I sat and thought about all my gym gear and then another page I had the idea of a shopping trolley that I remembered an old lady in our neighbourhood had, then began a page of all different objects that I imagined she had, even down to making her a front door.
I did enjoy just clearing the mindspace and thinking of people, places, things and just redrawing them, even with no clarity or correctness, and creating weird images.
I am also going to revert back to some of my older sketchbooks and maybe look at using them as doodle books. I like the freedom of this.
I have added some pages below...
Assignment Three: Illustrative People & Places
My visual research is based on the beach and people enjoying the sun and the beach, capturing the postures and states of motion as the sun and the outdoors are enjoyed. I also collated a collection of colours and themes within my sketchbook to inspire me with the thoughts of summer and the sensation of time on a beach.
Here are some of my sketches below in my book. I did three different motions of sketching that have been pinpoints within the exercises. One: fast and quick sketches, here I have not contemplated how the lines fall with studying them in between, they have been quick and swift marks to capture people, shapes and the scene. Two: I have also then progressed to do some more considered parts of the sketches, looking at facial details, movement and fabric folds etc. Three: I also worked with the rules of contour drawing and keeping my tool moving n the paper as I studied the subject to capture the stance, movement, features and any detailing I thought required to help suggest the narrative of that scene.
Two girls walking closer to the shore line to find a good spot to picnic. The rest of the family follow behind. The front girl struggles with the chill box!
Donkey rides are traditional. They are always busy. This candid moment, The little boy is looking at the donkey, and I think he is unsure or maybe wishing he could have a go. I don't think he was with the woman stood watching the girl.
Candid moment capturing a family looking slightly unsure about being on the sand. They have sort of settled down but by keeping standing they look a little uneasy. As to what to do. The boy looks a little conscious sat on the towel.
There is so many people that use the beach and shore line, people become blurry and dots in the hazy sun. I liked how this mother was sat watching her child play in the sand, hes absorbed in digging the hole, hes ignoring the beach ball!
Donkey rides go out to the sea and back in a loop. The worker is obviously more used to the off sea breeze as he wears his over jacket rolled up in the sun!
A couple of detailed face studies.
A family sit on the rocks below the path and then an older couple stand and debate the ice cream options, they both mimic each others body language.
People walking in the sun on the foreshore.
By the seashore. It is so busy sometimes by the shore line the shore line disappears beneath all those paddlers!
Here I started developing the sketches. Adding some colour and taking away some of the lines and adding more to the background.
I have not drawn any connections between the hat and the coat. I like how your eyes fill in the gaps.
Bringing in a block colour and theme, I had looked at some old seaside posters and tried tweeking in some of the styles and method of illustration. In this piece, I have carried on taking away parts of the sketch and defining other parts and seeing what still gives a narrative.
Here are some examples of old advertising posters, I have found quite a few and kept them in my sketchbook. I have used these as a reference point for: Letter styling, colour combinations and styling.
I started progressing to how this could work as a poster and what the story would be.
Revisiting other sketches and capturing more information and deciding if this is what I like to work with. I have also carried on making notes on the pages to keep my inspiration and ideas fresh in mind. I liked this moment, the husband and wife on the beach enjoying the simple task of paddling in the sea.
This one I reworked, I took a smaller section of a page sketch. The woman and child playing. I like the simplifying method and bringing in my black fine liner and getting a sketch to a stage where it looks print like. The colouration is completely by imagination. But I really enjoyed layering in the colours and tones.
After a few more sketch ideas, I started to blend in some aspects. First my initial sketch. I stylised it to have familiarity to the old posters. I even started to look at typography and the way the posters were laid out. Of course my narrative is not to advertise Railways but by taking these common factors, I have manipulated them to add to my message of visiting the beach and enjoying the simple aspects of life. Such as playing in the sand.
I also represented the two figures to mirror each other, the blond hair and the clothes are the same combinations. The red towel relating to the red bucket. The question being is it the same person, reliving their childhood, or is it a mother taking her child to the beach to revisit what the mother did as a young child. I took the basic colour combos used in some of the posters of the seaside tones and made as much a simple background as possible as I enjoy this crisp and clean imagery. To me, it is pleasing to look at.
Reflection:
My first issue with this assignment was that I could not go out into any public places due to the current situation, but not to be deterred I used Youtube and searched videos of our beach. I then put the screen on large player and literally treated the videos as I was observing. Once I had configured my sketches I worked as in a studio situation and reworked from my sketches. I am going to expand on observational drawings of people as I think it is quite a good way of understanding the body and also, it is very important how just by changing a couple of lines or capturing motions can really change the dynamics of how the sketch works.
I have used photography as a tool, often when I have been places, even just shopping, I stop and snap a quick photo with my phone discreetly of things that catch my eye. Not always do I go to use them, but I keep a file with all my images in. I have used them several times in the past, some just stay in there but they may come in useful!
I find working fast has some very important aspects to my work, firstly often those first few marks are the important ones. It can often be do those, move on, do some more on a different area of the page. This has been very useful in looking at doing stylized pictures such as the poster as you can see how minimalizing works can still tell the narratives.
I have been a drifting a bit with sketchbooks, and I have to say, this section I feel it is the first sketchbook I feel is valued and from start to finish the book as whole is quite precious, there are some pages that are a bit random and probably may get inspiration from, and some that when I look back I am quite proud of them being pages in my book. It is truly made some kind of connection between me and the sketchbook, whereas back in section one and two, though I can produce the work, this has cemented more of the process and development of sketchbooking to me personally and looking back over assignment one, where we review statements, these now hold more related sentiment.
Overall I feel this has been enjoyable and I am more than pleased with how my sketchbook collection will develop.
Its difficult to appreciate the tactile qualities of a sketchbook without holding it, but this is Assignment three section sketchbook! It is what I would call my first ever near completed book! A few pages need extending and it is a bit of a mish-mash taken from an old sketchbook and additional pages added at the front with the original sketchbook for the assignment, it has become one that gets picked up and flicked through and some of the crumpled pages that have got wet or painted and the added pages held in with tape all add to it! And thank god for paper clips!
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Section: Assignment one:
Do you feel a bit anxious about starting your sketchbook?
I love and hate starting a new sketchbook. I love the blank pages, the fresh unscuffed cover and the prospect of new ideas and sketches going in it and what it could be once it is full and how it tells intricate stories and each page is full with details and notes.
I hate that I struggle to continue with a sketchbook. I start one and if I try to implement a theme or style to it which restricts me using it and it can become redundant. Once the newness has passed I start to then focus on maybe starting another or gluing the what I perceive as "bad" pages together and coating them in paint and restarting the page.
Currently, I don't think I have completed a sketchbook besides the ones that accompany my coursework.
Yes, I do feel anxious starting a sketchbook.
Are you worried that you will have to show your work to your tutor and you don't think it is 'good enough'?
I don't think I should be worried that my work is not good enough as I think a sketchbook is in the same lines as keeping a dairy and my sketches are personal to me and how I interpret what is around me. I worry that I will try to create something without fault on each page and not relax with the ongoing content.
Are you concerned that you haven't used a sketchbook ever, or for a while?
I am well acquainted with sketchbooks to the extent I must have maybe a dozen started. All have pages filled and then followed by empty unused pages! I think my concern will lay within filling the sketchbook and filling it to make it useful. I want to have a sketchbook for reference and referral, whereas at the moment I am using them as galleries in effect!
Are you confused because you don't know the 'right' way to do a sketchbook?
I don't think I am confused, I think I know how a sketchbook can become an almighty tool and extremely valuable to use, but I think I need to hone my skills on how to get the best of using a sketchbook and learn what are the best ways to do this.
Exercise 1:0 What sort of Sketchbook should I use?
The options for sketchbooks is so much more than many years ago. I can remember the excitement of starting a new sketchbook and also followed by disappointment when the pages ran out or the book didn't form to more than a doodle pad and pages subtracted for projects or other tasks.
I have spent some time considering the options for a sketchbook. I have several already, but this course is making me contemplate of what my sketchbooks should be doing. I need one that I can add to - manoeuvre - and work from.
I am looking at the consideration of constructing a sketchbook. Something never done before but it may give me some impetus to improve my sketchbook keeping and not see it as a piece of work but as a catalogue of what I am working towards.
I am investigating and noting down in my learning log variations of fixings, binds and other relevant information.
Doing a brain storm type session on what I want or don't want from my Sketchbooks. Thinking of all the factors that occur in choices of a book. This seems a simple process and it is, but when I sit and consider all our personal agendas wanting a sketchbook, I can start to build a much clearer visual of what I am going to be needing, and what is going to likely work best for me.
DO I GET INTIMATED BY THE BLANK PAGES OF AN EXPENSIVE BOOK?
I have to say, I do. This is more due to the fact I have this fear of messing up the book, thinking that if I start off spoiling the beginning pages, I won't improve and the book will not develop. Of course, it would and the point of making mistakes to to correct them, but being who I am, I am unskilled in keeping a running sketchbook.
DO I NEED SOMETHING ON MY PAGE ALREADY? E.G GRID, LINES.
No, I think a plain clean page is an invite. One I often accept but later retrieve myself away as I am desperately trying to populate every inch of the page! I can use lined paper and in the past I have tried dotted grid paper, both are okay for quick sketches, but for me, lesser a distraction is better.
DO I PREFER TO WORK ON HEAVYWEIGHT PAPER OR SOMETHING MORE FLIMSY? There is good and negative in using both, and from my experiences, the medium used can also tell what is better for its use. I do like to test a variation. My favourite is a smooth white heavy paper, but I am often drawing in fine liner so that would be why. But as I go into this I will experiment more in this field.
DO I PREFER TO WORK LARGE OR SMALL?
The large paper can be daunting, but also can give me some great scope for landscape sketches or free limitless mark making, using chalks or thick paint brushes, a larger space opens up for all these things. For quick intimate sketches, especially on the move I do prefer a smaller book. At current I am always leaning towards a A5 book, both Landscape and portrait bound at the moment.
One of my sketchbooks is a 10" x 10". I like it, but I do feel an urge to fill the pages so I only save this one for when I have a couple of hours to be creative.
AM I A CREATURE OF HABIT THAT NEEDS THE SAME LOOK?
I am desperate to say no, but unfortunately, I do find my work tends to migrate to look very similar in layout and notes and drawings, same media, same materials etc. I will hope to break this.
DO I WANT VARIETY THAT RELATES TO WHATEVER i AM WORKING ON?
Yes, this has to be a yes. I know that using a watercolour on a smooth board with damage the surface and too much water will saturate the surface and loose its smoothness. I know ink can bleed profusely in fibrous card stock. I do think that if I am to swap mediums I need to be open to be able to change my surfaces.
DO I WANT A SKETCHBOOK THAT IS LIKE A HARD BACK BOOK, SO I CAN WORK ACROSS THE PAGES AND TREAT THEM LIKE A DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD?
I do like this and on some occasions I have definitely achieved some great sketches doing this. However, thinking in the lines of creating a sketchbook and looking over such as Emma Powell's book, I am seeing the use of the clips that can secure a page within a book. Maybe this could give the option for a smaller book but still open up for a bigger drawing page.
DO I WANT A SPIRAL BOUND TO EASILY FOLD PAGES/COVER OVER?
Spiral bound books are good for a couple of reasons, I like the ability to roll the pages behind so that it creates a solid surface and also protects the pages before. Also the spiral adds as a perfect place to lodge pens, pencils, brushes while working.
I have a couple of negatives to spirals, the pages don't bare weight well, so of such as mixed media or heavily painted they can start to tear at the holes.
Also the ability to add in pages is not a choice, unless you can some how clip into the binding itself. I have seen some sketchbooks made by binding papers together with a binding machine, but that sort of equipment is not an everyday item for lots of us but could be sought at a large stationers who may offer this service.
WHAT AM I USING MY SKETCHBOOK FOR?
Hmmm...This is often my problem, as I tend to start a sketchbook and theme it and then it remains unused after the first dozen pages are used. The Everyday, is the theme for this course, so hopefully I can start to dictate to the book what goes in and not be blinkered with my options.
DO I WANT TO WORK SECRETIVELY OR PUBLIC?
The use of a sketchbook can be in varied formats and I think depending on what the sketchbook is for, it can be deemed personal or open to all to view. The reasons can be the subjects maybe personal. It can be that the thought of criticisms may be taken personal if someone comments on the book images, as an onlooker does not necessarily understand the use of a sketchbook as diary of pictures and not a piece or artwork.
I prefer working privately. I do find people viewing my work can be quite intimidating.
DO I ALREADY HAVE A SKETCHBOOK THAT IS FAVOURED?
My style tends to be black hardback sketchbook. The classic. Smooth paper and neat, discrete and very unnoticeable. I will still work with these, but I am open to change directions on what I use.
DO I USE DIGITAL SKETCHING? IF SO WILL I DOCUMENT THIS FOR MY TUTOR?
In the past I have used drawing apps. If I do use a device to create some images, I will hopefully be able to print them off and encase them in my sketchbooks.
Digital is good for the limitations when you can not have a lot of equipment with you, but I do find it is limited in thinking about textures and depth. Not quite the same as line drawing with crosshatching or line work.
WILL A DIGITAL DEVICE BE ONE OF MY SKETCHBOOKS THAT I CHOOSE?
I am unsure what the reference is to 3 sketchbooks, but at this moment in time, I cannot foresee me using a digital sketchbook. However, I will use a digital sketchbook circle, such as on Instagram.
Creating sketchbooks
I looked up what a "Zine" is referring to. A Zine is a method often printed that creates a personal or small business booklet/information style book. It creates several pages from one print. I had a go at creating one from an A4 paper sheet. I used a metal ruler to help make defined folds. This version is followed from the course pack. I have folded the paper in half, then quarters and half in landscape. By cutting the fold in the middle where the central landscape fold lies, you can start to create multiple pages. Refolding after the cut makes a zine sketchbook of 6 inner pages and an front an back cover. This also has the advantage of reopening and work being created on the full A4 page.
Exercise 1:1 What is your relationship with your sketchbook?
What is your relationship with your sketchbook? -
Response to OCA Questionnaire comments -
Comments that I apply to me at the moment:
This one has to be the ropiest one, the charcoal did not sit on the paper very well, but I used the chunky edges to make shapes and lines that reflected the view. Nothing is really recognisable as objects or a picture, and once it is cut up, probably even less so.
Following the instructions within the exercise, I created four mini books.
For the time being I held the binds of each one together with a bull dog clip.
Questions below - considered and notes made in both my learning log & my sketchbook.
Can you work in it again with another mark-making implement or colour?
Or, do you want to leave it as it is?
Are other ideas sparked from looking at each page? Are you reminded of something else?
Which format do you prefer?
I revisited this and had another go at doing a five minute mark making session and used a sponge and its handle. I wanted to see if I could be a little more free in mark making and see how the pages looked, after the exercise success using a more fluid medium and using unusual mark making tools, I thought that another attempt may provide me with a better grasp of the exercise. I do on occasions think that I over complicate the aspects of the exercise rather than embrace it and be more creative.
These are some of the open pages in the "fifth" book I created using a five minute view. Nothing is recognisable to probably any other than myself. Is that a possible secret code of sketchbooking? or do all viewers need to know what they are looking at to understand it.
Working within this exercise, I am going to start joining within the online sketchbook circle. I have as yet, not had a response from fellow pupils with regards to physically swapping work and building a book.
Instagram search : #sketchbookcircleoca my instagram: #illustrationdry
I have also started following others on the course and also tagged my work into sketchbook circles on Instagram to try and get an involvement outside the student group.
For the Sketchbook circle, I want to have a separate sketchbook so if a time comes and I can swap books physically or pass it on, then I have it with out jeopardising any other work.
I need a sketchbook so I am reviewing what I have already learnt for the course.
I am experimenting on the sketchbook zine to increase page size and page quantity. I am using a piece of A2 cartridge paper. It has a nice texture to it and is not too thick. I think this one is 210gsm in buff colour.
I worked on a decent sized cutting mat and with some essential tools. Knife, paper creaser, metal ruler (with ridge for fingers as helps keep ruler in place and reduces slips and cuts), plus I have acquired a corner rounder, this one is by a company called Zutter. It cuts through thicker card and leaves a nice circular edge to right angles.
First thing, I folded the paper in half, then each half is folded to the central line. Here I used the creasing tool to get a nice flat fold. I also folded the crease forward and back.
I repeated this in landscape fold and end up with 16 potential pages. I folded forward and back again to ensure the folds are strong and defined.
I used my knife and metal ruler to cut down the first fold next to the three potential pages. The middle crease, I cut up from, three again. The third crease I cut down the length of three pages.
From one end, I concertina the pages to start to make a book. Upon the forth one, I fold this under than carry on folding in the same pattern.
This is where I fold the first four pages underneath the middle row. The sketchbook is forming!
A birds eye view of the book! You can see in this photo that if you count to the forth page you can see where it is folded at the top.
I used the outer pages to double back onto the rest of the book to reinforce the cover on the front and back. As I wrapped it around the spine, I creased it at about half an inch so it now protects the spine.
Over view. Done, just needs corners rounding. I used a thick roll of double sided adhesive tape to enforce the wrapped front and back pages. This is my first handmade sketchbook!
Exercise 1:3 How personal do you want your sketchbook to be? To hide, or not to hide?
The purpose of me hiding my work would be to keep it secretive. i don't know if this is a positive connection to my artwork or whether it is something to consider as a way of keeping my own thoughts and descriptions safe from others.
Do I want my tutors to see my work? would it want to be hidden away, should it be hidden away? Am I wanting to hide it away. Would hiding it away hold more value to my sketchbook with the knowledge that beyond what can be seen is more than meets the eye. That an eagle-eyed viewer could pry further into my work and sketchbook.
I have to consider when you hide work is it in shamefulness or because of shyness? Would I want to hide away exceptionally good work in my sketchbooks.
I looked at the possibility of having some visible parts of the book showing. I tried making a couple of envelopes. Envelopes can be inserted into the sketchbook. I found a Pintrest post of a book where the pages were made of envelopes and the pages then incorporated inserts into the envelopes.
My other mock up was to create a small everyday object. A matchbox. Here this could sit inside my book as a collected object. The folded up book, (this one is may favourite) and it is quite thick, but it is hidden with a almost tongue in cheek attitude with a quip written on the false box base, which hides the book.
I have kept these inside my sketchbook, with some rough designs beforehand, looking back upon what I made, I think I spent too long on this exercise thinking I needed to produce a finished piece of work when I think maybe my time would have benefited from being more experimental with the books themselves, however I do feel I have achieved positive movements in both areas.
Assignment 1
Taking the previous research I had done in structure and book binding, I decided to embrace this and make my sketchbook for the assignment. I wanted to do this because I could be consider my page content, the size of the pages and also the thought of all of it becoming from nothing is quite exciting.
This is my finished book. I wanted it to be a completed version of a sketchbook in the books own right, taking the everyday, which is my everyday and the theme from my mini books. This has brought me through several stages of experiments, using influences from the researched artists and also from trying to explore the room and what the items around are and how ordinary but are needed by me through my day to day at my desk.
The book pages developed into whatever mood or action I felt like at that particular time. Taking into consideration the space, the objects and wanting for the viewer to feel they too know the room.
This is the first page opening. I start the book with quite a technical and personal view, by pinpointing the objects in the room and text relating the items informally.
My current working sketchbook
With the prospect of this course and the chance to be free with sketchbook keeping and manufacturing, I have decided that I am working from my own made book. This sketchbook is more a folder, created by using a binding system, that allows me to add and replace pages. This is so I can hopefully fully expand my sketchbook, not feel any limitations to what I am creating.
I have made the sketchbook from a piece of mount board and some brown artist tape, binding and a few findings that hold it all together.
I have already found I am less meticulous and more fluid in putting information and recordings down in my book and learning through the research into artists, ways of documenting ideas and sketches in varied successful ways.
Here are some images of my current sketchbook. The sketchbook is approximately 14 inches x 10 inches but holds A3 folded lovely. (Using A 3 card folded, as dividing material).
So far, I am enjoying the construction and the creation of this form of sketchbooking. It is giving me some food for thought on the way I process how to continue with my sketchbook.
What is your relationship with your sketchbook in relation to assessment and/or showing it to your tutor?
Truthfully, the past two courses, I have had a panicked sensation over sending my sketchbooks in along with my selected pieces from throughout the courses. I have tried tabbing them to explain what page relates to what assignment or exercise, I have desperately tried to retain just one sketchbook in the first course and ended up with a bulging hard-backed bound mess that had to be held shut with a ribbon, the other course, I migrated to a secondary sketchbook to allow myself for more work space. In hindsight, making a sketchbook in this style may have been easier in both accounts as it would have allowed me to expand and integrate; finds, pictures, scraps of notes etc. and kept the sketchbook in a state of understand-ability for the viewer. I don't necessarily feel like I want to hide this sketchbook as it already feels "right", It has plenty of room for work and it can be segmented as I work through the assignments and I don't think I have any reason to hide this one.
Here is a video of a walk through my current progression of Part one - Assignment one.
Final thoughts on this assignment
Do you feel a bit anxious about starting your sketchbook?
I love and hate starting a new sketchbook. I love the blank pages, the fresh unscuffed cover and the prospect of new ideas and sketches going in it and what it could be once it is full and how it tells intricate stories and each page is full with details and notes.
I hate that I struggle to continue with a sketchbook. I start one and if I try to implement a theme or style to it which restricts me using it and it can become redundant. Once the newness has passed I start to then focus on maybe starting another or gluing the what I perceive as "bad" pages together and coating them in paint and restarting the page.
Currently, I don't think I have completed a sketchbook besides the ones that accompany my coursework.
Yes, I do feel anxious starting a sketchbook.
Are you worried that you will have to show your work to your tutor and you don't think it is 'good enough'?
I don't think I should be worried that my work is not good enough as I think a sketchbook is in the same lines as keeping a dairy and my sketches are personal to me and how I interpret what is around me. I worry that I will try to create something without fault on each page and not relax with the ongoing content.
Are you concerned that you haven't used a sketchbook ever, or for a while?
I am well acquainted with sketchbooks to the extent I must have maybe a dozen started. All have pages filled and then followed by empty unused pages! I think my concern will lay within filling the sketchbook and filling it to make it useful. I want to have a sketchbook for reference and referral, whereas at the moment I am using them as galleries in effect!
Are you confused because you don't know the 'right' way to do a sketchbook?
I don't think I am confused, I think I know how a sketchbook can become an almighty tool and extremely valuable to use, but I think I need to hone my skills on how to get the best of using a sketchbook and learn what are the best ways to do this.
Exercise 1:0 What sort of Sketchbook should I use?
The options for sketchbooks is so much more than many years ago. I can remember the excitement of starting a new sketchbook and also followed by disappointment when the pages ran out or the book didn't form to more than a doodle pad and pages subtracted for projects or other tasks.
I have spent some time considering the options for a sketchbook. I have several already, but this course is making me contemplate of what my sketchbooks should be doing. I need one that I can add to - manoeuvre - and work from.
I am looking at the consideration of constructing a sketchbook. Something never done before but it may give me some impetus to improve my sketchbook keeping and not see it as a piece of work but as a catalogue of what I am working towards.
I am investigating and noting down in my learning log variations of fixings, binds and other relevant information.
Doing a brain storm type session on what I want or don't want from my Sketchbooks. Thinking of all the factors that occur in choices of a book. This seems a simple process and it is, but when I sit and consider all our personal agendas wanting a sketchbook, I can start to build a much clearer visual of what I am going to be needing, and what is going to likely work best for me.
I have to say, I do. This is more due to the fact I have this fear of messing up the book, thinking that if I start off spoiling the beginning pages, I won't improve and the book will not develop. Of course, it would and the point of making mistakes to to correct them, but being who I am, I am unskilled in keeping a running sketchbook.
DO I NEED SOMETHING ON MY PAGE ALREADY? E.G GRID, LINES.
No, I think a plain clean page is an invite. One I often accept but later retrieve myself away as I am desperately trying to populate every inch of the page! I can use lined paper and in the past I have tried dotted grid paper, both are okay for quick sketches, but for me, lesser a distraction is better.
DO I PREFER TO WORK ON HEAVYWEIGHT PAPER OR SOMETHING MORE FLIMSY? There is good and negative in using both, and from my experiences, the medium used can also tell what is better for its use. I do like to test a variation. My favourite is a smooth white heavy paper, but I am often drawing in fine liner so that would be why. But as I go into this I will experiment more in this field.
DO I PREFER TO WORK LARGE OR SMALL?
The large paper can be daunting, but also can give me some great scope for landscape sketches or free limitless mark making, using chalks or thick paint brushes, a larger space opens up for all these things. For quick intimate sketches, especially on the move I do prefer a smaller book. At current I am always leaning towards a A5 book, both Landscape and portrait bound at the moment.
One of my sketchbooks is a 10" x 10". I like it, but I do feel an urge to fill the pages so I only save this one for when I have a couple of hours to be creative.
AM I A CREATURE OF HABIT THAT NEEDS THE SAME LOOK?
I am desperate to say no, but unfortunately, I do find my work tends to migrate to look very similar in layout and notes and drawings, same media, same materials etc. I will hope to break this.
DO I WANT VARIETY THAT RELATES TO WHATEVER i AM WORKING ON?
Yes, this has to be a yes. I know that using a watercolour on a smooth board with damage the surface and too much water will saturate the surface and loose its smoothness. I know ink can bleed profusely in fibrous card stock. I do think that if I am to swap mediums I need to be open to be able to change my surfaces.
DO I WANT A SKETCHBOOK THAT IS LIKE A HARD BACK BOOK, SO I CAN WORK ACROSS THE PAGES AND TREAT THEM LIKE A DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD?
I do like this and on some occasions I have definitely achieved some great sketches doing this. However, thinking in the lines of creating a sketchbook and looking over such as Emma Powell's book, I am seeing the use of the clips that can secure a page within a book. Maybe this could give the option for a smaller book but still open up for a bigger drawing page.
DO I WANT A SPIRAL BOUND TO EASILY FOLD PAGES/COVER OVER?
Spiral bound books are good for a couple of reasons, I like the ability to roll the pages behind so that it creates a solid surface and also protects the pages before. Also the spiral adds as a perfect place to lodge pens, pencils, brushes while working.
I have a couple of negatives to spirals, the pages don't bare weight well, so of such as mixed media or heavily painted they can start to tear at the holes.
Also the ability to add in pages is not a choice, unless you can some how clip into the binding itself. I have seen some sketchbooks made by binding papers together with a binding machine, but that sort of equipment is not an everyday item for lots of us but could be sought at a large stationers who may offer this service.
WHAT AM I USING MY SKETCHBOOK FOR?
Hmmm...This is often my problem, as I tend to start a sketchbook and theme it and then it remains unused after the first dozen pages are used. The Everyday, is the theme for this course, so hopefully I can start to dictate to the book what goes in and not be blinkered with my options.
DO I WANT TO WORK SECRETIVELY OR PUBLIC?
The use of a sketchbook can be in varied formats and I think depending on what the sketchbook is for, it can be deemed personal or open to all to view. The reasons can be the subjects maybe personal. It can be that the thought of criticisms may be taken personal if someone comments on the book images, as an onlooker does not necessarily understand the use of a sketchbook as diary of pictures and not a piece or artwork.
I prefer working privately. I do find people viewing my work can be quite intimidating.
DO I ALREADY HAVE A SKETCHBOOK THAT IS FAVOURED?
My style tends to be black hardback sketchbook. The classic. Smooth paper and neat, discrete and very unnoticeable. I will still work with these, but I am open to change directions on what I use.
DO I USE DIGITAL SKETCHING? IF SO WILL I DOCUMENT THIS FOR MY TUTOR?
In the past I have used drawing apps. If I do use a device to create some images, I will hopefully be able to print them off and encase them in my sketchbooks.
Digital is good for the limitations when you can not have a lot of equipment with you, but I do find it is limited in thinking about textures and depth. Not quite the same as line drawing with crosshatching or line work.
WILL A DIGITAL DEVICE BE ONE OF MY SKETCHBOOKS THAT I CHOOSE?
I am unsure what the reference is to 3 sketchbooks, but at this moment in time, I cannot foresee me using a digital sketchbook. However, I will use a digital sketchbook circle, such as on Instagram.
Creating sketchbooks
I looked up what a "Zine" is referring to. A Zine is a method often printed that creates a personal or small business booklet/information style book. It creates several pages from one print. I had a go at creating one from an A4 paper sheet. I used a metal ruler to help make defined folds. This version is followed from the course pack. I have folded the paper in half, then quarters and half in landscape. By cutting the fold in the middle where the central landscape fold lies, you can start to create multiple pages. Refolding after the cut makes a zine sketchbook of 6 inner pages and an front an back cover. This also has the advantage of reopening and work being created on the full A4 page.
 |
| Defining creases and making first zine sketchbook |
 |
| that was fun. I am going to have some time on this! See what I can do! |
Exercise 1:1 What is your relationship with your sketchbook?
What is your relationship with your sketchbook? -
Response to OCA Questionnaire comments -
Comments that I apply to me at the moment:
Initially I was daunted
I am not a type who opens it on the table in a coffee shop and let everyone see what I am doing
I could have put them in my phone but it wouldn’t be the same
I like it!
At the moment it is about working out how to use it
I do like to write things down while I am thinking
I struggle with it
Find a way to interact properly with it
A love hate relationship
Once I am sketching in my sketchbook I enjoy it
I think I dislike my sketchbook when I am feeling lazy
Bit confused about my sketchbook
I don’t use it as a diary or journal like some people
I take my sketchbooks to be a kind of personal thinking instrument
I love it and wish I could spend more time with it
Occasionally frustrated when I can’t get ideas right
It gets treated pretty badly
Very intimate
I consider each sketchbook an artwork of its own
My sketchbook comes from inside me
My sketchbook is a visual representation of me
I feel coursework sketches need to be more fluid and chronological
They will be judged
Love hate, I get bursts where it is intensive and then bouts of apathy
I am not very faithful
But other stuff gets in the way
I hate them (when I do awful work because I feel I wasted the pages.)
I don’t like the constraints of a book
Comments I would like to apply in the future:
I almost never leave the house without a sketchbook
It is like a friend that I can blurt everything out to, wild daring
It doesn’t judge…it teaches me things
It is a pleasure to write and draw for a change instead of having to do everything digitally
The sketchbook is a place for experimenting
Show me how things developed
It’s a special place to record, investigate and interpret ideas
Space to explore and set out ideas
It’s a means to thrash out ideas that lead to a bigger end product
Helps me develop observational skills
Snapshots about my creative journey
It is a tool
They allow me to record, play and investigate ideas
It is like a diary of the process/development that I am going through
My relationship with my sketchbook is more exciting
They are cumulative record of who I am, what I am thinking and how I am feeling
The sketchbook has value
I am very proud of it and it is always with me
Helps me relax, organise my thoughts and develop my ideas
A full sketchbook is very satisfying
I like folders where I can move things and replace things, let it evolve more
What do you notice about your selections?
I have common themes in both current and future sketchbook comments.
Mainly, for the moment, I can see I love sketchbooks but equally had a dissatisfied notion.
I think I have become a creature of habit with maintaining the process of starting a sketchbook and abandoning it.
I don't want to continue with that method, as it is proving to be wasteful of my time and the books. I never collate these books so they sit unfinished.
The same with the future of wanting to embrace my sketchbook as part of my creativeness. I want to let myself be free to think, "oh well, mistake made...let me see what I can do to fix this, or reuse the space."
It is difficult to say what you want from lank paper, as you can only want what you put on it but it is the process of continuous "putting on it" to get what you want. This I need to hone as a new skill.
Can you identify themes or areas that you can focus on as you start the course?
Yes, most definitely, I can easily see I need to develop and continue a relationship with sketchbooks. from my history I often leave them unfinished or loose my drive, so this is my strongest potential improvement to carry forward.
Below is a short video that browses over my personal sketchbooks that I currently have, there is more, but these are the ones that actually have been used at some point more regular than others. It shows my styles are completely chaotic, which I guess can be a good thing, and it also shows my lack of dedication to my books.
Exercise 1:2 Making mistakes - working fast and cutting up?
I found the comments from students very interesting on their views of mistakes within their sketchbooks. The processes that the majority work with, is the outlook or view that if you make a mistake carry on. Use that mistake as part of a process to the end results.
One statement holds a good suggestion, "use the book as a sifting process".
I think that working fast allows us to make mistakes but not side track, step back or retrace the steps that lead to the mistake, you just have to embrace it and carry on with the mark making to get what you want down on the surface.
Okay, so tackling these min books...I have randomly grabbed what is in my pile of card, paper. I have tried to be a little less constrained and gone for four different surfaces and four different mediums. I have not married them up. I just kind of counted in my head: one, two, three and four as I located the next ones.
The surfaces in this order are: White paper, yellow paper, blue textured card, printed magazine page.
The mediums in this order are: Gelato sticks (random brown and pink), Paint and a piece of board as a tool, Crayola wax crayons, a thick chunk of charcoal.
The gelatos are like a oily flat stick of colour, I think they are designed for use with water, but never the less, I gave them a go on the copier paper. Within the five minutes I had sketched some kind of detailing into what I could see. I worked fast so I let myself misjudge sizes, shapes and perspective. The gelatos were good for filling in space fast and I think, despite there being numerous mismatches of lines, it is actually quite interesting to look at. Once it was made into the mini book, the smaller segments are unrecognisable as anything other than lines and shapes.
This one is my favourite. I used a scrap of thick grey board as my tool., placed some paint onto a plastic lid and spritzed with a splash of water to make it a little more malleable and set to. This is a view of the open door and my canvases, bookcase and easel stood in a corner. It is by far the most interesting and the marks are bold and non-defining of anything other than what I could see at that moment. I didn't try to sketch or draw what I could see into detail as with a board as a implement it could not be done in five minutes. It was a case of making lines to represent the view. Also, this book folds into really small pages, because of the folds the pages become quite hidden, which is a shame as when you investigate the book, the marks are quite interesting as individual pages.
Using wax crayon on the textured card was actually surprisingly easy for fast mark making. Again, it could not lend to any accuracy, but in five minutes and filling the whole sheet, this could not be an achievable objective but it does force this point of making mistakes and just carrying on. I like the book when it is made up but I didn't think much of the marks within the pages. But again, it is a discretion of the original picture. I like that it just depicts parts of a bad sketch. Though, an afterthought, "Is it a bad sketch?"
What do you notice about your selections?
I have common themes in both current and future sketchbook comments.
Mainly, for the moment, I can see I love sketchbooks but equally had a dissatisfied notion.
I think I have become a creature of habit with maintaining the process of starting a sketchbook and abandoning it.
I don't want to continue with that method, as it is proving to be wasteful of my time and the books. I never collate these books so they sit unfinished.
The same with the future of wanting to embrace my sketchbook as part of my creativeness. I want to let myself be free to think, "oh well, mistake made...let me see what I can do to fix this, or reuse the space."
It is difficult to say what you want from lank paper, as you can only want what you put on it but it is the process of continuous "putting on it" to get what you want. This I need to hone as a new skill.
Can you identify themes or areas that you can focus on as you start the course?
Yes, most definitely, I can easily see I need to develop and continue a relationship with sketchbooks. from my history I often leave them unfinished or loose my drive, so this is my strongest potential improvement to carry forward.
Below is a short video that browses over my personal sketchbooks that I currently have, there is more, but these are the ones that actually have been used at some point more regular than others. It shows my styles are completely chaotic, which I guess can be a good thing, and it also shows my lack of dedication to my books.
Exercise 1:2 Making mistakes - working fast and cutting up?
I found the comments from students very interesting on their views of mistakes within their sketchbooks. The processes that the majority work with, is the outlook or view that if you make a mistake carry on. Use that mistake as part of a process to the end results.
One statement holds a good suggestion, "use the book as a sifting process".
I think that working fast allows us to make mistakes but not side track, step back or retrace the steps that lead to the mistake, you just have to embrace it and carry on with the mark making to get what you want down on the surface.
Okay, so tackling these min books...I have randomly grabbed what is in my pile of card, paper. I have tried to be a little less constrained and gone for four different surfaces and four different mediums. I have not married them up. I just kind of counted in my head: one, two, three and four as I located the next ones.
The surfaces in this order are: White paper, yellow paper, blue textured card, printed magazine page.
The mediums in this order are: Gelato sticks (random brown and pink), Paint and a piece of board as a tool, Crayola wax crayons, a thick chunk of charcoal.
 |
| Mini book one - front view gelatos on white paper. |
 |
| Mini book two - back view paint with board tool on yellow paper |
 |
| Mini book three - side view Blue crayon on blue card |
 |
| Mini book four -side vew charcoal on magazine page |
The method of this book is to cut the sheet in half, landscape and fold to make a pocket along the pages, this hides some of the work. I think this would be intriguing in another drawing, but for this one it sort of lost any form or detail.
Following the instructions within the exercise, I created four mini books.
For the time being I held the binds of each one together with a bull dog clip.
Questions below - considered and notes made in both my learning log & my sketchbook.
Can you work in it again with another mark-making implement or colour?
Or, do you want to leave it as it is?
Are other ideas sparked from looking at each page? Are you reminded of something else?
Which format do you prefer?
I revisited this and had another go at doing a five minute mark making session and used a sponge and its handle. I wanted to see if I could be a little more free in mark making and see how the pages looked, after the exercise success using a more fluid medium and using unusual mark making tools, I thought that another attempt may provide me with a better grasp of the exercise. I do on occasions think that I over complicate the aspects of the exercise rather than embrace it and be more creative.
These are some of the open pages in the "fifth" book I created using a five minute view. Nothing is recognisable to probably any other than myself. Is that a possible secret code of sketchbooking? or do all viewers need to know what they are looking at to understand it.
Working within this exercise, I am going to start joining within the online sketchbook circle. I have as yet, not had a response from fellow pupils with regards to physically swapping work and building a book.
Instagram search : #sketchbookcircleoca my instagram: #illustrationdry
I have also started following others on the course and also tagged my work into sketchbook circles on Instagram to try and get an involvement outside the student group.
For the Sketchbook circle, I want to have a separate sketchbook so if a time comes and I can swap books physically or pass it on, then I have it with out jeopardising any other work.
I need a sketchbook so I am reviewing what I have already learnt for the course.
I am experimenting on the sketchbook zine to increase page size and page quantity. I am using a piece of A2 cartridge paper. It has a nice texture to it and is not too thick. I think this one is 210gsm in buff colour.
Exercise 1:3 How personal do you want your sketchbook to be? To hide, or not to hide?
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| An idea for a hidden pocket within the back of the sketchbook. |
Do I want my tutors to see my work? would it want to be hidden away, should it be hidden away? Am I wanting to hide it away. Would hiding it away hold more value to my sketchbook with the knowledge that beyond what can be seen is more than meets the eye. That an eagle-eyed viewer could pry further into my work and sketchbook.
I have to consider when you hide work is it in shamefulness or because of shyness? Would I want to hide away exceptionally good work in my sketchbooks.
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| One idea mocked up to see how it works! |
However, this experiment did not work successfully as the mini books are quite chunky and did not sit in the envelope very well. I had cut out windows with the intent that maybe a small glimpse of the pages could be visible. I first had tried a rectangle window, but the book bowed through the window. I wondered if two smaller windows would work, but alas, I found it still bulged and came out of the windows.
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| Another trial mock-up, I made the cover of a book and opened the book up to fit inside in a more possible flatter position. |
I also tried to make a more solid box style cover to hide my mini book in, by opening the book into a four page shape, I could make a narrower space, this is maybe the route I should have looked at with the envelope. Anyhow, this worked, but looked a bit random. I worked the box into becoming a cover of a small sketchbook.
By adding pages and a front and back cover, the mini sketchbook is hidden well. A full 3D sample is within my sketchbook.
My other mock up was to create a small everyday object. A matchbox. Here this could sit inside my book as a collected object. The folded up book, (this one is may favourite) and it is quite thick, but it is hidden with a almost tongue in cheek attitude with a quip written on the false box base, which hides the book.
I have kept these inside my sketchbook, with some rough designs beforehand, looking back upon what I made, I think I spent too long on this exercise thinking I needed to produce a finished piece of work when I think maybe my time would have benefited from being more experimental with the books themselves, however I do feel I have achieved positive movements in both areas.
Assignment 1
Taking the previous research I had done in structure and book binding, I decided to embrace this and make my sketchbook for the assignment. I wanted to do this because I could be consider my page content, the size of the pages and also the thought of all of it becoming from nothing is quite exciting.
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| 1. Grey board, two pieces for front & back and a equal height piece for the spine. I have punched two small holes in the middle of the spine. |
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| 2. Using glue, I have covered the front & back, with overlap on three sides. The spine is covered in contrast and I have poked through where the holes sit. |
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| 3. I carefully score and crease the over-hanged edges and glue on the inner sides. The spine is attached with the over-hang joining to the covers, a gap of 1/8" either side. |
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| 4. I have covered the inner spine and ensured it has enough give to close. The inner sides are covered in paper too. |
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| 5. Using the waxed twine, I wrap this round the spine six times. The beginning of the twine from one hole and ending through the the hole in the spine. |
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| 6. Using A4 copier paper, I fold in half, trip to fit my book and thread them through the twine strands. This makes them as book leaves. |
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| 7. I put two pieces per twine, so I have 16 pages (32 sides). |
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| 8. This has made a super strong sketchbook. It is bespoke to me. |
The book pages developed into whatever mood or action I felt like at that particular time. Taking into consideration the space, the objects and wanting for the viewer to feel they too know the room.
This is the first page opening. I start the book with quite a technical and personal view, by pinpointing the objects in the room and text relating the items informally.
The first pages I started to go down, what I would describe as my usual route. The drawings are illustrations, they are okay but they do not bring in any emotion or style. I think I tend to do this as page filling and not really analysing what I am producing. After these pages, I stepped away for a day to let myself regain purpose.
Back to the book...to make myself comfortable and using my usual tool of a fine liner, I worked on the basis of observational work of what was around my desk. I think a desk is quite a personal space to any illustrator or artist as these are the tools and place where ideas are born or developed.
Taking the room, I created a collective of words, some are actual items and some are emotions, descriptive and some are positive and some are negative about the space.
These are are range of my drawing tools that sit on my desk. I have various pens and tools but I always tend to return to ones I like. The Hello Kitty Pen was a fun present, but not one to waste a pen, I actually have used it for all the colours in the ballpoint nibs. I used various tools to draw them including watercolours, pencils and fibre tips.
Here I captured my desk in a very simplistic manner. I wanted to try some different methods of working in my book, trying to be further away from my usual styles and reliability on my standard skills of how I would draw.
Look at the two pages here, my first was done at night, I had music playing and that was what I captured. I don't have it on all the time. The other page was the first one I just sat and tried to draw my hand holding a pen. I messed it up, but going from what I see in such sketchbooks like James Jean, I just carried on, rewrote the page. So, that dodgy drawing sits there, but its surrounded by everything else so its fine. It belongs on there.
One morning before work these pages took shape, I had a bit of time before work, I sat there thinking I needed to start observing what everyday items are around me. And that is what I did, just as everything sat there that morning. I interjected some humour into the page.
All my chaos in the drawer. Going back to James Jean, he occasionally uses red, blue and green in ballpoint pens, so I tried this technique as a way of drawing and capturing items regardless of the colours, thinking about the objects as individual items as I had to change tool to keep drawing in the layered items.
The room has so many items some I use everyday, some are just there everyday. The empty ink cartridges that pile up to be taken to be recycled at some point. Again, trying something different with oil pastels. I quite liked it.
It is strange how I sometime slip into comfort zones. This is typical of me, black lines, clean and graphic novel style. Each section follows with a quip about that section.
This reminded me of the Artist Anthony Green, I did not intend that, but afterwards it did have that birds eye distorted view of an interior. I used ink and watercolours.
One running joke I have about the furniture, the carpet and walls of the office, is everything feels brown! Brown, brown, brown. I started making a brown background of all the brown colouring pens and pencils that sit open on the stand in the room. But it got abandoned and altered. I revisited and just randomly did a study of my glasses lens wipe packet on my desk.
After the lens wipe study, which is a total through away item, I looked at other items that are probably the most important to me out of all them items in there.
End of the book. I didn't know what to close it with, and whether I needed to, the book was designed so I could extend with adding more pages. Though, my initial need, was to fill a book, and by creating a handmade book, I did not feel the pressure of having a stash of empty pages, but I enjoyed making this sketchbook, I think this made me spend so much time unpicking one part of my everyday which is my desk. When you do start to break down "everyday" there is a thousand and one categories to develop.
There is not much to hide about my desk / office, in fact I wanted it to be quite true and let the viewer in and be quite honest about my space. However, for fun and to expand on the part of hiding content I created a hidden pocket on the back page. Inside is a folded paper, this fold came from some research online in a previous exercise.
The hidden paper unfolds to an A3 sheet, inside I have a photograph of my space. It is followed with a personal thought.
With the prospect of this course and the chance to be free with sketchbook keeping and manufacturing, I have decided that I am working from my own made book. This sketchbook is more a folder, created by using a binding system, that allows me to add and replace pages. This is so I can hopefully fully expand my sketchbook, not feel any limitations to what I am creating.
I have made the sketchbook from a piece of mount board and some brown artist tape, binding and a few findings that hold it all together.
I have already found I am less meticulous and more fluid in putting information and recordings down in my book and learning through the research into artists, ways of documenting ideas and sketches in varied successful ways.
Here are some images of my current sketchbook. The sketchbook is approximately 14 inches x 10 inches but holds A3 folded lovely. (Using A 3 card folded, as dividing material).
What is your relationship with your sketchbook in relation to assessment and/or showing it to your tutor?
Truthfully, the past two courses, I have had a panicked sensation over sending my sketchbooks in along with my selected pieces from throughout the courses. I have tried tabbing them to explain what page relates to what assignment or exercise, I have desperately tried to retain just one sketchbook in the first course and ended up with a bulging hard-backed bound mess that had to be held shut with a ribbon, the other course, I migrated to a secondary sketchbook to allow myself for more work space. In hindsight, making a sketchbook in this style may have been easier in both accounts as it would have allowed me to expand and integrate; finds, pictures, scraps of notes etc. and kept the sketchbook in a state of understand-ability for the viewer. I don't necessarily feel like I want to hide this sketchbook as it already feels "right", It has plenty of room for work and it can be segmented as I work through the assignments and I don't think I have any reason to hide this one.
Here is a video of a walk through my current progression of Part one - Assignment one.
Final thoughts on this assignment
The prospect of engaging with my sketchbooks and embracing them has been something I have wanted to be able to do for some time. There is an element or connection missing between myself as an artist and the blank pages. The processes of building a sketchbook have been broken down through the first assignment. The obvious use of a sketchbook is to primarily use it for sketching, but by analysing and working out through steps the daunting empty pages feel less of a threat.
My initial response to the exercises and assignment at first felt very much as a process of ticking boxes, but as I engaged further with each step I did start to grasp the less technical side to the exercises but the theory and the reasoning behind the stages.
The making of the min books from the zine plans became at first embroiled over how good the work should be, but as it gathered momentum I started to feel more for what I wanted to do with them under the suggestive of the exercise. The hiding of content is something we all may feel an urge for and as always, giving a sketchbook over for viewing can be seen as an open invite to critique what is personal to an artist.
I found starting with the assignment; I wanted to produce a book, something as a keepsake almost. A new beginning for the sketchbook era from my past fails in this field.
Making the sketchbook by hand gave me two enjoyments, one being on how I wanted it to be and second, the thrill of producing something, that I think turned out pretty well.
Now, working within content, I took the starting point of the Everyday in exercise 1:2, this developed from a room or space to take mark making or drawing from for the beginnings of the small books. I had started in my office, desk space and progressed from this into my sketchbook for assignment 1. Reasons for this came from the space; a place I have designated to work everyday at some point, but for some reason my creativity ebbs and flows in this room at irregular ferocity. Some days I can feel dedicated and enclosed in there, surrounded by books, paper and my objects, other days I could waste time as the clock ticks and nothing comes from me that is creative.
I took the theme of the office and tried to be a freer in using the pages, I tried incorporating humour in places. But mostly, to be honest and truthful and make the sketchbook a point of not restricting myself so I can transition from amateur sketchbook part-timer to train my skills and hone in on keeping a sketchbook for everyday and embrace being able to put anything or any style in it.
Also, throughout this section, starting from the very beginning, I have decided that the use of a made sketchbook for the continual collection of work through the exercises and assignments will be beneficial. From the photographs above in the previous section, you can see my "Working" sketchbook. By this being made by myself I think I have ripped up the rules on how it should be. Not each page needs to be filled, and the added advantages of segmenting and relocating work into the pages will be a huge help for me.
Also, throughout this section, starting from the very beginning, I have decided that the use of a made sketchbook for the continual collection of work through the exercises and assignments will be beneficial. From the photographs above in the previous section, you can see my "Working" sketchbook. By this being made by myself I think I have ripped up the rules on how it should be. Not each page needs to be filled, and the added advantages of segmenting and relocating work into the pages will be a huge help for me.
The everyday sketchbook circle is being used on Instagram. It seems the majority of students are embracing this technique to show their work. At the moment for February a selection of everyday words is tagged and we can elaborate on what we like with what we like. I regularly check in and view fellow students work. I have put posts out for exchanging books so we shall see what comes from that.
On a whole I feel I have started to sense the purpose of this course and why it is essential to understand and capture sketchbook keeping, to escalate work and give oneself a personal diary and reference book too.
Section: Assignment two:
This assignment and exercises expands on a couple of topics touched in assignment one. The use of mark making, using experimental methods and working with mistakes and forms of drawing using these points.
At this early stage of the assignment and reading through the introduction, I am feeling quite open to how my sketchbook/s will develop and from this I am going to just see how I feel as I work through the exercises and research and find what fits for me and can still improve my skills and sketchbook keeping.
Including mark making and experimental work, both I intend to see how that is discovered in my sketchbooks. I have touched on this briefly previously, and it has remained as exercises, so it may come into play within my new sketchbook overview.
I have already taken a small pocket sized sketchbook that was used for approximately three pages, it has dotted paper and the paper is a ivory, cream colour. I did three very poor watercolour sketches some time ago in the book, I never went any further with it. A trait already discussed in assignment one.
I have basically just commandeered this book for everyday, due to work and other commitments I think this is going to be handy to have on my desk at work and use it as frequently as I can. I am not going to press myself to sketch everyday or assign myself to for example: ink drawings. I think I will just progress with it and keep it as a day to day diary and if something I like is free, it may get adhered in, or a photo I may like. I am going to see if I can work on this being as much as an experiment as the ark making and let both guide me through the experience.
Exercise 2.0: Rapid Sketches
My first step to this, I took a jam jar with daffodils, some stones, shells and a pine cone, arranged them quite freely in a space as my starting point. For the first attempts I used A3 paper, a 1/4 inch brush and some watered down acrylic to give a bit of free movement.
My timing limit was set for three minutes. The photo above is my very first work. I have created something that looks like the image that was there. I think I have tried too hard to capture detail, rather than think of spaces, and the shapes. For instance, I have spent too much time emphasising the jar and the stems and concentrated on making sure all the forms are present.
The next stage, I changed materials. I went to watercolour textured card and a black water based brush marker. When I did the first four with paint, I found the need to keep wetting brush with the paint took precious time up and sometimes the dry brush marks worked, sometimes they didn't. I spritzed the watercolour card and left it for a minute or two to absorb the water. I wanted to use the marker and with the pages being damp, it does mean I can have only a percentage of marking control and how the marks will develop once reacting with the dampened card.
These were slightly larger than A4, the time set was one minute, I did two of each here, two had a wet surface and two I worked on dry watercolour card. The mark making is completely different. The definite line making works but I did quite like to bleeding of the marker. I might try this again in the future but soak the card and see how the lines will react to such a porous surface and how the lines won't have any control once they are on the card.
From this stage, I then went into another direction of materials and tools. I upped the surface area to A2 paper and a thick wedge of charcoal. I also brought the time down. The first two, I worked at 30 seconds. Then the second bout of two pictures I brought it down to 20 seconds, and then 15 seconds for the last one. By using the side of the charcoal and then the smallest edge do define darker and stronger lines created some great shapes.
It is very interesting the difference in fluidity and space used between using the different surface areas and tools.
Decreasing the already limited time means the shape making becomes more erratic and though working on impulse I am also striving in super quick time to at least get down something, knowing the importance of limited time.
The lines also represent quite a lot of movement and their form may not be accurate but I don't think that is necessarily the purpose.
I think going from the beginning of the exercise to the last one there is less detail, but more interest, the choice of medium and tools can also help create fluidity and movement in the results.
Exercise 2.1: Limited Line Drawings
My first steps to this exercise was to try and grasp the concepts of Gestalt Theory, and the two references of M.C. Escher and Noma Bar.
Firstly, I started looking at what the Gestalt theory consisted of.
"Gestalt theory emphasises that the whole of anything is greater than its parts. That is, the attributes of the whole are not deducible from analysis of the parts in isolation. The word "Gestalt" is used in modern German to mean the way a thing has been placed or "put together".
Encyclopaedia Britannia, Inc. (28/11/2019), Gestalt Psychology, URL: https://www.britanica.com/science/gestalt-psychology, (accessed 01/03/2020).
There are six design principles: 1. Figure-ground (some of the focus or figure on some of the background), 2. Similarity (Placing objects with similarities in a group, this could be colour, shape, font, texture, etc..) 3. Proximity (Belief in that we group objects close to each other.) 4. Closure (Mind closes objects that are not necessarily there). 5. Continuity ( Theory of objects in alignment until interrupted). 6. Order - (Symmetry and attractive elements of design.)
I understand the basis of the principles but they became much clearer once I had searched for images of M.C Escher and Noma Bar. Immediately the explanations of the theory became visible. Especially by Noma Bar's work.
The start of this I worked with holding this in mind and trying to also be fairly light with my lines.
The next stage I developed simple lines for each shape alone, that was clear and could be easily be separated form what is in the background. The shapes became more recognizable bit the shapes didn't say what they were, but they look organic in shape and size. Also by segregating, I am starting to give some depth to the drawing but keeping a very minimal line content.
Here I start to loosen the line work, limitation and trying to not actually form one object or shape. The eyes do work to fill in the lines I have not finished and these make the bowl of fruit appear.
The next progression within using limited lines I studied the tones and shades and looked at the forms from these and how I could use them in a minimal use of lines and keep the essence of what I was sketching.
From this stage, I changed tools, going for a brush and ink so I could make the line indent and widen around certain parts of the sketch. Keeping to a minimal amount of line work. The sketch above only uses four actual lines where I have stop/started.
From this point, I took the point of widening the lines and using the shadow spaces as part of that line to incorporate the shapes and forms. I think this works quite well, it keeps the lines to a minimum and still has enough detail for me to tell it is group of varied fruits.
The principle of the mind completing the images comes into play. We add the shapes together and think of what they are familiar to also the shape of the bowl, the shape of an apple stalk, all of these we think are there when we look at this drawing, but in the production of the work I can see that this is completely made up of limited amounts of lines varying in width and size.
I reconstructed this attempt, on orange card to maybe suggest the colour of one of the fruits. It was a test and fun to do. I liked using a bold marker pen for this. When you follow the lines, there is not that many in total. The thicknesses do help suggest what is there and the placement.
I furthered this exercise by trying just one object. I used a clear corked bottle as my subject and tried simplifying it with minimum lines. This time I used paint and a round brush.
I did not expand in detail but kept my attempts quite simple.
I don't know why I over worked this with the indentations of the bottom of the bottle and it does not need it, a simple wavy line may have worked as well. (Above).
Another sketch of the bottle, the different colours are different parts of the bottle. The black brush lines are the simplest form of the bottle.
Brush stroke lines, holding the bottle. Bold lines can be quite good for this exercise!
Just experimenting, looking at the bottle in different angles and trying to be as limited as I can with how little amount of lines to use.
Just for fun with this I did very simplistic paint stroke of the bottle. One continual line. No interruption and no details. I wrote "bottle" to use the paint up from my brush. This is acrylic paint on textured card. By using just the simplistic approach of one brush and one line, I make the shape of a bottle, it is just a black line but our recognition is that it is a bottle, we know which end is up and which is the base and we see the bottle has a rim detail, it is a wide bottle in terms of its length. we don't know what it is made of, what it contains, what is it's use but we know its a bottle from the one line. I am not sure why, but I do enjoy the simple and boldness of this.
It does not need to be a joined infinite line, but I like that I have done it like this. I may come back to this.
After regarding the last part of the exercise, I am taking this another step, but not really directly within limited line drawing but deriving from this exercise! I was just exploring with it. I made a lino print 3x2 of the black bottle line drawing in acrylic. I copied the design as in the shape I had drawn with the brush and the way the line widened and then narrowed in places, I lino printed it onto five colours of card. I like the prints on the colours and the repeated design, including my low carving skills in the lino leaving edges marks!
I found this exercise useful and can follow the principles of it being a useful tool to learn to do. It can develop sketches into other things and it is good idea for note making in sketchbook keeping.
Overall I think I grasped the concept of the limitations of limited line work and why it can be as effective or as important as a full illustrative piece. I think the beginnings of the exercise with the fruit on the plate was probably a bit adventurous but I worked on the principle of the exercise and developed it. The bottle, though the other end of the scale in being rather basic and simple I think worked quite well. I did enjoy developing this beyond the exercise.
Exercise 2.2: Investigating a Process
I sectioned some pages in my sketchbook and looked at using the watercolours as colour alone, blocking, over writing in a secondary colour when dry, then a third etc. Also the mixing, less water, defining and over laying the same colour again and again to lose any opaqueness.
Splattering, watering down, lines, mixing as solid undiluted colours.
I also looked at using on different materials and then trying them on different materials in different ways, drawing a pineapple. I made notes within my book of anything I found interesting or liked/disliked.
The use of this black chunky marker is never something I would use as a drawing implement as it is so oily and soaks into most things and I actually don't know where it has come from. I think I was given it as a freebie at some point and it has not done much in the desk since. Anyway, I tried to use the blunt nib to draw with, make marks and see how it compares to using an normal sized fibre tipped pen. I can imagine they are probably the sort of thing people use for graffiti. The ink has a very toxic smell! I tried a few paper samples and found that the ink pen works really well on tracing paper of all things.
I did some study cards, these fit inside a slot on one of the pages in my sketchbook, I have used the pen with some other materials such as acrylic paint, board etc. I tried some foam sheeting from some packaging! I tried using that as a surface. It actually made a really good effect. The pen can not make super detailing but it let me make a stamp like image of a study of my reading glasses.
Another study I tried are alcohol inks. These are fluid forms of dye. They are a very strange medium. They won't work very well or I guess at all on card/paper, they just seem to ultra soak it and not spread or move. It doesn't dry very well on the plain card and my fingers were covered in it! I googled on how to use them to see what I was doing wrong. Anyway, firstly I need to use something to blend them or make them more fluid. There is a blending solution but I have no idea what that is so I used rubbing alcohol as suggested on a you tube video as I had that available. It did work okay, the inks them selves, I tried using with a brush but I found them quite hard to control.
The best results are on smooth papers, like gloss card, photo paper and Yupo (this is like a plasticy thin paper.)
I did go a bit sample crazy! I ended up doing so many that I have a fair few different examples of using them. I am pleased with the effects, there is a felt type tool that came with the inks and if you dab them with it it can spread further and make a blotchy effect.
I tried dipping end of a pen lid in the rubbing alcohol and dabbing that in places as it repels the ink.
I did go a bit dab crazy on some of them but it does have a weirdly satisfying reaction to watch.
The chapters will continue in my sketchbook as though I started with out much gusto and did feel about unsure of what I was processing and whether this is correct methods I am still unsure but I did enjoy creating, but not feeling forced to create and some of the results were fun.
From the initial introduction the part two. There is reference to Allison . I wanted to try the facial studies to see how I could fair doing this method and to find if studying facial features would project well as blind contour drawing. I can see the connection and process of eye to hand, and how we relate what we see to what we put on our surfaces. I liked this, it created some really great drawings, afterwards some looked like the person I sketched, but some were unrecognisable. The best thing about this, is I was not precious about how they would turn out. I tried my best not to look down as to how my hand was moving. It was very difficult and some occasions I found myself looking down and then finding that hard not to influence where I restarted the line from.
I tried using a wax crayon to try these blind drawings as I wondered if the wax would smoothly move over the paper better to give more fluidity as sometimes taking the pen off the paper can make a difference, whereas using the crayon the nib stays firmly on the paper and moves quite well without the guidance of looking down.
I am pleased I chose to do faces though I appreciate it should maybe have been objects or a still life arrangement, I think I interpreted this quite well as a method and an exercise, and I actually think I will use this in personal and other parts of the course work.
Exercise 2.4: Drawing with tea bags
This exercise looks at exploring the uses of unusual materials and a step away from the usual. I remember at school, a very long time ago..where I did a scene using food sources as my paint. I can't quite remember the details but think I did a painting of a robin on a branch made up of brown sauce, ketchup, mint sauce and probably a few other cupboard finds much to my fathers distaste. I knew at the time that it was quite an "out there" way of creating art, but it must have worked because I can remember being quite enthralled at the project.
Rather than going down the root (no pun intended), of beetroot and other self inking food sources, I looked at everyday kitchen objects. I know there is a tonne of other things out there, but sometimes the most ordinary items have makings for finding something new!
I opted for: Wooden Spoon, Fork, Scouring sponge, kitchen paper towel and matches.
Each object, I used acrylic paint and made a spread in my sketchbook of mark making.
First the spoon, the obvious tool for drawing is the handle, but it can be dabbed, dragged and scratched into the paint. Its negative side is the absorbing qualities for mark making, it soon sucked up the paint. The positive was not only the handle, but the basin of the spoon dipped and dragged made some beautiful strokes, also the edge if the spoon made some shapes and curves.
Fork gave properties for scratching and dabbing. I found that it dragged and made good repeating lines with the prongs but the paint did not run very well from the metal, so the better or more successful method of marking came from dabbing or swiping across the surface. Though, by using the prongs there was a couple of very textural effects that came through. The stronger lines would work well in making structural drawings.
Scouring sponge has two sides as in textures, one is the sponge, the other is the scouring side, which is harsh and scratchy. The sponge also carries the angular edges, this can be dipped and used to make striking lines and these can be deepened and thicker by pressure and angled swipes. The sponge corners can be for finer detail but it has no strength so any pressure and the shape mutates underneath application.
The swiping of the scouring side was interesting, within the swipes there becomes other shapes and markings. Also second generation pressing, meant that after an initial application, the second one still applies paint but in a softer, less saturated manner.
Kitchen roll. I am guessing not a lot of people would think that kitchen roll would be much good, well, in fairness, yes, it is a bit weak, but the beginnings were good. Blotting, swishing in smooth motion and twisting the paper to make a shape and scrunching it up and then stamping it worked well too. Though the negative side is that it became quickly soaked in the paint and became a bit of a useless tool as the material structure was disintegrated, however, the soaked paper could be dried out and used for collage or something else at a later date.
Matches, I thought would be easy, a pointed tool. dip and draw, easy. Well, like the wooden spoon, the medium soon soaked into the wooden tool. I managed to get some lines by dabbing the edge of the stick and also the base of the stick, plus laying it down flat and rotating and swishing it across the surface. The secondary purpose, which initially I had not thought of until I was discussing this with someone, was to strike the match and try drawing/mark making with the burnt end. Though this did work it is quite a short lived experience as the burnt end soon wears away and the markings are quite feeble. The could be good in a context where they might work successfully to build up. But the minimal lines are still interesting.
I created a piece using the scouring sponges and acrylic, I wanted to use block colours and be quite minimal as using the sponge did give me a larger tool to use than for instance the spoon or matches. I started creating the background and the beginning part was dabbing, but then I thought if I used the scourer side as if washing the mug with the circular action.
This process on the watercolour card resulted in a mottled and quite textural background.
Once this had dried, I had washed and rinsed the sponged and worked in white to develop the shape of the mug of tea using the sponge edge to give form and shape. By dabbing secondary I made the shadows of the mug. Once dried, the red acrylic was applied, by scrunching the sponge and dabbing quite tightly. Afterwards I did go back and rework the white again to add light fractions.
Though, I don't think I have got the full progression of using materials as yet, I have found that sometimes it takes a bit of thought process and practice to see potentials in materials and for instance, using the sponge in varied ways.
In terms of using different mediums with tools that may not be designed for that purpose, the potential is quite continual and I could look at expanding this into my own sketchbooks and experimenting with all three: Tool, medium and surface.
Exercise 2.5: Drawing with objects: a Journey scrapbook
On my journey, I worked with the following tools of using pencil for quick line sketching, fine liner for going over the sketches and I also used a small watercolour pan set to add some colours. The glue stick I used was not the best so some bits ended up being adhered again, but thankfully the book elastic is quite tight and everything stayed pretty much in the book when I wasn't using it. Though there was an episode of a receipt going under a dining table!
It was a bit of a trial in some cases as the day went quick and I think as I tried to obtain objects I became a little bit more obsessed with the actual sketching on one or two. The exercise on a whole so far, has been my most enjoyable.
The first object was my parking ticket. I copied the parking ticket as best as I could and pencil sketched the car park view from the car. I was a little unsure on the incorporation of the object into the drawing, but I do like the oversized ticket. It is actually a task to think of an object as a record or as part of the picture. But I can see the relation of the drawing with the ticket but this one is quite an obvious connection.
I sat and added the watercolours later, but again, I probably could have left that!
Before we had lunch I tried to sort my previous page out and the receipt dropped out and went under the table seats next to us, it of course landed facing up with my random picture on it. I don't know what they thought when I asked to retrieve it. Paper shortage maybe?!
Anyway, I used the lunch napkin here. I made a rough sketch of this and then finished it later with colours and gluing the napkin in and redrawing and painting over it. I used the drawing of the napkin, on the actual piece of the napkin. I made sure I was limiting myself to details here, tendency to over think and over draw on some occasions.
This one is my favourite, and it was the last one so it was surprising it worked for me.
The bar was really interesting. Up one side was a huge book case and a strange curved ceiling with bars across. The staff told us it was a church and the pub was next door, it bought the church and knocked through to extend the bar and seating.
I think this worked better for me as I was sat quite privately, and it was not very busy and I felt much more comfortable with my book out and actually having my tools on the table and not being overly conscious of someone coming over and interrupting or asking what I was doing.
I did other sketches within the day, but didn't include items or objects but they do help tell the story of the day. These are in my sketchbook along with the ones here. I photocopied the pages and added them within my sketchbook for the exercise.
Within the research prior to this exercise I researched into Saul Steinberg. One section of his studies was using his own thumb print, now he used this not only to build up pictures with using the print as stamp and the shape to make forms, he also added details to just thumb prints, which then became other objects. I think a thumb print is fairly much an everyday product of us, and as this was accessible I experimented in some thumb print fun in a page of my sketchbook! This is nothing serious, but purely experimental.
Pareidolia is the tendency for incorrect perception of a stimulus as an object, pattern or meaning known to the observer, such as seeing shapes in clouds, seeing faces in inanimate objects or abstract patterns, or hearing hidden messages in music. Pareidolia can be considered a subcategory of apophenia.
Taken from:
Wikipedia (Updated March 2020) "Pareidolia" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia [Accessed 12.03.2020]
This exercise is related to the previous exercises where we view something as one object or a mixture of objects and we group them together to singular to recognise them as something else, Pareidolia is a method of the mind where we process a visual and automatically see faces or a face because our mind selects the visual and works out what we are seeing and configures something else. We may do this automatically or someone could suggest to us "Can you see the face in this item?" and we usually can recognise familiarises with eyes, noses, mouths, profiles etc.
Georgia O'Keefe presented paintings and though they are swirls, we see natural curves of bodies, or a baby in the womb, or breasts. Is this purposeful, were they painting for those suggestions to be there or do we look and automate our minds to just see what we can put into a category of an object or a thing. It is quite a deep concept when I start to actually think of the way the mind processes from eye to brain.
Justin Sutcliffe is suggested in the exercise as a point to see how his photography creates faces. The strangest thing I find with this, is that when I look at some of these images, I almost install personalities into them without even debating about the face. For example, A face of puddles in a car park at night time,with a glimmer of a reflection of a red light in the eyes and I think of it as dark and a grim character.
I do know on occasions where I have seen windows and doors and thought buildings looked like faces.
The first part of the exercise is to start investigating and collecting faces! (or not faces?)
The shocked face on the back of a fairground ride. The look of astonishment as it spins around maybe!
I did see a face in the building opposite a carpark so I took this picture. I think the pipes make for a very good down turned mouth!
Using a very simple paint app, I tried to animate the two photographs below. I did find using my finger as a drawing tool a little tricky but overall the two edited photographs are quite fun.
CRYING BUILDING - GUTTED
FUN OF THE FAIR
I took some photos around the house, and also on a couple of different occasions while out and about on purposeful "face looking strolls" - It is a strange way with how we perceive the faces, I showed my photographs to a relative, they saw a different face in one photo to the one I had seen.
I looked at natural objects and man made, I also viewed items at different angles and moved around to see how they could change or develop.
The beach walk threw out some great faces, especially the starfish, I did not see this until after I took the photograph, as a previous discussion with a friend about not seeing them on the beach, and to find one, I was pleased to get a snap shot. Afterwards I noticed the creases and the cheeky smile.
I really liked the fence poking out of the sand dune, the wonky screws look like eyes and the rotting wood coming up from the sand makes the row of fence stakes look like an army of ghostly soldiers in a row. Wood is a great one for seeing faces and the beach had some good finds within the wave breakers that were worn and some covered in seaweed and barnacles.
ASSIGNMENT 2
Looking at some faces of inanimate objects and seeing if I can illustratively bring them to life. The symmetry of the eyes is usually a good starting point to find a face in an object, but not essential. Like in my photographs, such as the fishing nets the eyes are not level but they still project what could be recognized as a face.
I finally settled on the fence post from the sand bank on the beach. The faces are quite hidden at first glance but they hold a lot of character to be played with.
For each character or face, I look at adding arms and legs with the surrounding dried grasses coming through the sank bank. I have not developed into looking at the back grounds as that will be the next step to work with.
As in the suggestion, I work within my book and look at the previous exercises and work and scrutinise the pieces as to interesting shapes, marks, lines that will purpose for a background for my illustrative piece of the fence. I want to work out a way to impose the drawing onto a background, I am going to look at seeing how I can explore expanding the micro sections and making them larger.
My favourite is this one below. This is a small tiny section of one of the A2 charcoal sketches form rapid drawing. The swishes and swirls work. It looks like sand, moving and natural shapes.
The finish piece is below - overall I am pleased but I am pondering if I should have been more experimental. I was tempted to go down the route of a collage but because this was a suggestion for some reason I thought I should try something else, but then feel that maybe I was a bit too safe and fell onto what I am comfortable doing. I don't know if I should be self critical about this as such as the finished piece does look good but I am now considering if that is not necessarily the point of the exercise.
Review of sketchbook - I have now started to fill my sketchbook, and though from the first assignment section, I experimented in building my own book, I am now finding that it is already super bulky and overflowing with add-ons and pages are getting a bit tatty! So, over the next assignment or so and in between I think I am going to look at how I can keep my work in a better state and look at binding solution and also a way of preserving my work and filing/tabbing the sections for when it is ready for assessment as at the moment, I feel I am going to a route where the book is becoming almost messy!
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Section: Assignment three:
Exercise 3.0: Observation - topography where to draw. What to draw.
From this exercise I have created a A5 sketchbook. I wanted to do something a little other than what was available due to restrictions on movement within the country at the present time, so using what I have and thinking in a rather unique way, I have made a tour of the garden, it starts from stepping out to the patio and then a walk around visiting the various areas of the garden but trying the look at how I can capture moments and also micro analysis of small parts of the garden to looking at landscapes and incorporating buildings. I still stayed within boundaries of using my tool kit and looking at incorporating all the elements of the exercise. I researched into the suggested artists of fast and slow sketches. By doing this, when I had completed my sketches, I revisited and extended my studies on to some of them. Some, I have more or less left as they were done in the garden, I also added some finds to pages of that area I studied.
The research into Veronica Lawlor did give and insight into the use of tools and how to emphasise certain parts of a sketch with colour or how a simple line drawing can still give the viewer the story.
We have sections in our garden, not overly big areas, but they are stand alone areas, so I am explaining this in each drawing to give the viewer an idea of what is here and I want it to feel like my garden through the pages. Rightly or not, I decided to add text to the pages as I think it does help.
Exercise 3.1: Understanding viewpoints
From the first exercise, it states a sketchbook to accommodate 20 sketches etc. As I progressed to the next exercise I realised the sketchbook I started would be too small to add these exercises in, so using an old sketchbook, I adapted and integrated the original book within it. It does make the book interesting as it changes the dynamics of the book.
I retraced my small journey around my garden, it is almost a micro journey as I feel that within a small and known space I am forcing myself have unfamiliarity of what I know and to extend on what there is there and look at what is beyond the normal realms of visual information I may take on any other given time in the garden.
Armed with camera, I started from the beginning and looked at certain steps as I went. With the camera it gives the chance to document more than possibly we can with sketching. These can then be viewed and I can subtract parts of the photographs I like or feel give some information to me that I may not see before.
The one point of a camera is it can obtain viewpoints which from the human eye we cannot. For example, we can go in Macro and get in depth close ups of objects which we may not really pay attention to in form of detailing. Also, it can mimic the use of viewfinder and help isolate objects or scenes.
Some pages from my sketchbook, I took the photographs and made a library/record of them and added notes on my thoughts and sketches as to what I liked or found unusual about the photograph, whether it was useful or its content was important. I have used photographs on numerous occasions as reference. I find they can help a lot, especially in recalling information. Sometimes I find written notes are not as good as how we interpret words can be relative to the moments when we write them down.
This page shows parts of my journey that could benefit from the photographs, the stacked plant pots, from a different view there is a pattern of repetition that I like. The circle of the hole in the small top pot down to the circle edge of the largest pot, the concentric shape is interesting to look at.
The lines on the fence, looking closer to them and down the fence gives dimension, angles and perspective. These recordings are also ideal for any point which I revisit the memory or to extend my sketches as even though they do not represent that exact time, they do still visually stimulate the memory and give immediate effect of evoking how the garden felt that day or what I remember.
More ideas and points of reference. It never crossed my mind at the time, but as in the time frame from the sketches to the photographs, plants and buds had changed in growth. Which then made me appreciate the essential need to record and capture moments and using a camera secondary is a good way of establishing this.
I am not going to flood the page with all my photos as it would be pointless and not really mean anything to anyone else but myself, but this one above I thought had a lot of insight into the purpose. It shows a different angle than I may have previously noticed, it shows texture and you can almost feel the hard points of the stumps, the off shoots of new green coming through, well hidden within the plant, this may have been not noticed. Plus it gives some great shapes and ideas to work from. The hollows of the stalks and the colours and the shapes the dried remaining leaves show. Plenty of scope to work from.
This one is a bit of fun really but also it is the same journey, this time, I am the bird, I am on the table looking out into the garden. My focus is the table, the structure where the food sits. I liked that the background all blurred, this could be recreated with dabs of colour and no need for drawings or sketches, just blocking areas to represent what is beyond.
What is the relationship between photos and the drawings you made in your sketchbook?
The relationship forms familiarity and both are a form of recall. I think we record the same things but in different ways, a photo is a very stable and accurate portrait of a moment, whereas sketches can be influenced by time, practice, method, the tools used and the emotions of the artist.
Do you see the photographs as a form of reference to possibly help inform your earlier sketches or do you consider them to be an alternative and separate form of visual language?
I think the photographs can hold a very important role in sketching and being part of the sketchbook. I think if the sketches are observations and need to be detailed or extended at a later date away form the subject then they are very valuable. Also, as previously mentioned the photographs can evoke feelings and thoughts about that time or subject.
Do they provide visual reference?
They can provide visual reference but I would not want to fully rely on them as a form of observation if possible as sometimes I think being in the moment can have an effect on the drawings outcome.
Did the process of taking the photos make you want to return to any of your sketches and develop them in some way?
The aspects from looking at the photographs did draw out some other ideas. It is a bit like doing a mind map but it is very visual. One idea leads to another, and sometimes those ideas would not have been thought if not provoked from the photos.
Exercise 3.2: Working with external visual impetus - people
Single figure:
The single figure doing different tasks, I have found sometimes when I sketch in a fast and and use contouring within my sketch, not as a full process but introducing snippets of this as I draw, it does seem to work for me at capturing a better presence of the figure and the activity, the longer study, I think I start to over think the lines and sometimes can reinforce the wrong parts of the image, this then becomes more static.
I noticed this going from quick drawings in the garden to a restudying a pencil sketch and over developing the details. Its a learning curve so I will keep practising. I feel less afraid or apprehensive about doing sketches over other sketches now, I do find that it helps push that overall story of the sketches and what is going on in the drawings.
Crowds and activities: At the current time, there is no available crowds to draw, I worked off photographs I have taken in the past. All the ones I used are from a trip to America and the people are all caught candid within my photographs.I have dome some drawings in the past of crowds and people studying. It is quite an interesting aspect to undertake. Though I did find the trick is to almost watch people with disinterest so they do not actually feel conscious or aware you are studying them. This is where fast drawing does come in well as a method of note taking and capturing moments of everyday life. To extend the exercise I worked through some pages of my sketchbook. I used ball point pen on half of the drawings and the other half I used a ink liner that is quite flexible, so it is good for fast mark making.
Exercise 3.3: Illustrative Drawing
Revisiting a previous exercise is always a bit tricky as I find as the creator you go in and immediately criticise what has been done and think you should have done something else, or drawn something else. The temptation to always go with what is familiar in terms of what we can draw is often the difficult part to step away from. I am quite illustrative in my personal work and create doodles and sketches on whims, I do struggle to maintain a purpose or process to develop what I do create, so from that perspective and being honest I am now looking at my exercise one and thinking how am I going to develop from "landmarks"? After an initial set back in my mind about this exercise I decided that I would revisit what I had done and think about the parts of the subjects I feel I can progress through and make into drawings that could express that images by influencing what I put on my pages.
I started off quite methodical and did as the exercise suggested and noted words, and thought about the "landmarks" and how they convey my perception of them.
Then once I had started, i just let my ideas flow and used the sketchbook as intentions.
Thinking about the structure and the shapes, angles and patterns, spaces and what makes the illustration work and what doesn't. I am not intending on completing a piece of work, just experiment and try and use ideas I may not normally chose to try.
Here I have been quite literal in what the arbour means, where I sit, relax and enjoy the peace and quiet of the garden. Its not a massive space but it is simple and a safe haven. All this time we are in lockdown, the space is more used than ever before. I work mainly in the evenings so all sorts of little ideas pop up. On the garden shed key, I write "Safety is not in numbers" on the tag. I have characterised the Arbour by adding eyes and an arm as it like me relaxes back!
Before I started this one, I painted in an acrylic mix the light blue background. I was thinking of the sky blue being an relaxing colour, obviously the plants etc. are not blue but I thought it would be atmospheric to the illustration. I then used a simplistic style of drawing to add in the arbour and the slabs.
I actually think this is one of my favourite pages, I just find the simplicity works really well and the lack of excessive detail does somehow suggest a peaceful moment.
I changed again completely! This day I had in mind snapshots of the landmarks within the garden and the pieces that were relate-able to the sketches. Watercolour and inks. I just used the previous pictures and photos and played about in the squares.
Overall, not my usual work, but I am now feeling that I am creating a sketchbook that is interesting and is developing quite nicely. It is also starting to feel tactile as I keep picking it up and having a look in between sessions of course work.
Exercise 3.4: Interpretation and Communication: Suppose we make it different?
I wanted to include a narrative that was holding some directions of fun and to take what I have studied so far and make into a form of illustration that tells a humorous story.
The original crow drawing taken and I wanted to characterise him by adding elements, I tried a cap, scarf and glasses etc, tried him sitting down, I revisited the study and looked at other bird postures and how they can be simple line drawings and then think if they can be manipulated to form humanised movements.
I was not going to stick with the crow shape as the original sketch, but try to enhance the element of it by thinning the line, extending the drawings and making him into a fully formed part of the narrative.
Taking the second element of a sketch, the bird house itself. Now, I want to turn this to an illustrative piece, but I don't want to whole copy it image for image, so I start to play with it, adding a shelf at the front, making it softer, looking at putting things like the pots in the porch of the birdhouse, making it familiar to the viewer as a place, a usual place to see a plant pot, next to a front door...I also started to think about the background and started to revisit a few sketches from the study of the garden. I have a form developing but at the moment here I can see I need to try and incorporate some of the suggestions in the SCAMPER strategies.
The idea I am started to build is to make an illustrative piece, but using methods of drawing, I want to try and change the concept of the illustration - I have in mind to make the crow character simplistic, and redefine the birdhouse and the garden scene but almost like its an imagined place and not real. I start to look at different illustrators and styles to work from.
I had started working on some ideas of paper pieces or layering by cutting out the crow.
I worked with plain card and pen, and came up with a simple design then I researched this style. I started investigating paper cuts and came across a Spanish video ( I have popped this in my research & reference for my own use later). which then led me to stop start animation, which I googled and came across some scenes from Paddington Bear.
After much sampling and manipulating bits of white card I created a birdhouse, I looked at how the building works in the Paddington bear was used and how they used limited colours within the scenes and used selective shading and angles to make the flat become dimensional.
I reverted back to my sketches and used the studies of the wood and the garden to keep a simple but touch of realism to the project and make the crows home one as a viewer would at least raise a small smile to its cosy and quirky life style.
To add some humour I decided to add some household items, I made a very simple tv, I illustrated the walls with wallpaper and the floor, just beyond the door is a scattering of seeds, (taken from a sketch of the bird table). The favourite part of this is how the 3D works as a photograph of the illustration.
Because this is not going to fit into a sketchbook, but I like that, its taking the sketches from the previous pages and I have been able to turn them into something completely different but kept them with in its family.
The homour comes from now, the current situation of not going outside (the sign reads "Stay home", and that is what the crow is doing. Using some basic styles and techniques form the Paddington bear illustrations I have drawn the items and neatly left a white edge. I am really pleased how well they have turned out. Trying different angles and photographing the 3D illustration has really brought it to life.
Exercise 3.5: Free Association
"My doodles are automatic drawings usually executed with little thought" John Vernon - Lord
The term doodling or doodles as any artist or creative knows is one that we do consciously and almost subconsciously with out much thought though we can recall shapes, spaces, people, lines, marks and reproduce them or recreate them or create a completely new idea from a whim.
I doodle a lot, usually on edges of paper pieces while on the telephone at work. Sometimes I do the same thing of drawing a leaf or a flower, maybe this is my inner self saying get out the office now, go into the outside world! Its calling! Other times I do squares, squiggles and a lot of nothingness. These often end up shredded or in the bin.
To sit and doodle at home is something I have not done for a long time. These days whenever I get creative it is always for a means to an end to produce something. The freedom of doodling is sometimes far and few between done these recent months.
When this exercise started, my first page, I was a little unsure? Wasting pages? Creating pages of nothingness...My first page was a triumph and when I had done three or four pages I started going back and flicking through the sketchbook to find them. As each page was filled with nonsense it became more of a game to see what I can think of next.
All my scribbles and doodles all came from memory, I started off with creating characters and then the first word I thought of, I started to draw a related object. I also did an alpha trail. Starting with A, then onwards, and the first word I had to try and draw whether a feeling or an object or an animal, my only rule was if I thought of Elephant the F had to be an object or a feeling and not an animal.
I also had creating faces session, by dedicating a page or two, I just kept revisiting adding a face every now and then.
I liked the memory doodles, one evening, I sat and thought about all my gym gear and then another page I had the idea of a shopping trolley that I remembered an old lady in our neighbourhood had, then began a page of all different objects that I imagined she had, even down to making her a front door.
I did enjoy just clearing the mindspace and thinking of people, places, things and just redrawing them, even with no clarity or correctness, and creating weird images.
I am also going to revert back to some of my older sketchbooks and maybe look at using them as doodle books. I like the freedom of this.
I have added some pages below...
Assignment Three: Illustrative People & Places
My visual research is based on the beach and people enjoying the sun and the beach, capturing the postures and states of motion as the sun and the outdoors are enjoyed. I also collated a collection of colours and themes within my sketchbook to inspire me with the thoughts of summer and the sensation of time on a beach.
Here are some of my sketches below in my book. I did three different motions of sketching that have been pinpoints within the exercises. One: fast and quick sketches, here I have not contemplated how the lines fall with studying them in between, they have been quick and swift marks to capture people, shapes and the scene. Two: I have also then progressed to do some more considered parts of the sketches, looking at facial details, movement and fabric folds etc. Three: I also worked with the rules of contour drawing and keeping my tool moving n the paper as I studied the subject to capture the stance, movement, features and any detailing I thought required to help suggest the narrative of that scene.
The main path to the beach is always busy, its so open that last year sometimes the council put huge parasols up to give shade if needed. People use the path to walk between the beach and sea and the candyfloss stalls and the ice cream shops on the promenade.
I have a couple of favourites in these that I really like. I might work on the facial studies of the couple enjoying the beach, both had some bright vibrant colours on and had huge smiles and were making the most of that sunny day.
Also I like the fast capture of the donkey ride, this scene is typical of the beach and it works well, even with partial parts of the donkey showing, it still tells a story.
The family stood awkwardly among the crowd could be expanded. I have some ideas for that too so I will take these and progress to spend some to build upon them further.
I have not drawn any connections between the hat and the coat. I like how your eyes fill in the gaps.
I started progressing to how this could work as a poster and what the story would be.
Revisiting other sketches and capturing more information and deciding if this is what I like to work with. I have also carried on making notes on the pages to keep my inspiration and ideas fresh in mind. I liked this moment, the husband and wife on the beach enjoying the simple task of paddling in the sea.
This one I reworked, I took a smaller section of a page sketch. The woman and child playing. I like the simplifying method and bringing in my black fine liner and getting a sketch to a stage where it looks print like. The colouration is completely by imagination. But I really enjoyed layering in the colours and tones.
After a few more sketch ideas, I started to blend in some aspects. First my initial sketch. I stylised it to have familiarity to the old posters. I even started to look at typography and the way the posters were laid out. Of course my narrative is not to advertise Railways but by taking these common factors, I have manipulated them to add to my message of visiting the beach and enjoying the simple aspects of life. Such as playing in the sand.
I also represented the two figures to mirror each other, the blond hair and the clothes are the same combinations. The red towel relating to the red bucket. The question being is it the same person, reliving their childhood, or is it a mother taking her child to the beach to revisit what the mother did as a young child. I took the basic colour combos used in some of the posters of the seaside tones and made as much a simple background as possible as I enjoy this crisp and clean imagery. To me, it is pleasing to look at.
Reflection:
My first issue with this assignment was that I could not go out into any public places due to the current situation, but not to be deterred I used Youtube and searched videos of our beach. I then put the screen on large player and literally treated the videos as I was observing. Once I had configured my sketches I worked as in a studio situation and reworked from my sketches. I am going to expand on observational drawings of people as I think it is quite a good way of understanding the body and also, it is very important how just by changing a couple of lines or capturing motions can really change the dynamics of how the sketch works.
I have used photography as a tool, often when I have been places, even just shopping, I stop and snap a quick photo with my phone discreetly of things that catch my eye. Not always do I go to use them, but I keep a file with all my images in. I have used them several times in the past, some just stay in there but they may come in useful!
I find working fast has some very important aspects to my work, firstly often those first few marks are the important ones. It can often be do those, move on, do some more on a different area of the page. This has been very useful in looking at doing stylized pictures such as the poster as you can see how minimalizing works can still tell the narratives.
I have been a drifting a bit with sketchbooks, and I have to say, this section I feel it is the first sketchbook I feel is valued and from start to finish the book as whole is quite precious, there are some pages that are a bit random and probably may get inspiration from, and some that when I look back I am quite proud of them being pages in my book. It is truly made some kind of connection between me and the sketchbook, whereas back in section one and two, though I can produce the work, this has cemented more of the process and development of sketchbooking to me personally and looking back over assignment one, where we review statements, these now hold more related sentiment.
Overall I feel this has been enjoyable and I am more than pleased with how my sketchbook collection will develop.
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Section: Assignment Four:
Exercise 4.0: Fill it up - FAST!
This section, due to the restrictions in place, I was not sure what to do, I looked for guides to places I had not been before and wanted something that was of a suitable time to try and emulate the same experience as being there and also I want to experience the requirements of the exercise.
Firstly, I used what sort of tools and mediums I would in that sort of situation. I divided some pages up of my A4 sketchbook and selected my usual pencil, a softer colouring pencil, a couple of wax crayons and my pen, (wax crayons are a good tool for fast sketching as they don't overly smudge and they are smooth to make fast swift marks and colouring.
I found a virtual tour of the Louvre Museum, Paris. It is somewhere I have not been before so the experience would be new. The video length was over an hour long making it ideal.
I ensured I was alone, and I had the video play on the screen in a large format so I could see and experience it all with the sound turned up so to get the full sensations.
Some sketches I worked as I watched and kept true to methods of drawing without paying attention to the page but to my visuals.
I paused the video at crucial points as in real time I would be able to stand for a moment and capture these points I liked. During all this I made notes as I would if this was actual, including listening to people talking in the background and also the noise of the crowds and the sounds, plus the sights of how they changed from day light to artificial lighted rooms.
I made notes of the bits I would want to see and and what I thought, my feelings and the sensations of them. I kept very free in my mark making and just basically went with the flow.
I was surprised that it actually passed 2 hours before I had completed my set pages I had in mind! So, despite the fact I couldn't do this in actual terms I have experienced quite an in depth study of the Louvre and during this lock down time, its been quite exciting!
My first pages I was just starting to draw in the images that took my fancy. I liked the stairs into the foyer and the sweeping ceiling made of squares and rectangles and the way the shadows and lights worked. I also tried a tiny spot of contouring. I just made notes as I progressed through.
As the tour started I just made sure I pinpointed what I was drawn to and found visually exciting, so I didn't restrict myself to just people, artefacts or just the building. I was most in favour of the light and the windows and the statue shapes. I think looking back over these first pages I can see I was still a little tight with my free markings.
I think the experience of this exercise started to loosen up and I think I started to get more into the moment of drawing fast. I particularly like that I stuck with trying to capture the statue of the lion and being able to see it in different angles meant it gave me an opportunity to draw and the redraw on the same page and not feel restricted to staying away from what was under my current drawing but just taking that second or two so I could recreate what I could see.
The formation of how people gather is quite interesting to try and draw quickly. They all mass to one spot to look at something that the majority probably only look because others are looking and curiosity makes each human draw to the other. The facial sculptures were challenging, they hold little detail but all the features are there. Doing these in a blind contour surprisingly started to give them all character.
It was quite ironic as you pass from a room of statues heads you enter a room of statues with missing heads and limbs. The shadows in this room were quite astounding as the big windows flooded in light but the solid statues cast long deep shadows. The ceilings were vaulted and threw extra light in by reflection. I did find the repetitive shapes of the ceiling fascinating. I listened to conversations. Some language I did not understand but the American lady could clearly be heard commenting on the statues sandals!
One room that held a very famous statue in it was so busy with onlookers, all getting closer, but not to look but take a photo or a video. It was a darker room and the concave wall in the background outlined the figure. Again a mass of bodies that in the darker light hid forms and details. Listening in, the odd words and snippets can be heard. A parent calling names of children to locate them, people excusing each other and saying thank you as they tried to get a glimpse. I made some written notes to help reprise the feeling of how that room seemed. The statue could have been a pop star or a celebrity of today as the public clambered to ensure they got their moment of closeness and image capture!
The art gallery halls, had a different atmosphere, the voices were louder but there seemed less bodies, I think people were resting on the seats as much as those eyeing the artworks. There is so many I can feel the need to skip a few and only stand and look at those you find appealing. I took some notes and sketches as the move from hall to hall and to the galleries.
The mass of bodies trying to see the Mona Lisa was astounding!! All waiting for a very limited time to view her, behind a window and behind a barrier. To me, it would not seem worth it. The room seemed a lot quieter than the galleries, there was not a lot to sketch so I made some sketches and as the people moved I made notes on the sketch of how it felt.
The strangest atmosphere was on the way to the exit, the lower room vaults of artefacts and information boards, there looked to me many people slowing down and wandering about, maybe this was the come down of a rushed walk through to try and see everything, or maybe as the lights were darker to protect the treasures and it would no doubt be cooler, it mentally slowed people down? I kept making notes and re-sketched, and sketched as I saw moments in the people that i liked.
I enjoyed doing this, as to begin with I had apprehension of how I could achieve this under the circumstances, but as it turned out I had a rather enjoyable couple of hours and I surprised myself being able to absorb into this exercise and just think about each moment and the literal of here and now drawing and recording.
Using the crayons was a more relaxed approach for me, the temptation to rely on what I know and am used to using for example the fine liner / marker is something that has to be changed so I can at least see if something else works for me in different environments and situations and subjects.
I did find that after the beginning couple of pages or so, that the objects and studying one environment did actually become a little more relaxing. I think it is because once your mind has adapted to the surrounds of what you are looking at, the studying part becomes easier as you don't have to spend as much time concentrating on worrying you are missing something, when you can still capture the present as it moves from space to space.
When the world returns to some normality I think doing a study somewhere with a smaller sketchbook to completely fill would be fun. Just titling the book and aiming to complete it within the journey. Definitely something I will try again.
Exercise 4.1: Description and Depiction
I found this exercise a little tricky at first and I ended up doing it once, then revisiting and gave it another try. The first time I used an emotional experience of visiting the 9/11 memorial. I made some written notes on the page as if making notes in my journal at that particular date of the actual visit. I have some filmed footage so I replayed this and looked at some of the photos of the experience, this was to evoke my memory and see how it played out.
It was such a strong experience that it was not hard to remember the sensations and sentiments of being there.
The first box was the written journal page, then second we are followed by the words in place of objects or the visuals of the scene. My scene set in my mind is the point where the memorial pools are visible as you approach the side walls and see the site.
My drawing, it is simple in a pen and watercolour sketch, clean, no messy lines or intricate details.
The forth I combine the two, I do not feel that the imagery has to be precise as I think the purpose is to evoke and create emotion and atmosphere of that scene by combining word and picture.
I was not overly sure if this had been a success, so after a trip to the supermarket, I used this as my drawing as a recent memory sketch. The wording, I created almost a tongue-in-cheek "To do" list. Then again went through the processes of word picturing, and then picture and finally combining. This time I let my imagination play part and extended the doors as a mouth into a place not willing to be entered. But added words of comfort as Helpful Staff, stuff you need, doors to live...etc and equally placed in some negative text and used words also to create some of the objects, like the teeth.
It was an interesting method of working, the advantage of the stage two of word picturing does help as in the literal terms of thinking how a scene maybe in front of you or in memory, these words can help capture those emotions and sensations that the drawing or sketch may not do so if done before brainstorming the words.
Exercise 4.2: Storyboarding
After the research section regarding story boarding with the case study of Brandon J Wallace, my initial thoughts were that was going to be an enjoyable and simple task. I think I underestimated how this was going to be so absorbing and how much considerations would be required and observations too!
I first sat and went through various video clips and looked at different themes and had to think through the process of the story as the scenes changed and how simple or complex the story was, what was the relevance f the scene change, what did each frame tell us about the story.
I think I was being too ambitious for my first try, I looked at clips of a Bollywood film as they tend to use a lot of quick scene and face shots, but I found it all a bit hard to start with and I think I was trying to note down too little information as when I read it back it does not really explain from the beginning what is occurring. It was a start though and I understand the principle of the exercise from having a "trial" attempt!
My first full attempt above was taken from an act in a 1970 film called "Entertaining Mr Sloane", the film is a drama and covers murder, lust, sexual desires and relationships. This scene is where two main characters meet for the first time. The woman called Kath, is middle aged and alone, throughout the film we can see she has defects in her personality and mental health on behaviour within a family unit and her deep sad loneliness. I chose this scene as I think it has some very poignant moments hidden.
First, it is in an cemetery, a funeral is taking place. The scenes flip from the woman the the vicar confirming the burial. She is eating an ice lolly sat on a bench, this shows our first glimpse that Kath may not have understanding of expected behaviours and awareness of others. The tossing of the soil in between the eating of the lolly? a very serious scene twisted in with a very irrelevant action from Kath. Her lips are bright red. Later as she walks the flower she picks from a grave stone is tinged with the red, as she meets Mr Sloane for the first time he is sunbathing on a grave with flowers behind his head, these create a halo of tinged redness, I have looked at these sort of links after the research of Wallace and his method of story boarding and looking at the surrounds and connections they may have to the story telling.
Another attempt, this time I used coloured pens to represent land and sea. It is actually quite difficult without using words how to tell some parts of the story. This is a scene from the old classic Jaws, so a different Genre, This time I did not over detail each box, I tried to keep it simple, looking at the foreground, what was important in each scene and what that character or object was doing.
It is quite experimental trying to work out what format and frame works best, as a film can hold a scene for a while without action but still proceed with parts of the story so it is important to pick out which bits that it is telling and the bit that the next part of the story needs to proceed.
The is certain points I noticed, that facial capturing and expression tells a lot to the story, the use of day light in this film clip was clever. The bright sun encasing the security of the beach and then using blue and darker hues in the water to feel suppressed and danger, the one think that Jaws as a film is famous for is the "Da-da---da-da-da-da-" as the shark approaches. Maybe if I had picked a different scene where the shark fin protrudes the water, the mind might automatically play these keys in our head. I think the cartoon style I have done it in has taken the scariness away from the dramatic scene but that was experimental. If I get time, I might come back to this and re-write it in dark pencil drawings to see how it changes the mood.
Here, I changed theme again, this one I have taken from Watership down, I have tried to be even more basic in line work and colour and work more on character facial values and actions to help convey the story telling and by using animation I have have to see what that animator has done to tell me that message, what is the face doing that tells me it is angry or sad. It was a worthy experiment of stripped back story boarding, I liked the simplicity and fun of this one.
Though, the changing of scenes in animation is a little slower in places and terms of how many scenes occur. Also after the cartoon effort of Jaws, using a soft pencil to do simple sketches was fun. Also looking over it, it is easy to follow the story, but is that because it was already stripped back from a book to animation? Does that make it easier? I think it did a little. We expect the simplicity of the drawing and understand how to fill the gaps in to make animation come to life. I think in cartoon or sketches like this, that happens too.
I revisited the Jaws storyboard, this time I worked on A3 paper making the thumbnail size a little bigger to work with and I tried to step away from it being cartoon style and more as a drawing. I watched the film clip again and spent more time concentrating on getting expression and body movement right, as I think this tells the drama of the scene as much as any verbal or written words. I looked at the moments and scene changes and worked out in the same way as before how to present the segment and ensure that the motion of that part of the story was captured so it can still convey what is happening and also the atmosphere.
I think this second revisit worked better, the use of the sea green colour and the darker pencil lines, adds drama. The white ink detail also helps create the action and understanding of movement within some of the water scenes. I am quite pleased with the second attempt.
Exercise 4.3: Conversations with Picture Interpretation
As in the brief it tells us how we automate the story of a painting or image as the above one, where we can see the period of time by the clothes, we can see it is in a beautiful garden possible a large house or building in the background, so assuming they are wealthy, the bouquet of flowers suggest romance, the close proximity of the two characters means they could be familiar with each other, it is french, are the Parisians? Is the lay in the background with them? It looks like its a sunny day.
The purpose of imagining the concept of a different level to an image can the produce further ideas and creations that can proceed forward from that point.
For this exercise I am going to recap through my sketchbook and add some ideas of dialogue. I used clear tape and some cut up bits of card to add snippets of chatter or thoughts that the figures may be having. I also went through my doodles and other pages to locate some ideas. Below are just some pages. I found some smaller post-its that worked well for this exercise.
The idea of creating another voice to the one that is there is quite tricky, I think this is because we automatically predict what people are doing/thinking and their placement explains a lot.
This one, is of two girls sat on a bench in one of my sketches, one seems to be sitting angular to the other and one is looking away. I imagined they had fallen out or argued. I put the dialogue: "There's no reason to get upset about it! I'll buy you another pack of rolo's!"
From this I first started to redraw the image and thinking about how they both act and feel. Trying to develop character emotions, I placed the upset girl in a shade of blue and then the other girl in a surround of black and white, as I started to imagine one would be quite insensitive and the other would be more emotional. I wrote a letter from one to the other, asking why she had got so upset. I then carefully scrunched the letter up as if it was to be disposed of. I refolded it and taped it up tiny and put it inside the sketchbook attached to the page. Like it was secret letter to be read by the character only.
I used the drawing to influence the letter, one line I put was " You say I see only in Black and white, but there are more colours than just blue." In reference to the other girl being down and upset ,"Blue".
The drawing itself didn't come out as I wanted, but sometimes that's not a bad thing as I can tend to be rather uptight with how I want it to look, behaving more free in creating these sketches helps loosen up and free some more ideas and concepts within the drawings.
This drawing came from one of a group of people at a view point on a bridge. I recreated a scene and used the just one of the original figures to make her singular and made the scene night time. "I wonder if aliens exist?" I took this from my original skits of post-its and ran with the idea. I gave the girl a name, Maria. I created the page drawing as a realised vision of what I wanted it to be, so taking her from a tourist view point with crowds in the sun, it became solitude on a bridge looking over the river and city skyline. Then on the opposite page I created a letter, from someone from "home", so this suggests Maria has left home for the city. Is Maria going to throw the letter into the river? its held over the darkness. The questions raised are why is she there, what made her move? I use thought bubbles and letters and also a snippet of location information to tell the two page story.
This is my favourite. My review over this exercise is that I have found it a bit tough to do. The process of developing these suggestive from one idea to then create an extension is quite complex in some ways. I did find that doing the first initial dialogue notes, I went down a very "safe" track and did not really think too far out the box. It did take me a few visits to get to a stage where I had done a lot. I might photocopy some pages and re-do them but with fresh dialogue. Insert them back in the book. It can be quite easy to go with safe ideas sometimes. It is a new path and I have not tried this type of working before.
Exercise 4.4: Using Basic Narrative Structure
Assignment 4
This assignment brings together the exercises from this section. The basis of how to bring ideas to a full formed project. The previous exercises all lead to this path, whereas I think that each one can be used as a tool to help achieve ways of creating stories and a successful narrative.
My first review of my sketchbooks, I looked through this sketchbook for section 4 and also my previous sketchbook for section 3, after the exercise in adding small speech bubbles/mini narratives on figures helps as this lets me to start to diverse the perspectives of the sketches and though I have created them it also opens them up to be used in different ways and not to just see them as they were in the original situation.
Through the sketchbooks I started to note down some ideas, I didn't over think the longevity of how the idea would expand into a story, I just thought about the images that interested me and I thought I could redevelop and expand.
I found the best pages that gave me inspiration my first exercise on part 4 and my doodles in assignment 3 section. I started working in these as some basics for an idea. I traced them first and copied them in my book and photocopied some pages to cut up and work with.
I was a little stuck for a story board idea, this was the bit I did struggle with, and I have to admit, I ended up coming away from it and having to keep coming back to it because I just couldn't grasp any ideas. I started just laying down some written ideas in my book, then from this stage, I worked so vague thumbnails for my ideas, I wanted to ensure that I kept the story relevant to beginning to end and touch each of the eight structures.
Doing thumbnails allowed me to chop and change ideas and write some notes as I went. As often I seemed to start with one idea and then after the stages are completed I would think of taking it in a different direction.
By using the eight steps, I did find that this is key to making sure the narrative is flowing correctly as I take out one idea, and enter another, the end result of that idea still has to convey that step of the structure regardless.
My Zine. "Lucky!"
This is my finished zine.It is A6 sized, made from kraft card and paper, it is eight pages, and I have stitched bound them to the spine.The book stands well and I think as a zine it would be attract others to want to look inside and discover the narrative.
The cover: I did not devise the cover design until I had completed the zine as I was in two minds on how to do this and once the book was created, how it would feel with details on the cover. I used the character for inspiration and also another small sketch from my previous book. The front door is to represent the entering of the story, "what is behind the closed door?". The kraft card was chosen as I thought it looked old and ages. I also liked the texture and wearing of it as a cover.
The beginning: Firstly, I covered the inside of the kraft in a paper that resembled old kitchen floor tiles, this was a latter decision made a couple of days after I had been looking at the zine and just thought it needed something else. I think it all is part of the experience for the viewer in opening the zine and being drawn into the world of the character and the environment.
The first step of this story (statis), the everyday, this is the old woman, sat at her table, this is her home, we are indicated this by the front door on the cover. She sits there alone. The empty plate and sad face, is she hungry? why is she sad? The kitchen shows a grey morning. How do we know its morning? The clock says seven, the curtains are open, these are my indicators to the time of day. Also the chopping board sits empty barring small crumbs, the jars on the work surface are empty. The photo on the wall of a marriage lets us see she wasn't always alone. These all enforce the story of the empty plate. Part of the everyday for this old woman is the feeling of hunger.
We turn to the second page, this cuts to a scene of the woman looking in her open purse. We see the limited coins and the stamps and the button as the contents. We know this is the old lady, because the hand is over the empty plate in the background. We only need to know that the woman is looking in the purse, we can mentally assess two points: She has little money, (the empty purse), She is thinking about how she can obtain food (the empty plate). This is the trigger as to what is going to direct the narrative.
The old woman sets off to find food. (The Quest.) The trolley being towed behind. I set her walking behind a long wall and the irony of the poster. Her head is slightly bowed and she is setting off on her journey alone to get some food. The is importance in the fact she is alone walking, we can as a reader/viewer quite easily place this figure and environment within out own imaginations and places we are familiar with. It links the stories everyday in with our everyday. I wanted the old lady to reassemble a figure we may see in the town or down our street. If we are familiar with objects and people, we make automatic connections and emotions to them.
The arrival at a supermarket, the old woman looks at the shelves of all the foods. She is clutching her purse. This is to remind us she has the purse with little money. The shelf edges are all priced? Is she looking at the shelve edges or the decision on what she can buy here. I have purposed the use of the everyday objects we know as items such as bread, tea, cereal. What will she purchase? (the surprise) are the stocked shelves and all the food, and also the prices, the options to her are beyond her capacity of financing.
We know from the trigger, that the point here is the old woman has very little money? possibly not enough coinage to be purchasing a loaf or a box of teabags.
(A critical choice/a reaction). This leads to the woman trying to purchase all she can afford, one time of beans. In this scene, I start to introduce the connections of the story, here we see the old lady not quite in shot, we know it is her by the coat and most importantly the red purse. There are two other characters introduced. The guy on the check-out and his colleague in the background. We see the guy looking at the old woman even though he is still serving the out of shot customer buying the shopping. (We can tell this as the divider is on the belt and the gap between the shopping. The other staff member is in the background looking in that direction.
The old woman is at the check out. The guy holds the tin of beans. We are looking from a different angle, we can see the old lady and the rear of the check out. The guy is pressing a buzzer, the other staff member is heading over, we can see behind her head as she aims towards the counter. The old woman looks sad and confused. Is she about to be refused the food? is it beyond her money value? (the climax), at this stage we are quite unsure of the problem, we know it revolves over the tin and the transaction, but we don't know the problem.
We can now see (The reversal), that the story has changed direction completely. The old woman has been selected as the lucky customer for that store. The colleague was heading over with the trolley of the winning shopping, the buzzer was alerting her that this was the 1,000,000th customer. They staff had been waiting as they knew it was approaching that figure. The tin of beans remains on the counter, the purse remains in the pocket. The old woman is surprised. The expressions on the employees are happy.
Here the woman is back at home. We see the food stacked up, there is now plenty to eat! The bread board is with fresh crumbs, the butter and cheese is open on the side and her plate is with food, plus tea and milk. The jars on the work surface are filled. The lady looks much happier. The clock time has changed to lunch time, the window light is brighter and the window has been opened. (the resolution).
Throughout there were points I had to maintain, such as continuity, the character, ensuring all points of the journey were related in an image and able to be understood by the viewer. I did consider words, I made some notes in my sketchbook as I worked on the thumbnails, but once I had reached the final decision on what images to convey the story, I found that words are not always necessary and that I found I was over complicating the images with the words, adding maybe too much to the story and not enough of the image. Maybe if I had extended the story to something longer it may have been required. But the positive of no words can be that firstly, everyone can understand the story principle and secondly the option to read words is often easier than to dissect an image to understand whats happening, where as looking at an image the viewer then has all rights to take as much or as little as the want to invest into the narrative.
This is the back inner cover to match the front. It finishes the zine off nicely . You can also see he the method I have used to bind the zine. A simple line of six holes used to stitch the white cotton through to hold the book together. I think the use of the traditional cotton and the kraft card goes quite well with the story.
I reproduced "the quest" image from the story for the back cover, I think it is the most evocative image from the story and it is my favourite, it also links in quite neatly with the cover of the front door, being the outside world.
My first look into creating the story comes from combing through my sketchbooks from these previous exercises, I looked at a couple of sketches and moved through to my previous sketchbook.
Here I collected some more ideas too. I started with a having the object and then coming up with a very rough idea of a story not overly structured but considering the eight points and ensuring I could develop the content to hold all this information. I copied some of the drawings on a sheet in the book and photocopied some too and just had a play around with the shapes and drawings. My most important part for me to feel something towards what I create.
I had narrowed down to four options, the statue, a frog, the boy who became the fly and the shopping trolley. I looked at creating some very rough storyboards up. This gave me some construction and ideas of whether the first stages could become strong enough to use.
As I work through the storyboards I can tell which ones I feel for and sometimes what seems like a good idea doesn't work. Or does not seem strong enough. I had two stronger ideas.
The old lady and the trolley and the two statues in the museum.
Developing the story and moving from the first storyboard, I started to work in a larger format and added notes and points that I could include. I also started to look at developing the character and the style I wanted to draw in, I ten to be quite cartoon styled so I wanted it to be a little more illustrative rather than comedic or cute.
The way in which the thumbnails started and as I worked, it was strange how some new ideas were thrown up into the story.
As the story formed, I had to question that i had all the segments of the story in the right procedure as there is a gaps where it is easy to reinterpret the story and then loose one of the steps of the structure.
I reestablished the story line, then just let myself add in the scenes, regardless of the necessity or not. I also made a written rough script/narrative of the stages and added in the descriptive of what was happening, for example: It is a grey miserable day outside the window, the kitchen shelves are bare. I found this was good call back once I started on the journey of the story to use as a reference, especially as I worked on the larger pieces in stages.
The progression to making the zine, I started by creating the illustrations on A4. Each step I tried to keep as much consistency as possible. There is a definite appreciation for graphic novel creators and the work that goes into keeping their characters form the same and their face recognisable. It is quite easy to start adding or missing parts! Once I had completed the pieces, I then had them laid out, and kept going over them. Initially as the story was told, I had the purse mid story as the surprise (that lead to the reaction), but I thought about this and the money is the trigger, it is what makes her venture out for food. If no money, no food. The quest comes from the journey to buy the food and obtain it with the money value.
Once I was content, I started to continue with illustrating the images and adding colour and keeping the continuity.
The use of colour does help, such as adding greys and darker colours to the lady and then the softer colours of her clothes, (to create a familiar character to us all), the brightness of the supermarket and the shelves all are vivid to be contrasting against the grey skirt and brown coat. Once I was happy with the images, I scanned them in. At this point I was trying to decide on how to manufacture this into a zine. I tried the foldy first, but I just didn't like it. This led me to investigate ways to make a zine with the hand stitching. I printed the pages off so are A6, (four images to one sheet of paper) the zine was created from a sheet of folded A5 kraft, and two sheets of A4 paper and hand stitched binding.
I diverted a little and started collecting some images of how the home may look, to give me some inspiration and capture the right type of home. I quite like collecting and printing these sorts of gatherings and keeping them. It may not be essential but it is fun building them up.
The basis of the story that I finally decide on works in a simple way to ensure I cover all the eight points within the Beginning, middle and the end. Once I had started to make some written ideas in my sketchbook, I came up with some other focus points.
Here is my oulines:
Statis: The woman is in here home. (this is the everyday)
Trigger: The need to eat and hunger
Quest: To obtain food
Surprise: Not being able to buy the food she wants
Reaction: The purchase of a smaller inadequate amount of food
The Climax: The point of sale, can she afford the purchase, the staff look on at her, why are they paying attention to her?
The reversal: The lady is the selected winner, she obtains a trolley full of food
The resolution: Back in her surroundings eating food.
The storyboarding for this came through with other ideas? I thought could she me suspected of shop lifting? what if she did shoplift? What if she did or didn't get caught?
I also looked at the changes of scenes, In one of my storyboards I ended up with 17 sketches, I had included the outside of the house, so the first visual is her front door. (later I ended up adding this as the cover of the Zine to enhance the story). I also had in mind to make it raining, to make the atmosphere glum and dark, this extended her journey from leaving home, being outside the supermarket and then being inside the supermarket in a wet and downtrodden state.
I am not too sure if I made the better option of simplifying the story, I think there is definitely room to expand this further beyond a 8 page zine.
I tried making two foldy zines, the first one I added words. Which I didn't like, so I remade another one but without the words, I also placed a poster on the back, these were experiments. I am pleased I went larger and made the zine A6, the images worked better a little larger.
A4 Zine, maybe if I had access to an A3 printer I could try these so the pages are A6 under the same folding method but I am happy with the zine having a separate cover. Also, with the cover it did give me those options of adding the door detail, which I really liked and wanted to include that somewhere in one of the scenes, but that didn't occur so I am pleased it got positioned on the front and still added to the story message of behind the closed door.
Reflection:
The full process from the first exercise through to this assignment piece has all contributed to it being a successful assignment. I initially found myself to have a bit of a stumble with the direction of this section.
I struggled with the addition of words and using written descriptive along side the work and how the two can be compromised to involve both angles of narrating. I don't think I have completely grasped being comfortable with doing this, but I have the tools to do so now and understand the process, it is just more the self doubt that can be restrictive, and though I feel I can be quite imaginative with my drawings and doodles I do not feel that I embrace the written word as well. This is a point I need to exercise with.
I noticed with doing the exercise revisiting the sketchbooks and adding speech and thoughts stop my drawings I was very functional and not overly creative in doing this, but I am pleased at least I now understand this. I think one issue sometimes I find are the fundamentals of the exercises become my main focus and then stop myself from being more fluid in adding information.
The process of the use of writing and taking the same moments and thoughts and drawing them, and then integrating the two is very interesting, I don't rate my attempts as hugely successful but I think this is more myself being restring on using more emotive subjects. I think I may go back and revisit this point. Out of all the exercises I feel I didn't gain enough from that experience.
Looking over the section of storyboarding, this was the one I found captured me the most, though to start with I was quite basic but working through the various themes from animation to drama I found the scene selection and understanding viewpoints, the purpose of scene and inclusion and exclusion of figures or objects very tangible and I think this really helped a lot to achieve the success in making a short story in the zine and including what is found by storyboard studies.
I even went back and did a retake on the Jaws board, and I am pleased I went back as the second attempt captured the drama better than the first line drawing version.
Wallace, who we look at within this section, he has the ability to simplify and capture the scenes of the films and still tell the exact story. His interpretation in story board of a clip from Star wars, shows a finely tuned eye to knowing what in the scene is important. We see so much on a screen when we watch, without thinking that each part has been selected to navigate is through. I found Wallace creates his work in this way and the lack of written word is not so much a necessary to understand the story, I think in my zine I achieved this quite well too.
If I was to re-tackle the assignment again, I think I would consider adding other stages to the story, but think carefully about it, and rather than just inserting them it maybe, that it has to be rough and draft and seeing if it contributes enough, reconsider and tweak the images so that the chosen scenes are effective to the storytelling.
Section: Assignment Five:
For this assignment section the requirement is to start another sketchbook. I looked back over what I had done previously and I picked my favourite. It is an A5 soft leather with 120gsm cartridge paper, I have one I use for personal use and this is what I want this to be rather than an exercise piece, so I can pick it up and add to it or just browse through it for inspiration or to remind myself of points I have encountered.
Exercise 5.0: Taking stock.
As this exercise suggests to use a sketchbook, that is what I am determined to do from the off set so all my information and work on these exercises has become part of my sketchbook quite successfully, it has created a very tactile book.
The first thing I did was to work from the word Summation! Gathering all my thoughts on the exercise and putting them in the book. I am pleased I have done this as I can now pick it up and look at these notes.
I used the exercise to start to develop some pages and incorporate all these reviews and recaps of the whole module.
Summation of the module, it seems a long time ago since the first assignment and the starting to understand the basic structures of sketchbooking and the values.
Reading back through some of my reflections and how they have altered. At the time, it is difficult to appreciate the journey and understanding of the importance of the exercises but then without really noticing, the production starts to change and the form of the books do too.
The right sketchbook is like having comfortable shoes, you have to try different ones to see what fits!
Looking at all the plus points I have encountered, enjoyed and has influenced how my creativity methods have changed, by reviewing the reflections and also feedback after some time, it does clarify easier what the purposes of having these are.
A look over my favourite processed from the module, I have made notes and also of materials and just some fun bits, I think this will be very interesting to revisit in another 12 months and see if some things are changed or stayed similar and how many of the processes I still consider favourites.
Making visual reminders of the processes that I liked, this is because it is a good passage of reminding what was involved and which end result came from that particular process.
I couldn't say disliked these horrendously, but maybe they are the points that I didn't enjoy so much. It is not to say that they may change depending on subjects and how these develop along side other new skills. I think it is still good to keep a record of these as like the positive notes, reviewing at a later date may be useful to see what has changed.
I looked at the list and went with my reaction to each and the processes and methods I have liked the best or find I work better with.
Recapping those other student and artists comments. There were changes, quite dramatic on some accounts. The daunting feeling of using a sketchbook has subsided and definitely I feel confident in producing unfinished work on pages and just having experiments on pages too. I am also feeling much more confident in someone looking in my books.
I made some general reviews over tutor feedback, exercises, thoughts I had on these processes, just general notes personal to me, and a fun idea about traffic lights being the same as that static pause at the beginning of doing anything creative, where you need tools to generate your ideas to move forward. The exercises I would revisit to also noted. I don't think, even though I have previously classed some exercises as ones in the not so favourable bracket, I think all would be useful to sue and progress with depending on what it is I would be working on or wanting to achieve.
Exercise 5.1: Making an Action Plan - Visually
As before I incorporated this exercise within the sketchbook. I think that I am going to be able to review my notes and how I particularly feel with how certain exercise or methods worked for me and those that didn't succeed so well. I think that those that are favourable will be easier to recall, but still having the notes will also help me recall processes I may not have used beyond the exercise and be able to apply them in future developments.
Intro!
Batman. A symbol of action! With his bag for life! These folded in pages hide my "wants" or "Idealism's" for working towards the final assignment.
A visual way to remind me! The post-its on the board. A paperclip reminds me which ones to focus on. Only I know that. Or anyone else who reads this!
A bit of philosophy phrasing in a picture. Reach the end result by taking the journey!
A word link to the sketchbook, a good idea to keep a crisp and clean review occasionally. Lets me glance and recall as and when I need to!
Using some "resized" heads from previous sketches, having a conversation about the sketchbook which is meant to be a bit tongue in cheek with the added thought bubble! Action plans are a good starting point with these tools to give some guidance about the direction and gaining satisfying results. I hope that when I am working within the assignment I do manage to achieve some goals.
Exercise 5.2: Making Connections.
I had taken this exercise and created some great pages by using images from my previous exercises and assignments, copying the from my books, re-scaled and reused. I created some pages that all relate, such as people/faces, nature. etc. but I just started reinventing pages with them and trying to be free with them and not be precious with creating, but enjoy the page filling and experimenting.
I want the book to fill and be of interest and it be something I can browse, or look at for ideas in the future.
"Sketchbooks, are time capsules. They hold the past. They're full of ideas, half thoughts and unfinished business. Some drawings in the books are used time and time again."
The hidden art of designers illustrators and creators P224 Mark Todd
The above quote is on this exercise and I think it explains the sketchbook philosophy quite aptly. The use and developing pages are often partial ideas or thoughts and that is okay, that some ideas do not have to be fully formed or have meaning at the time of creating.
The sketchbook should become an extension of the artists own thoughts and perceptions. I am happy to fill a page of doodles and also still happy to spend a few hours filling a page in my book. It is a different kind of satisfaction putting something down that doesn't demand a reason or purpose.
I won't comment on every image, but so far as you view this it is all how my book has grown. The gathering of my copies from the previous books just developed into what they are. I thought as soon as I started at this point, I am not going to force myself to be mechanical with the exercises but just let it flow and what comes up will be. I am really pleased with some of the collections, and through the pages there are new drawings mixed with collages of cut outs from my copies, some are smaller, some are expanded, some I have redrawn in a different way, repeated. I used the opportunity to expand include free association and create the possibility of ideas for starting point for future projects.
I have put pockets in to keep the snippets of bits I have not yet used. One thing I found was when I didn't feel creative, I just sat and cut bits out, made a collection of random bits, then whenever I had an hour or two I just looked through them and used what inspired me at that moment, I think that is why it is quite jumpy in my different styles, but I really like that. I often see peoples books and look and think they have a very similar process for their style, where at the moment I feel like I am dipping in and out of all aspects of sketching and creating ideas and looking through, some bits are similar, but other pages take a completely different angle.
Exercise 5.3: Constructing a Visual Journal.
I reached this exercise and thought over how I have already compiled this group of exercises within my sketchbook. I have throughout the assignments changed and tried different books to work within and different collective methods.
In the first assignment I gathered my work in a larger A4 plus sided book I created from mount board, I made bindings and used clips and bulldog clips.
In assignment two, I carried on by gathering my works, as some were on A2 paper, into a pocket within the sketchbook from Assignment 1. In assignment three I started to develop more in the lines of a book being movable and bag sized, I used an old A5 book that was pre-used, and extended the usage by inserting a A5 jotter type book in the front. This book became pretty full over the course of the exercises and assignment and holds some really intriguing pages. When I first filled it I kept returning to have a quick look through from the novelty of it being my first sketchbook completed!
The assignment four seemed to stall with returning to A4 sized pages, for some reason it didn't gel so well as a book for me. I don't know whether I find the thought of starting on a vast A4 page a bit too much as a sketchbook itself, or if I did not find the exercises adhered so well together as in the assignment three exercises and end assignment. I am going to retry a larger book for the end assignment, I want to have a variety of books once I have completed this course! It maybe I just didn't work so well within that particular exercise or assignments or I didn't like the paper within the book. It could have been a few reasons.
I started this last assignment section with the thought of producing another book similar to the third section. This time, I started with a book that was more suitable for me to be experimental and consider using paints or other media. I also like the book because of the leather soft cover makes it have a texture and a satisfying feeling of touch and the paper has a almost pre-worn feel so it stops that "precious" treatment.
I think over the exercises here I have created a very tactile and useful book that is full of useful content and I also feel quite proud for someone else to view the pages and enjoy its content.
Assignment 5
Everyday stories:
This final assignment gave me a choice of three options of ideas that incorporated traits of the modules and how these processes work in practice to obtain a result.
I decided to opt for Everyday stories, due to the revisit of my sketchbook that accompanies this fifth section and the words relating to the exercises that I found a connection with such as: Narrative, Reportage, Structure, Ideas, People.
I began this assignment with one sketchbook dedicated to the stages and processes of this assignment. What I did kind in this doing this is that throughout I would flip back and forth and revisit some of the new key point skills from the previous exercises. There is varied methods to use, and I think through the different steps there has been some that work well for me. I have quite enjoyed some of the reportage pieces in the foundations of the story and I found some things develop from these ideas and become inclusive of the final pieces.
After assignment four, which developed the sequence / structure. I wanted to expand on this but be more thoughtful in the key frames and not be so engrossed in the details or accuracy of the drawings or mark making but look at how I can tell each key frame to the person looking at it. If it was to be used to make a short story, then the beginning and the end still need to have all the key points from the Statis to the Resolution to ensure that the story completes its cycle.
The first steps into this assignment is to start with my sketchbook and get some ideas on the move!
Exercise 4.0: Fill it up - FAST!
This section, due to the restrictions in place, I was not sure what to do, I looked for guides to places I had not been before and wanted something that was of a suitable time to try and emulate the same experience as being there and also I want to experience the requirements of the exercise.
Firstly, I used what sort of tools and mediums I would in that sort of situation. I divided some pages up of my A4 sketchbook and selected my usual pencil, a softer colouring pencil, a couple of wax crayons and my pen, (wax crayons are a good tool for fast sketching as they don't overly smudge and they are smooth to make fast swift marks and colouring.
I found a virtual tour of the Louvre Museum, Paris. It is somewhere I have not been before so the experience would be new. The video length was over an hour long making it ideal.
I ensured I was alone, and I had the video play on the screen in a large format so I could see and experience it all with the sound turned up so to get the full sensations.
Some sketches I worked as I watched and kept true to methods of drawing without paying attention to the page but to my visuals.
I paused the video at crucial points as in real time I would be able to stand for a moment and capture these points I liked. During all this I made notes as I would if this was actual, including listening to people talking in the background and also the noise of the crowds and the sounds, plus the sights of how they changed from day light to artificial lighted rooms.
I made notes of the bits I would want to see and and what I thought, my feelings and the sensations of them. I kept very free in my mark making and just basically went with the flow.
I was surprised that it actually passed 2 hours before I had completed my set pages I had in mind! So, despite the fact I couldn't do this in actual terms I have experienced quite an in depth study of the Louvre and during this lock down time, its been quite exciting!
The strangest atmosphere was on the way to the exit, the lower room vaults of artefacts and information boards, there looked to me many people slowing down and wandering about, maybe this was the come down of a rushed walk through to try and see everything, or maybe as the lights were darker to protect the treasures and it would no doubt be cooler, it mentally slowed people down? I kept making notes and re-sketched, and sketched as I saw moments in the people that i liked.
I enjoyed doing this, as to begin with I had apprehension of how I could achieve this under the circumstances, but as it turned out I had a rather enjoyable couple of hours and I surprised myself being able to absorb into this exercise and just think about each moment and the literal of here and now drawing and recording.
Using the crayons was a more relaxed approach for me, the temptation to rely on what I know and am used to using for example the fine liner / marker is something that has to be changed so I can at least see if something else works for me in different environments and situations and subjects.
I did find that after the beginning couple of pages or so, that the objects and studying one environment did actually become a little more relaxing. I think it is because once your mind has adapted to the surrounds of what you are looking at, the studying part becomes easier as you don't have to spend as much time concentrating on worrying you are missing something, when you can still capture the present as it moves from space to space.
When the world returns to some normality I think doing a study somewhere with a smaller sketchbook to completely fill would be fun. Just titling the book and aiming to complete it within the journey. Definitely something I will try again.
Exercise 4.1: Description and Depiction
I found this exercise a little tricky at first and I ended up doing it once, then revisiting and gave it another try. The first time I used an emotional experience of visiting the 9/11 memorial. I made some written notes on the page as if making notes in my journal at that particular date of the actual visit. I have some filmed footage so I replayed this and looked at some of the photos of the experience, this was to evoke my memory and see how it played out.
It was such a strong experience that it was not hard to remember the sensations and sentiments of being there.
The first box was the written journal page, then second we are followed by the words in place of objects or the visuals of the scene. My scene set in my mind is the point where the memorial pools are visible as you approach the side walls and see the site.
My drawing, it is simple in a pen and watercolour sketch, clean, no messy lines or intricate details.
The forth I combine the two, I do not feel that the imagery has to be precise as I think the purpose is to evoke and create emotion and atmosphere of that scene by combining word and picture.
It was an interesting method of working, the advantage of the stage two of word picturing does help as in the literal terms of thinking how a scene maybe in front of you or in memory, these words can help capture those emotions and sensations that the drawing or sketch may not do so if done before brainstorming the words.
Exercise 4.2: Storyboarding
I first sat and went through various video clips and looked at different themes and had to think through the process of the story as the scenes changed and how simple or complex the story was, what was the relevance f the scene change, what did each frame tell us about the story.
First, it is in an cemetery, a funeral is taking place. The scenes flip from the woman the the vicar confirming the burial. She is eating an ice lolly sat on a bench, this shows our first glimpse that Kath may not have understanding of expected behaviours and awareness of others. The tossing of the soil in between the eating of the lolly? a very serious scene twisted in with a very irrelevant action from Kath. Her lips are bright red. Later as she walks the flower she picks from a grave stone is tinged with the red, as she meets Mr Sloane for the first time he is sunbathing on a grave with flowers behind his head, these create a halo of tinged redness, I have looked at these sort of links after the research of Wallace and his method of story boarding and looking at the surrounds and connections they may have to the story telling.
It is quite experimental trying to work out what format and frame works best, as a film can hold a scene for a while without action but still proceed with parts of the story so it is important to pick out which bits that it is telling and the bit that the next part of the story needs to proceed.
The is certain points I noticed, that facial capturing and expression tells a lot to the story, the use of day light in this film clip was clever. The bright sun encasing the security of the beach and then using blue and darker hues in the water to feel suppressed and danger, the one think that Jaws as a film is famous for is the "Da-da---da-da-da-da-" as the shark approaches. Maybe if I had picked a different scene where the shark fin protrudes the water, the mind might automatically play these keys in our head. I think the cartoon style I have done it in has taken the scariness away from the dramatic scene but that was experimental. If I get time, I might come back to this and re-write it in dark pencil drawings to see how it changes the mood.
Though, the changing of scenes in animation is a little slower in places and terms of how many scenes occur. Also after the cartoon effort of Jaws, using a soft pencil to do simple sketches was fun. Also looking over it, it is easy to follow the story, but is that because it was already stripped back from a book to animation? Does that make it easier? I think it did a little. We expect the simplicity of the drawing and understand how to fill the gaps in to make animation come to life. I think in cartoon or sketches like this, that happens too.
I worked on a longer piece of footage on this one, this is a comedy "Shaun of the Dead", this time i tried to get a balance of the scenery, the characters and the actions without over or under setting each scene. I used pencils and stuck to adding just red where it appeared. It took quite some time to do and I replayed the scenes several times each to decide which frame of the scene was best for conveying forward the story. Overall I am quite pleased with this exercise. It is definitely worth doing a different genres as you can see how scenes work and what is incorporated to express the mood, for example facial expressions, colours lighting.
I think this second revisit worked better, the use of the sea green colour and the darker pencil lines, adds drama. The white ink detail also helps create the action and understanding of movement within some of the water scenes. I am quite pleased with the second attempt.
Exercise 4.3: Conversations with Picture Interpretation
The interpretations and conceptions of what we see often is lead by the conscious and the familiar. As humans we read faces into an automated recognition of happy, sad, questioning and I think that when we do this we then interpret the surrounds by this, so we think something sad or emotional has occurred. This exercise helps look at what could be there and not to lead by assumption and the interpretation doesn't have to be correct or wrong, the process of this stage can really be what ever we make it as an onlooker.
The sample in the exercise looks at Claude Monet (1847-1879) Camile Monet on a Garden Bench, 1873 - Oil on Canvas. I thought it would be quite amusing to look at this with comedic manner, and made some little ideas of the character thoughts. As suggested there is also the option to perceive what we can't see, maybe they all have roller skates on!
The previous exercise of the story boarding was the perception of telling the stages of actions and how we can look for the important steps that place the story in sequence and understandably to the onlooker.
Here this is more focused on the unseen. What we may not know is happening, or what we may think could be happening other to what the first impression may be.
The purpose of imagining the concept of a different level to an image can the produce further ideas and creations that can proceed forward from that point.
For this exercise I am going to recap through my sketchbook and add some ideas of dialogue. I used clear tape and some cut up bits of card to add snippets of chatter or thoughts that the figures may be having. I also went through my doodles and other pages to locate some ideas. Below are just some pages. I found some smaller post-its that worked well for this exercise.
The idea of creating another voice to the one that is there is quite tricky, I think this is because we automatically predict what people are doing/thinking and their placement explains a lot.
Here are some of my redeveloped pages above. I did a few in my new sketchbook. My first attempt at doing this into a drawing came from a quick sketch of the first exercise on this assignment. There was a statue of a lion and when I recapped over him, I thought he had a gleam in the way his eyes and mouth looked, almost smiling and looking directly at the viewer. I took him and made him into a character and expanded the thought I had created of "I'd like a cup of tea!" Something I thought was pretty much none lionesque.
I added a table and a tray of tea in front of him and extended the dialogue. I found this one very much fun to do and it could be the start of an idea for a children's illustration or a story. It is most definitely as step away from my usual style of drawing but taking these lines I have already created and basically enhancing them to create something improved was a worthy task. I think this lion looks really good. The small snippet of dialogue adds the humour and quirkiness of him to the page.
For this one, I expanded from a page of doodles in my previous book, I actually liked the beard lady as she was and really didn't want to alter her in any way, I photocopied the page and then working on a grid I up scaled her to fit on an A4 page. I originally used a thin marker paper so I could add some sharp alcohol ink pens to give her detail in colour rather than alter anything. This looked amazing, so I carefully cut her out and added her to the book and again expanded the dialogue, but this time I used it as what the lady was thinking, but we are able to read her personal thoughts. Again, I used a touch of humour but think its quite a sad small story. It does take some contemplation on how to further the dialogue and also in what context is best for that image. EG. A letter, a thought bubble, as speech or a printed sheet of text.
From this I first started to redraw the image and thinking about how they both act and feel. Trying to develop character emotions, I placed the upset girl in a shade of blue and then the other girl in a surround of black and white, as I started to imagine one would be quite insensitive and the other would be more emotional. I wrote a letter from one to the other, asking why she had got so upset. I then carefully scrunched the letter up as if it was to be disposed of. I refolded it and taped it up tiny and put it inside the sketchbook attached to the page. Like it was secret letter to be read by the character only.
I used the drawing to influence the letter, one line I put was " You say I see only in Black and white, but there are more colours than just blue." In reference to the other girl being down and upset ,"Blue".
The drawing itself didn't come out as I wanted, but sometimes that's not a bad thing as I can tend to be rather uptight with how I want it to look, behaving more free in creating these sketches helps loosen up and free some more ideas and concepts within the drawings.
This is my favourite. My review over this exercise is that I have found it a bit tough to do. The process of developing these suggestive from one idea to then create an extension is quite complex in some ways. I did find that doing the first initial dialogue notes, I went down a very "safe" track and did not really think too far out the box. It did take me a few visits to get to a stage where I had done a lot. I might photocopy some pages and re-do them but with fresh dialogue. Insert them back in the book. It can be quite easy to go with safe ideas sometimes. It is a new path and I have not tried this type of working before.
Exercise 4.4: Using Basic Narrative Structure
"A beginning, a middle and an end" - this exercise starts with this basics of a narrative. These three points are the essential ingredient to any visual narrative for the viewer to follow. The term "Sequence" is used to describe the progression from "The Beginning" to "The End". The reason this is a sequence is the familiarity and connection from the previous to the proceeding. There always has to be some essential elements to let the eye read the story and understand what is told within each image and the difference is significant to tell the story.
In the example of the first task, there is a set of three images from Beth Dawson, Panels from the comic, Getaway. Each panel has a familiarity and content that repeats in the sequence, but also there are very important changes that influence that we understand the story. Firstly, there is the sun, in image on it is in the sky, second image it descends to be behind the tent, (at this stage we could question is it early morning or late evening, but because the first image shows the sun in the sky we can build a suggestive that the sun is now setting. The final image shows not the sun but the moon, in the around the same placement of the sun in the first image. We could understand this alone, but to enforce this story in image one the sky is blue, the grass is green, in image two the careful deselection if showing detail in the grass and the use of white shows the difference in light to the first image and finally the third uses the white to offer up the look of moonlight and the white moon pitched against the black grass. During all this the main object (the tent) remains pretty much the same, so we know the surrounding is changing in time rather than we are moving in different locations.
Task 1
Taking these ideas from the example, and working on the first task to develop how a sequence can work, I looked through my sketchbooks for an object or figure to process with these key points. I used a stack of pots from my previous sketchbook for this one. I used tracing paper and reproduced the three images duplicating the lines exactly for each one.
I deducted a couple of pots from the second and the third image. This was to suggest that the pots were being taken. I coloured the pots in a sequence of red, blue, green, orange and yellow. I did this for purpose, so easily that the next image the missing pots are noted, and then in the background you can see the pots, used for planting. The middle picture shows the red, blue and green and the two taken pots in the distance. I repeated this with the blue and green, just leaving the red one. I contemplated taking the red one out too, but then I think it dispersed the repeat sequence of the objects central to the story. I think from image two to image three the outcome of the red pot will be apparent to the viewer. There is only two options, the pot is taken and planted, or left where it is alone. I now look back at this and wonder if the sequence would have developed better in reverse? I might have a play with this digitally and see how it looks!
I did go back to this first task, I uploaded the images and digitally had a play to see if the sequence would look any better in reverse. Taking away the background and using the objects alone. The purpose of this tells the story in a different way as to think that the plants in the first story are being potted so it would associate with the start of spring. The reverse we could think may suggest the end of a season. The vacant space of using white backgrounds does mean that the complete focus is on the objects and the changes within each sequence, making it easier for the viewer to process what this story tells.
Task 2
This time, using the same object or we could change if we wished, we have to suggest within the sequence a change of time, the movement of time is always suggestive, as we cannot physically draw the time changing so we use images and different images per step in the sequence to tell the viewer, "look, this was then and this is now or later". The passing of time can be moments, hours and years. There could numerous ways to show this in an image, such as the change of summer weather to winter weather. The surrounds from present to futuristic. I took the idea of these pots and had a brainstorming ideas session in my sketchbook.
Taking some rough sketches and ideas I started to retrace the pots again into a set of a sequence of three.
I used the sequence to show the passing of time in three ways.
The first way is the objects being pots and the spider. The spider approaches the pots. The spider climbs the pots and starts a line of web. The spider explores all around the pots, leaving a huge trial of web and then leaves.
The second way I used shading around the pots, imagining the light is from one position, first I apply a light hint there is shadow coming in, the second one I extend the depth of the shadows. The third, I add a lot more deeper shadowing to enforce the lack of light coming into the area.
The third, I colour the walls to suggest the movement of light, the first walls are pale grey, then secondly they start to darken and the remaining sequence I use darker grey.
The story here is the spider approaching the pots, the period of time the spider explores the pots, this is suggested by the shadows and the amount of web produced. As the spider walks away its meaning is quite comical and seals the story, the approach and the departure. I really enjoyed doing this piece, it looks really effective within the sketchbook in sequence.
Task 3
The final section looks at using sequence to morph one object to another, the method of how to do this and working on the basis of one object or figure becoming another object or figure. The sequence has to follow and be logical in progression and I think the important point is the viewer understands whats actually happening, this means the change from point A to point B has to show connection in the sequence and not suddenly jump or loose connection with the previous image.
This sort of sequencing is really popular in graphic novels and animation, changing and shifting forms, I researched into morphing and through looking at various images, I also noticed the links in morphing and insects. This came up in searches for morphing quite frequently. From this point, I had an idea. I started going through my sketchbook and looking at my sketches as to what I could develop. After making some ideas, I found two I liked one being the sketch from the Louvre tour. The guy in the headphones was a good figure to use, it was complete even though a fast sketch, I liked some of the shapes. Another was in my previous book looking at the blind contour face drawings.
There was two ideas I started to look at as possibilities, one of the faces, I started to see how I could change to an animal, I looked at a frog or maybe a butterfly, also the figure turning to a bee or some kind of insect. After some initial sketches and playing around with ideas, I decided that the figure could be made into a bee, this actually came from looking online at insects and then connecting the shape of the figures headphones are sort of similar to insect eyes and how they are positioned on a head. From this point I moved forward.
Once I had traced the figure I then looked at how to move the lines and develop it to relate to what I had in mind for an end result. My first couple of attempts, I traced the man, then sketched a bee, trying to keep them relatively the same size. This was quite difficult to morph as my first attempt, I realised there were parts where the lines didn't match and it started to look a bit "wishy washy" and the sequence seemed to be slow then fast to the end.
I retraced the images but this time, I slightly resized them first by scanning them in and reducing them by 20% so the space for the sequence would be wider to give me more steps to play with. After a couple of quick attempts, I looked at how to equally proportion the morphing process so that it was smoother through the stages. I made a grid on each traced image and started to add and deduct certain squares from the stages to try and tell the story of the change as seamless as possible.
On this design, I did start to add a thin line around each stage as I expected it to show a kind of movement and distortion to the morphing sequence. I used different thickness of liners to try and make this a sign of vibration and change. I was not going to add this to the final piece but I did as I think it did actually add a slide of gradual motion from start to finish.
After some work I finished with this process. I added colour, and used the progression to dictate the values of colours added to where the development and changes happened. It plays an important role in the story as I purposely chose colours that contrasted to establish the changes as they occurred. His white headphones slowly become black and the blue of the wings start to come through the red. Because I spent quite a lot of time on this, and I have seen it a lot, I think I started to loose sight into whether it was a working or successful piece.
Reflection:
This, I think has been the most enjoyable of the exercises in the section. The three tasks all worked very well together and I was able to feel that I understood the points raised and think I successfully completed the three tasks. The raised points of story telling and producing a successful narrative are valuable. Thought I can work out a sequence of a story and make a start and an end, it is the methods of telling the narrative in sequence that is important, as the creator it is easy to assume others will understand the connections, so it is imperative I use some of these processions to get from start to finish. The use of colour, the importance of clarity of the start and the finish, the connections between each step and that they are equally valuable to telling the story.
Assignment 4
This assignment brings together the exercises from this section. The basis of how to bring ideas to a full formed project. The previous exercises all lead to this path, whereas I think that each one can be used as a tool to help achieve ways of creating stories and a successful narrative.
My first review of my sketchbooks, I looked through this sketchbook for section 4 and also my previous sketchbook for section 3, after the exercise in adding small speech bubbles/mini narratives on figures helps as this lets me to start to diverse the perspectives of the sketches and though I have created them it also opens them up to be used in different ways and not to just see them as they were in the original situation.
Through the sketchbooks I started to note down some ideas, I didn't over think the longevity of how the idea would expand into a story, I just thought about the images that interested me and I thought I could redevelop and expand.
I found the best pages that gave me inspiration my first exercise on part 4 and my doodles in assignment 3 section. I started working in these as some basics for an idea. I traced them first and copied them in my book and photocopied some pages to cut up and work with.
I was a little stuck for a story board idea, this was the bit I did struggle with, and I have to admit, I ended up coming away from it and having to keep coming back to it because I just couldn't grasp any ideas. I started just laying down some written ideas in my book, then from this stage, I worked so vague thumbnails for my ideas, I wanted to ensure that I kept the story relevant to beginning to end and touch each of the eight structures.
Doing thumbnails allowed me to chop and change ideas and write some notes as I went. As often I seemed to start with one idea and then after the stages are completed I would think of taking it in a different direction.
By using the eight steps, I did find that this is key to making sure the narrative is flowing correctly as I take out one idea, and enter another, the end result of that idea still has to convey that step of the structure regardless.
My Zine. "Lucky!"
This is my finished zine.It is A6 sized, made from kraft card and paper, it is eight pages, and I have stitched bound them to the spine.The book stands well and I think as a zine it would be attract others to want to look inside and discover the narrative.
The cover: I did not devise the cover design until I had completed the zine as I was in two minds on how to do this and once the book was created, how it would feel with details on the cover. I used the character for inspiration and also another small sketch from my previous book. The front door is to represent the entering of the story, "what is behind the closed door?". The kraft card was chosen as I thought it looked old and ages. I also liked the texture and wearing of it as a cover.
The first step of this story (statis), the everyday, this is the old woman, sat at her table, this is her home, we are indicated this by the front door on the cover. She sits there alone. The empty plate and sad face, is she hungry? why is she sad? The kitchen shows a grey morning. How do we know its morning? The clock says seven, the curtains are open, these are my indicators to the time of day. Also the chopping board sits empty barring small crumbs, the jars on the work surface are empty. The photo on the wall of a marriage lets us see she wasn't always alone. These all enforce the story of the empty plate. Part of the everyday for this old woman is the feeling of hunger.
We turn to the second page, this cuts to a scene of the woman looking in her open purse. We see the limited coins and the stamps and the button as the contents. We know this is the old lady, because the hand is over the empty plate in the background. We only need to know that the woman is looking in the purse, we can mentally assess two points: She has little money, (the empty purse), She is thinking about how she can obtain food (the empty plate). This is the trigger as to what is going to direct the narrative.
We know from the trigger, that the point here is the old woman has very little money? possibly not enough coinage to be purchasing a loaf or a box of teabags.
Throughout there were points I had to maintain, such as continuity, the character, ensuring all points of the journey were related in an image and able to be understood by the viewer. I did consider words, I made some notes in my sketchbook as I worked on the thumbnails, but once I had reached the final decision on what images to convey the story, I found that words are not always necessary and that I found I was over complicating the images with the words, adding maybe too much to the story and not enough of the image. Maybe if I had extended the story to something longer it may have been required. But the positive of no words can be that firstly, everyone can understand the story principle and secondly the option to read words is often easier than to dissect an image to understand whats happening, where as looking at an image the viewer then has all rights to take as much or as little as the want to invest into the narrative.
My first look into creating the story comes from combing through my sketchbooks from these previous exercises, I looked at a couple of sketches and moved through to my previous sketchbook.
Here I collected some more ideas too. I started with a having the object and then coming up with a very rough idea of a story not overly structured but considering the eight points and ensuring I could develop the content to hold all this information. I copied some of the drawings on a sheet in the book and photocopied some too and just had a play around with the shapes and drawings. My most important part for me to feel something towards what I create.
I had narrowed down to four options, the statue, a frog, the boy who became the fly and the shopping trolley. I looked at creating some very rough storyboards up. This gave me some construction and ideas of whether the first stages could become strong enough to use.
As I work through the storyboards I can tell which ones I feel for and sometimes what seems like a good idea doesn't work. Or does not seem strong enough. I had two stronger ideas.
The old lady and the trolley and the two statues in the museum.
Its funny how some small elements can be used, I started from this trolley in the doodles and also incorporated a couple of other elements.
Developing the story and moving from the first storyboard, I started to work in a larger format and added notes and points that I could include. I also started to look at developing the character and the style I wanted to draw in, I ten to be quite cartoon styled so I wanted it to be a little more illustrative rather than comedic or cute.
The way in which the thumbnails started and as I worked, it was strange how some new ideas were thrown up into the story.
The progression to making the zine, I started by creating the illustrations on A4. Each step I tried to keep as much consistency as possible. There is a definite appreciation for graphic novel creators and the work that goes into keeping their characters form the same and their face recognisable. It is quite easy to start adding or missing parts! Once I had completed the pieces, I then had them laid out, and kept going over them. Initially as the story was told, I had the purse mid story as the surprise (that lead to the reaction), but I thought about this and the money is the trigger, it is what makes her venture out for food. If no money, no food. The quest comes from the journey to buy the food and obtain it with the money value.
Once I was content, I started to continue with illustrating the images and adding colour and keeping the continuity.
I diverted a little and started collecting some images of how the home may look, to give me some inspiration and capture the right type of home. I quite like collecting and printing these sorts of gatherings and keeping them. It may not be essential but it is fun building them up.
The basis of the story that I finally decide on works in a simple way to ensure I cover all the eight points within the Beginning, middle and the end. Once I had started to make some written ideas in my sketchbook, I came up with some other focus points.
Here is my oulines:
Statis: The woman is in here home. (this is the everyday)
Trigger: The need to eat and hunger
Quest: To obtain food
Surprise: Not being able to buy the food she wants
Reaction: The purchase of a smaller inadequate amount of food
The Climax: The point of sale, can she afford the purchase, the staff look on at her, why are they paying attention to her?
The reversal: The lady is the selected winner, she obtains a trolley full of food
The resolution: Back in her surroundings eating food.
The storyboarding for this came through with other ideas? I thought could she me suspected of shop lifting? what if she did shoplift? What if she did or didn't get caught?
I also looked at the changes of scenes, In one of my storyboards I ended up with 17 sketches, I had included the outside of the house, so the first visual is her front door. (later I ended up adding this as the cover of the Zine to enhance the story). I also had in mind to make it raining, to make the atmosphere glum and dark, this extended her journey from leaving home, being outside the supermarket and then being inside the supermarket in a wet and downtrodden state.
I am not too sure if I made the better option of simplifying the story, I think there is definitely room to expand this further beyond a 8 page zine.
The zine poster. During this exercise I researched zines, they seem really popular in the US and Australia amongst illustrators and artists, but there does not seem to be as much in the UK. I am surprised as they are quite special and they hold an effective way of sampling an illustrators work.
Reflection:
The full process from the first exercise through to this assignment piece has all contributed to it being a successful assignment. I initially found myself to have a bit of a stumble with the direction of this section.
I struggled with the addition of words and using written descriptive along side the work and how the two can be compromised to involve both angles of narrating. I don't think I have completely grasped being comfortable with doing this, but I have the tools to do so now and understand the process, it is just more the self doubt that can be restrictive, and though I feel I can be quite imaginative with my drawings and doodles I do not feel that I embrace the written word as well. This is a point I need to exercise with.
I noticed with doing the exercise revisiting the sketchbooks and adding speech and thoughts stop my drawings I was very functional and not overly creative in doing this, but I am pleased at least I now understand this. I think one issue sometimes I find are the fundamentals of the exercises become my main focus and then stop myself from being more fluid in adding information.
The process of the use of writing and taking the same moments and thoughts and drawing them, and then integrating the two is very interesting, I don't rate my attempts as hugely successful but I think this is more myself being restring on using more emotive subjects. I think I may go back and revisit this point. Out of all the exercises I feel I didn't gain enough from that experience.
Looking over the section of storyboarding, this was the one I found captured me the most, though to start with I was quite basic but working through the various themes from animation to drama I found the scene selection and understanding viewpoints, the purpose of scene and inclusion and exclusion of figures or objects very tangible and I think this really helped a lot to achieve the success in making a short story in the zine and including what is found by storyboard studies.
I even went back and did a retake on the Jaws board, and I am pleased I went back as the second attempt captured the drama better than the first line drawing version.
Wallace, who we look at within this section, he has the ability to simplify and capture the scenes of the films and still tell the exact story. His interpretation in story board of a clip from Star wars, shows a finely tuned eye to knowing what in the scene is important. We see so much on a screen when we watch, without thinking that each part has been selected to navigate is through. I found Wallace creates his work in this way and the lack of written word is not so much a necessary to understand the story, I think in my zine I achieved this quite well too.
If I was to re-tackle the assignment again, I think I would consider adding other stages to the story, but think carefully about it, and rather than just inserting them it maybe, that it has to be rough and draft and seeing if it contributes enough, reconsider and tweak the images so that the chosen scenes are effective to the storytelling.
Section: Assignment Five:
For this assignment section the requirement is to start another sketchbook. I looked back over what I had done previously and I picked my favourite. It is an A5 soft leather with 120gsm cartridge paper, I have one I use for personal use and this is what I want this to be rather than an exercise piece, so I can pick it up and add to it or just browse through it for inspiration or to remind myself of points I have encountered.
Exercise 5.0: Taking stock.
As this exercise suggests to use a sketchbook, that is what I am determined to do from the off set so all my information and work on these exercises has become part of my sketchbook quite successfully, it has created a very tactile book.
The first thing I did was to work from the word Summation! Gathering all my thoughts on the exercise and putting them in the book. I am pleased I have done this as I can now pick it up and look at these notes.
I used the exercise to start to develop some pages and incorporate all these reviews and recaps of the whole module.
Exercise 5.1: Making an Action Plan - Visually
As before I incorporated this exercise within the sketchbook. I think that I am going to be able to review my notes and how I particularly feel with how certain exercise or methods worked for me and those that didn't succeed so well. I think that those that are favourable will be easier to recall, but still having the notes will also help me recall processes I may not have used beyond the exercise and be able to apply them in future developments.
Exercise 5.2: Making Connections.
I had taken this exercise and created some great pages by using images from my previous exercises and assignments, copying the from my books, re-scaled and reused. I created some pages that all relate, such as people/faces, nature. etc. but I just started reinventing pages with them and trying to be free with them and not be precious with creating, but enjoy the page filling and experimenting.
I want the book to fill and be of interest and it be something I can browse, or look at for ideas in the future.
"Sketchbooks, are time capsules. They hold the past. They're full of ideas, half thoughts and unfinished business. Some drawings in the books are used time and time again."
The hidden art of designers illustrators and creators P224 Mark Todd
The above quote is on this exercise and I think it explains the sketchbook philosophy quite aptly. The use and developing pages are often partial ideas or thoughts and that is okay, that some ideas do not have to be fully formed or have meaning at the time of creating.
The sketchbook should become an extension of the artists own thoughts and perceptions. I am happy to fill a page of doodles and also still happy to spend a few hours filling a page in my book. It is a different kind of satisfaction putting something down that doesn't demand a reason or purpose.
I won't comment on every image, but so far as you view this it is all how my book has grown. The gathering of my copies from the previous books just developed into what they are. I thought as soon as I started at this point, I am not going to force myself to be mechanical with the exercises but just let it flow and what comes up will be. I am really pleased with some of the collections, and through the pages there are new drawings mixed with collages of cut outs from my copies, some are smaller, some are expanded, some I have redrawn in a different way, repeated. I used the opportunity to expand include free association and create the possibility of ideas for starting point for future projects.
I have put pockets in to keep the snippets of bits I have not yet used. One thing I found was when I didn't feel creative, I just sat and cut bits out, made a collection of random bits, then whenever I had an hour or two I just looked through them and used what inspired me at that moment, I think that is why it is quite jumpy in my different styles, but I really like that. I often see peoples books and look and think they have a very similar process for their style, where at the moment I feel like I am dipping in and out of all aspects of sketching and creating ideas and looking through, some bits are similar, but other pages take a completely different angle.
Exercise 5.3: Constructing a Visual Journal.
I reached this exercise and thought over how I have already compiled this group of exercises within my sketchbook. I have throughout the assignments changed and tried different books to work within and different collective methods.
In the first assignment I gathered my work in a larger A4 plus sided book I created from mount board, I made bindings and used clips and bulldog clips.
In assignment two, I carried on by gathering my works, as some were on A2 paper, into a pocket within the sketchbook from Assignment 1. In assignment three I started to develop more in the lines of a book being movable and bag sized, I used an old A5 book that was pre-used, and extended the usage by inserting a A5 jotter type book in the front. This book became pretty full over the course of the exercises and assignment and holds some really intriguing pages. When I first filled it I kept returning to have a quick look through from the novelty of it being my first sketchbook completed!
The assignment four seemed to stall with returning to A4 sized pages, for some reason it didn't gel so well as a book for me. I don't know whether I find the thought of starting on a vast A4 page a bit too much as a sketchbook itself, or if I did not find the exercises adhered so well together as in the assignment three exercises and end assignment. I am going to retry a larger book for the end assignment, I want to have a variety of books once I have completed this course! It maybe I just didn't work so well within that particular exercise or assignments or I didn't like the paper within the book. It could have been a few reasons.
I started this last assignment section with the thought of producing another book similar to the third section. This time, I started with a book that was more suitable for me to be experimental and consider using paints or other media. I also like the book because of the leather soft cover makes it have a texture and a satisfying feeling of touch and the paper has a almost pre-worn feel so it stops that "precious" treatment.
I think over the exercises here I have created a very tactile and useful book that is full of useful content and I also feel quite proud for someone else to view the pages and enjoy its content.
At this point I have around 18 pages to completely fill this book. The above picture, I have started to integrate some of my other sketches and drawings from my personal work that can group together.
Below are two snapshots of how wonderfully full and interesting the book is starting to take form. I did initially add a tab, to segment the exercises but I decided to leave that for the time being as the tabs would be in the way of the fastening band when removing and replacing it. I am looking forward to completing this book!
Assignment 5
Everyday stories:
This final assignment gave me a choice of three options of ideas that incorporated traits of the modules and how these processes work in practice to obtain a result.
I decided to opt for Everyday stories, due to the revisit of my sketchbook that accompanies this fifth section and the words relating to the exercises that I found a connection with such as: Narrative, Reportage, Structure, Ideas, People.
I began this assignment with one sketchbook dedicated to the stages and processes of this assignment. What I did kind in this doing this is that throughout I would flip back and forth and revisit some of the new key point skills from the previous exercises. There is varied methods to use, and I think through the different steps there has been some that work well for me. I have quite enjoyed some of the reportage pieces in the foundations of the story and I found some things develop from these ideas and become inclusive of the final pieces.
After assignment four, which developed the sequence / structure. I wanted to expand on this but be more thoughtful in the key frames and not be so engrossed in the details or accuracy of the drawings or mark making but look at how I can tell each key frame to the person looking at it. If it was to be used to make a short story, then the beginning and the end still need to have all the key points from the Statis to the Resolution to ensure that the story completes its cycle.
The first steps into this assignment is to start with my sketchbook and get some ideas on the move!
I started to think about the everyday of "today" and consider the alterations to every day at this pinnacle moment in time. I thought that this was an idea that could have many options.
My first step, looking at the actual Every Day for me and the direct and indirect effects and other aspects of the change in society and general day to day living. I was not sure at how I was going to develop this theme so I started with my own experiences and thought about the same pin points I did at the beginning of the module. There was quiet a few changes, so I know the everyday is changeable, but we think the everyday as a stabilised plan of how we live.
I did a bit of word blitzing. Trying to think of words that seem to frequent everyday for us now. I listened to the news and read articles on line and found relevant words that in terms of frequent use, they are predominantly used much, much more over this period. I thought this may start to get my mind set into the everyday theme, and also a good reference point to return to.
The start, I briefed a start to my everyday, which in truthful I found didn't have much dramatic change to a normal everyday, one or two bits are different, but not enough for me to want to expand further as the story purpose, I then looked back over my words and decided on six, and looked at meanings, purposes and usage. These can then give me a strong point to develop from.
I was getting a bit creative, I thought about what is disposable, the mask, people, society.
The words are the legislation and torn up to suggest disposed. Also, there are some great dialogue points in this, I ringed and marked certain words, phrases.
I needed to think about the Everyday for others. As in the word statistic it can make a lot of us faceless and easily dismissed from the severity of what a statistic can be. The amount that have died? or infected? or in many terms statistics always have a edge of fear when you think "Statistically!"
The everyday for nurses or key workers. I thought that actually we band these around but maybe if we don't have an actual key worker close to us, it is almost faceless.
I made some notes from news reports online and notes of the colours and PPE.
I used the colours from the study and made some mark making of fast drawings from some images in news videos online. I was not trying to create anything definite but to just try and spark some ideas of how to process a story from this new everyday.
The new everyday objects and other everyday parts of a nurse role, or a hospital environment. I was not sure where this was developing to but I thought that a lot of the actual objects have crossed into everyday life for a lot of people.
This came from a news report on the release of a App. it made me imagine a text message flashing red, "Isolate" Isolate" and how it would put us into a frenzied panic! Of course it wouldn't be like that, but it was an image I just wanted to create, I did think it as such a personal thing, (A text message to say you could be infected) but how impersonal it would be!
Thinking about isolation and who isolates already, what does it mean and where does it lead? By wearing these masks are we all isolating ourselves from others, because with lack of expression we don't read people very well and can't emphasise or reply back in expression.
I looked at some different global points, and statistics and what the mean to us. I noted some questions down and thought about the What if? of the situation.
I found images that I thought were quite important at this moment and then added a brief description underneath, but looked at it as if those images were the future. Changing their purpose, thinking about how it may change the future and how it could change or develop. What if counties isolate completely and no one goes in or out, we start to loose contact with other continents? or if China starts vaccinating and it goes horrifically wrong. These are very unlikely, but I thought it was an idea on getting to a story.
This was a study of when I googled Sanitize and I really liked the worker disinfecting with the full outfit on and the white suit with the colours, it looks space age and a huge step away from the everyday we are used to.
This is the current slice of the negative side to the word community. The protesting and the group gatherings. The news piece from NY and the Rabbi helping the fully protected man removing a body into an ambulance. It is two angles of community that exist along side our common thoughts of what community is.
The campaigning comes in different communities for different reasons. We had a COVID booklet from our local council delivered into the community, I took this and collaged the images with those on the other spectrum of what community can be.
The image drew me in by the greyness of the walls in the background and the three workers in yellow and the body wrapped in yellow. All the people were in dark or black clothes. It was a grim image and being in a street made it even worse.
I started to revisit again the Everyday and start to think on a whole as community what is the effects and changes and the everyday of now. The poster stated FREEDOM TRUMPS THE COMMIE VIRUS, but the use of words and meaning are all a bit pointless f they are out exposing themselves to being infected or spreading a virus. I represented this in my sketches around it.
This time, the breakdown of content and points I want to raise about the everyday and how to ensure these points convey through the story so each key frame can let the person visualise the surrounding frames and direction to get to that point. The key point in animation or films comes from where one frame out of a selection of a sequence, is the main one that conveys that importance of that moment. Looking at this it will give me some help in stepping my story along in six stages.
The storyboard process, I started to come up with some ideas, using my previous drawings or snippets of them to incorporate or help me start a story. I was not sure which story line I preferred or thought would have the most impact in six steps. I like this figure in the yellow suit, it is futuristic but already very familiar to us. The protesting too, tells a completely different side to the story. I copied one drawing from earlier and cut it up and looked at changing it into another story of the masked yellow men approaching citizens.
I mapped out in words my idea for the story from one of my sketch scenes and took this as my primary brief for the six steps of the story and how I can ensure that the story in each step is followed successfully as in terms of a glimpse of what the story is about. I still thought it was important to start with a statis and cover the eight basis so that we can view the six frames and understand the dramatisation and be able to mentally project the story connections and still maintain six very deliberate and different image scenes.
Thinking how to draw or what style to go in, I don't want to bog myself down with detailing and then loose the drama of the story, as sometimes I think I can over develop the lesser important parts and not concentrate on finalising the overall message in an image.
Once I had begun to draw and come up with some ideas. A form took shape. I wanted the people to be faceless. I think it has an impact if they are not defined and characters. There will be enough visual information to understand who is who, but I think the mark making will give some movement and forms to these scenes. I revisited several times my previous pages to get the story right.
Scene one, A mother and children stood outside their home, the girl is in a wheel chair, the signs may say something about staying at home, supporting nurses. I want it to read that the girl is isolating with her family. The way they are stood is quite happy and close.
Scene two, protesters gather somewhere, I thought by showing them as faceless too it worked quite well, only showing the mouth open, making the viewer think of noise and shouting, anger or passion. I am not sure of the boards, I am think they will state against lock downs etc.
Scene three, A news reporter tells the nation about the current situations. I tried to make her like the protester, faceless and down turned mouth to suggest bad news.
Scene four, suited in protective gear, someone is taping a door shut. I think this is quite a chilling and dark image. I am going to place text on the sign.
Scene five, mass burials occur. I wanted to show that it looks like they have ran out of boxes, coffins and the bodies are wrapped and piled high.
Scene Six. The woman and son sit in the inside of the bay window and the wheel chair is empty and the posters destroyed.
I looked at the story to still try and keep a section of reality and truth but purely it is fiction but could be true. It reflects everyday in the family community, the everyday of the protesters and the nurse/worker sealing the door, but on whole it was to present itself as a everyday of the whole community linked by the theme.
My finished pieces are below. I changed some of the illustration and made all the lines and mark making in a broken disjointed way, I want it to be a little surreal. I used three colours which prominently came up in my research and previous work on this assignment. The purpose f the red and the yellow is very important as the colours are representing bad and good elements and interchanging.
Looking back over the assignment 5, I am pleased with the coming together of the sketchbook, I found using the different methods in the process part good, and how using these methods can help get towards an end point and not to just go with the first idea and end up overworking it. I found once I had some back ground on the theme it was much easier to keep going back and referencing parts I liked or found effective.
I used some of the found elements within the story but not necessarily the ideas that they came from, such as the yellow PPE suit.
When I did the final pieces, initially I was really pleased with the story concept and the fact I felt I had get everything involved and had created a more defined piece of work.
However I still feel I am jumping a bit and though compared to the previous assignments, I kept myself focused on researching, using the new tools to advance ideas etc, the final pieces maybe could be more developed. I don't know if that is me being too literal with the brief, or if I should have looked more at character building as in assignment four with the old lady.
I think in the future, I still need to be more experimental in media and also let myself be creative with ideas firstly and then see what develops.
Final Reflective Statement:
I have enjoyed the majority of the assignments and exercises within this module. The importance of sketchbook keeping has completed developed into a fully formed projection of how to use the sketchbook and include it as a main point of resource for oneself. As a creative, I have always kept sketchbooks but never used them to be productive, in fact before this I think the majority of sketchbooks became counter productive, as I would deliberate on filling them and then they become redundant until I purchased the next one!
The different assignments all helped me look at various steps in how to direct ideas and be creative within a sketchbook and maintain a clarity within them, as I often found this was an issue for me, learning how to segment and collect, look at observational drawings and rediscover what I have already created to use to process to another idea or theme.
The way in which ideas are discovered through looking back or development of sketches or drawings, this is valuable information that I have discovered only works by putting it into practice and using it. I still know that I need to expand my researching further into idea development as I am improving using the "What if?" suggestive but I can sometimes blinker myself in direction. Though, this is moving forward and I think on a whole the assignments and exercises are steering me to get this methods in action.
I think I am already taking these lessons forward with my sketchbooking and definitely my illustration and methods. I have started working completely different in my sketchbooks, I think the influences from researching how other artists or illustrators work has made an impact and given me direction in how to work. Olivier Kuglers style of reportage has been an influence in terms of using the written word combined in my work and using illustrative sketches of that moment. I have been doing my own separate to the course, I use Youtube videos and capture people talking about the locations.
The sketchbook circle on instagram has been okay, but there is not an overly active community at the present, so I joined in with scrawlrbox challenges which is a similar project, you have select items and a theme each month, that's been fun, and was very pleased when once piece got featured in the zine. Also, I have joined two groups on facebook for zines, both are US based but it does not matter too much as the digital experience and discussions are interesting. Currently the group will be producing a zine relating to the recent change in the world with the pandemic, so I am going to submit some illustrations for that and maybe they will be published. I keep actively looking for more zine movement in the UK but it is very quiet compared to the US amongst artists, illustrators and photographers alike.
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