Studio Brief 1 - I See Faces INITIAL SONG THOUGHTS

MOOD/ IMAGERY/ SHAPE

1. Boneyard Shuffle - Red Nichols and His Five Pennies

• Swing/ Jazz era - 20s?
• Improvisational
• Elongated/ angular figure doing subtle movements
• Gentlemen's club feel
• Brass/ wind instruments, double bass
• Could I humanize instruments into gentlemen?
• Muted colours - soft golds + yellows, pale pink
• Mustache? Stereotypical jazz era/ gentleman character

2. Inspector Norse - Todd Terje

• Sci-fi sound effects
• Future-istic
• 80s keyboard demo
• Synths
• Sporadic/ transient
• Building up + falling down
• Shape based, blobs - ever-changing
• How can I characterize irregular shapes? Abstract bodies?

 
3. The Night Knows No Dawn - The Body

• Scary
• Violent/ Angry
• Menacing
• Dark, harsh, rough
• Textural/ gestural marks and shapes
• Dark values
• Grey/ blue palette

REFLECTION 
I've chosen to work with the Inspector Norse piece as I feel it offers to most scope for exploration of abstract characters. I feel that I often work with figure and character so this could be a good test of my character design, pushing me to explore abstract and irregular forms and how these can take on characters. While I found the Boneyard Shuffle to offer a real sense of character, I thought perhaps that the sort of 20s jazz era gentlemen is perhaps too specific and doesn't invite much experimentation. Alternatively, The Night Knows No Dawn could encourage an interesting exploration of texture and form but I am more intrigued by the transient, sporadic feel of Inspector Norse and feel that this will invite a greater exploration of shape and movement.

END OF MODULE EVALUATION

EVALUATION

From the outset of this module, I was unsure about my ability to use illustration to communicate experiences. Working across the 3 stages of the module, I feel my approach to research has developed from having an explicit goal, to being more about the awareness and experience of unexpected things. Throughout the module I have been exploring how experiences and narratives can be communicated through drawing and sound mapping, and then studying how narratives in the sense of Folklore are upheld in more practical traditions.  I have been encouraged by the idea of a parallel between context and function, taking the approach that my illustrations could function as educational tools about Folklore, but also promotional devices for the upkeep of these traditions.

Developing a strong awareness of my subject matter encouraged me to consider new approaches to image making. I was strongly influenced by the idea of texture and movement, with a subject matter that demanded playful and vibrant responses, I experimented with collage and handmade textures. Shape as an element I am familiar with in my practice seemed a strong starting point, however, I decided to develop this through more crafted techniques. Working with collage, I was interested to explore how my work could operate on a micro scale to that of the Morris costumes. Making collaged paper dolls, I was able to explore a fragility and craftsmanship I was new to, but apply this to shape based work that seemed to communicate the mischievousness and playfulness of the characters I had designed. Experimentation with textures and collage is discernible in my sketchbook, alongside shape based character development sketches.

For me, a success of the picture-book was the consistent application of vibrant colours and crafted collages as these seemed to maintain a playful aesthetic. The idea of telling an ‘untold story’ seemed to beg a response that was engaging and accessible to a wider audience. This pushed me to explore abstract shapes within my characters, and a rejection of human form, to create characters that were unfamiliar and therefore more universal. This approach to image making seemed to drive the tone of voice of my picture-book by achieving a sense of mischievousness and play across the illustrations. This development was informed by the study of Marcus Oakley and Rob Hodgson, both practitioners who focus on simplified shape in order to communicate strong character dynamics.

On reflection, I feel that my body of research was thorough and exhaustive, but perhaps ate into time I had to develop my visual responses. In light of this I feel I could have benefitted from having made more visual outcomes in the earlier stages of development, yet I am pleased with the outcome of my work and feel it very much requites the problems identified in my research.

The blogging process enabled me to draw more informed conclusions about the direction of my work, and I feel self-questioning was key to progress. Silent crits worked particularly well to open my eyes to alternative approaches and make sense of the direction of my narrative. I hadn’t quite captured the whole sense of the tradition, as my peers pointed out, my illustrations were disjointed and needed a visual conclusion. This drove me to consider all the characters together and in light of this, my narrative became more sequential and cohesive. Furthering my practice, a greater exploration of alternative directions could inform more developed and relevant responses. 

Studio Brief 3 - Picture-book FINAL OUTCOME

FINISHED.

REFLECTION
I'm really pleased with the outcome! The components just all seem to have worked really well together. The sensitivity to traditional Morris costumes and their textures has propelled a highly crafted approach to image making, channelling the crafting of those costumes and creating a real parallel with the subject. 

The playful characters seem to have worked really well to achieve a sense of mischief and fun without being overly personalised, in fact, they work well as being quite unfamiliar forms as this seems to make the imagery more universal perhaps. I think the fun and vibrant colour palette works just well enough to give a playful aesthetic without becoming over powering of the delicate characters. 

An element I would like to reflect on however, is the crafting of the final book. On a test copy I trimmed my illustrations using a guillotine, but this proved unreliable so I decided to trim all my pages by hand with a knife and rule. This achieved a much cleaner and more refined finish which I think really aids the success of the finished aesthetic. 
It was interesting making a mock-up on regular paper, and then making the final on cartridge as it was much easier to achieve a cleaner finish with the thicker paper.

In future projects I would be interested to explore printing on rolls of paper so not to require the fragmented structure. Comparing my book to published concertina books, the crisp creases and edges achieved by one long piece seem to create a very refined and sleek profile. Yet the printing constraints of this brief required the fragmented approach and I feel this was a good test of craftsmanship. 

Studio Brief 3 - Picture-book DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT

intended process

ASSEMBLING IMAGES ON PHOTOSHOP

I had planned originally to scan my characters and backgrounds in separately and use the selection tool to merge the layers. However, despite scanning my characters in with a block colour grounding, the selection tool was unable to pick up clean edges, and the characters looked very unrefined. Shadows were giving the characters jagged edges. Instead, I decided to scan the characters in directly on top of their backgrounds. This worked really nicely to achieve natural shadows which enhanced the 3D quality of the work. 

scanning characters on backdrops

PROCESS:

- scan character on relevant backdrop

- drop in to scaled image size document (including bleed margin)

- rescale/ crop image accordingly

-adjust levels and saturation

- copy levels layer across all images to ensure consistent aesthetic

- add text (shree devanagari)

-position and size to 32pt

-merge layers and save as tiff file

Dropping these images into InDesign was more difficult as I had to set up 2 different document formats. One booklet document for the double sided printing of the front and back covers, and one single sided document for the inner pages. I was able to manipulate these from the template made in the InDesign workshop, which made the process a lot easier. Having applied a bleed margin to my photoshop documents, I was able to drop my spreads straight into InDesign without any errors or issues.

FINAL STORYBOARD READY TO PRINT

Studio Brief 2 - What is image making? PICTURE AREA

SEMINAR DISCUSSION POINTS

How can we place importance on certain information within the frame?

-varying sizes within the frame can alter meaning, a larger object will assert more importance than a smaller object

-larger objects may also have strongest values to give the most impact

-allowing the most important object to overlap secondary components will achieve hierarchy

-SCALE

What are the benefits of overlapping objects in your composition?

-Overlapping works to partially conceal secondary objects, enhancing the prominence of primary objects

-overlapping creates depth and distance between components

-allows more things to be fitted into the picture area

-ORGANISATION

What role does the frame play in composing visual information within your image?

-Frame can be used to crop imagery or control the space around imagery

-Cropping can allow images to be shown in their most minimal forms, communicating through the most simplified clues

-Having some components partially concealed and others fully visible enhances the interest of the image

Considering picture area and framing in light of existing work, it was interesting to see how illustrators use framing to maximise the picture area, reducing elements down to simple visual clues to allow for more cohesive and coherent images to be communicated.

TASK

-consider arrangement, overlapping, framing and cropping to create an image with 3 elements: you, an elephant and a butterfly.

I had considered the idea of an elephant having a wash and through roughs and sketches, this seemed to make the best use of the frame as only a large leg was required to demonstrate the size between the figure and the elephant. Having the character looking up from a low vantage point enhanced the scale of the elephant and seemed to compliment the narrative. I found it more difficult to incorporate the butterfly as I was fighting with scale and depth: how small should a butterfly be next to an elephant? vs. how big would it be if the elephant was in the mid-ground? While I'm not convinced the scale of the butterfly works effectively, I feel the cropping and positioning allows it to make use of the negative space and give focus to the elephants trunk.

Studio Brief 3 - Picture-book DEVELOPMENT OF FINAL PAPER CHARACTERS

PAPER MORRIS DOLLS

Following the process used in my experimentation, I have used templates from my drawings to create hand-cut paper dolls of each character. Applying more subtle textures in the form of watercolour washes, with my textural crayon details, these characters have achieved so much personality and playfulness through careful consideration of media. 

Working on a rather small scale, the figures really capture the fragility of the media and the textural qualities sensitive to the subject matter. I'm really pleased with the outcomes as I have been able to maintain the aesthetic of my character sketches but within a much more crafted approach that compliments my intentions.

The use of block colour works really effectively to break up textural areas and bring prominence to details, and this has worked well in unison with reduced colour palettes to really identify each team and tradition honestly.  

BACKGROUNDS

In line with the watercolour textures and colour palettes applied to the characters, I have made watercolour background washes for each character, applying a contrasting or complimentary colour to maintain the vibrant palette of my book. This will be scanned in along with the characters and vibrancy and levels altered on Photoshop where necessary to control the values of each illustration.

Studio Brief 3 - Picture-book COLLAGE EXPERIMENTATION

Following a similar process to that applied to my style guides, I've used my sketchbook to test collaging with my made textures, exploring overlay of block colour against pattern and texture to achieve variation in values. A mix of textures seems to work well to allow all components to sing, but I've found that block colours work really effective to provide a grounding to key information. 

Testing the application of collage to my characters, I created templates from photocopied drawings and used these as a guide to create textural pieces. This process has worked well to enable me to accurately replicate the characters that I have spent so long refining. It could be easy to lose the form of the characters with small errors in cutting so these templates have enabled me to achieve an element of consistency in my work. 

This test piece made in my sketchbook has worked really well using texture to identify different components of the costume. I do feel however, that the waistcoat could be more subtle so not to detract from the rest of the character.  Working to 2 main colours has enabled me to characterise the character through his costume, something which will be important across the wider body of illustrations to distinguish between Morris traditions. 

REFLECTION

Having experimented with digital and analogue approaches to collage, it seems that analogue collage achieves a lovely crafted quality, something I feel is really key to the tone of voice of my illustrations. My main aim is to capture the playfulness and tactility of Morris costumes, and while the digital process achieves this in a quick and reliable process, the final aesthetic does not seem to fully echo the personality of these characters.