Florence Cathedral prints

I did a few experimental prints for my Florence Catherdral building a few weeks ago, just got around to photographing them as they were large scale and hard to get home on a bike! I was playing around with paper textures, sizes and printing different amount of layers and colours. They are A2 with the last image being A1. I still don't really enjoy doing silk screening at large scale as the process is quite stressful but it does produce some really nice prints!

I tried using this triangular paper, it was kind of pre-scored paper and I thought it suited architecture well in relation to trigonometry. Although you can see the triangles through the print.  I also tried a yellow background on white paper.

 Lightening up the grey, making it less purple gave the building quite a nice feel.

 I used some antique white card, so it is slightly more cream than white. I also made this print four layers adding a white outline underneath the black to sort of add an element of highlights. I really like how this print came out.

 These last two prints were more experimental adding in mixed media scraps of paper that didn't work quite well. The last image didn't come out at all and I can only put that down to the paper type, it was thick and heavy water colour paper and no matter how many times I'd go over the screen it wouldn't come through!

The development progress has come on well since these prints and I'm currently producing the last large scale! Will get photographs of those as I produce them. 

 

Florence Cathedral - Architype

Designing my next piece of Architype was the Florence Cathedral. It was a pretty tough challenge, it took me many many hours over a course of 2 weeks. The high detail in the decor is amazing and hard to illustrate in pure type. It is a big step up from the building of St. Pauls purely because the scale is 3x bigger and more detailed. 

 I then tried printing out across 9 A4 pieces of paper, to resemble A1 size (purely because I don't have an A1 printer.) There are some slightly inconsistencies between the panels because of slight cropping errors but I think it is one of my most successful graphical pieces of work. I think the image is also quite appealing because it works in the rule of thirds!

 

Cut and Paste workshop

In a workshop by one of our lecture's, Lorna, I looked at using cut and paste methods from pre-exisiting materials to create a new illustration. I had to choose a type of machine/appliance and create a super hero that held the qualities of that machine. We had to consider costume, accessories and a name. I wanted my super hero to be themed around my current subject, The Renaissance, so I chose the pasta making machine. Using some books I had of Michelangelo's paintings I cut out one that featured Christ and chose him to be the 'Perfect Pasta Painter'; his power of being able to paint pasta perfectly and it comes to live. How does this save the world?.. By providing delicious perfect pasta whenever my super hero paints! He holds his best paint brushes and his staff of pasta to provide those who need a bite to eat.

 

See the rest of the groups: http://pompeyillustration.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/lornas-workshop-for-level-6-students.html

Paper craft - Social Awareness

My new project, Social Awareness, is looking at how video games affect children both positively and negatively. I tried to think of a way that I could portray the message for both children and parents but using video games to represent my message. The most popular video game for children is Minecraft, it also offers a lot of positives to video games. So I created a paper Steve and a friend to represent how playing online allows you to make friends. I want to do a series of these posters but putting the characters in real settings not game ones. It just so happens to be very wet at the moment restricting my use of outside.

Just a mock up poster. Hooray for Steve!

Blog characters

Redesigning my blog I thought it needed a bit of personality, and a sense of the style I like to draw. So I create myself with titles to fit into my blog. The titles all follow the same pattern theme so they tie in together. They are all using the same colours and collage style to fit in with each other.

Sequential Illustration

I didn't update any of my work because I just loose track and don't find time to do my blog. I have done two projects but here is the final images for my previous project. I had to design a protagonist and had to place them in a sequence of 5 images. The story is about how Zinnia was born without wings; she has to be independent and clever to make a pair for herself. I did a mixed media shoot similar to my last Narrative project. Zinnia is made from photos of flowers I took myself, along with a drawn body. I then set her in the garden with a butterfly I bought and shot the scenes.

Artists I like #5

On my trip to Disney World I found an Illustration I instantly loved. 

The artist is Jerrod Maruyama. All his work is cute and mostly Disney related. He works as a freelance Illustrator and graduated San Jose State university with a degree in Illustration. I'd love to one day produce work that would be sold by Disney.

Narrative Illustration - Flip Book Final

 I used a Japanese Account bind when putting together my flip book. Using silver thread I thought it would relate and tie in with the finery of drinking tea during the 17th century. I also added the tassel to match the style of the book. Using silver metallic paint, I painted the edge of the pages like you find silver or gold edges on proper books.

 

I made the flip book quite humourous, Catherine simply pops up, sees the cup of tea and goes back down with a smile and heart eyes. Stunned by the sight of tea.

Narrative Illustration Final Piece

I really enjoyed creating the final narrative for this project. I took inspiration from Lauren Child's "Princess and the Pea", she uses doll furniture and hand drawn people mixed with fabrics to create little sets to go along with her narratives. I decided to create my own for my narrative of Catherine of Braganza. In the 17th century she ruled as Queen, wife of Charles II. She made tea popular within the English court. My narrative is of Catherine producing the perfect cup of tea.

 

I bought doll house furniture after researching into the eras furniture and fabrics. I mixed photographs of furniture from the V&A I took, along with the doll furniture arranged with the character illustrations.

Advertsing I like

So I was just scrolling through some magazines looking for some collage material when I saw these two advertisements. They reflect the type of career I want to go into, Creative Advertising. Thought I'd keep them on here just for keepsakes.

My Collections - Professional Practice

So a side project that runs through the year is "Professional Practice", looking into possible careers, artists, exhibitions and all things arty that will develop our professional skills. One assignment was to look at eh V&A collection and then create our own collection. I thought I'd do a doodle of me, in my room, surrounded by my collection. The collection is supposed to be able to identify us as a person. I'm sure mine does.

Tea paintings - Narrative Illustration

I have been doing this project for nearly 4 weeks now but just forgot to add anything. As soon as I did these paintings I was very happy and knew I wanted to pop them up on here!

 P.S Thanks Redbush for the free samples, I am afraid I didn't drink them, but painted instead!

Robin Lino - Researching Methodology

Having a lino workshop we had to produce some prints with the full body view of our animal. I created the Robin itself at first and decided I wanted the border and background to look almost "woody"; like how wood would look if it had been hacked at. I removed the background in a sort of chiseling method. I didn't do any reduction for this lino although I implemented the process on Photoshop so that I might get an idea on how the piece would look. I have a larger scale piece of lino which I will be creating a print with and hopefully doing some reduction prints.

Rockin' Robin - Methodology

Moving on, but still using my ProMarkers, I looked at the song "Rockin' Robin" mostly known to be sung by the Jackson 5 but was first sung by Bobby Day. I think there's just something about little Michael singing it that really suits the personality of a Robin. I drew the scene of the Buzzard and the Oriole being "Out-bopped" by the Robin; using type to express the motion and sound of Bop. Bopping is a dance move I can't really imagine a Robin actually doing but I'm sure if he did, it would be in the air; mainly because Robins dart so fast I can't see how a bop would be done on his feet.  

The pretty little raven at the bird man stand
Taught him how to do the bop and it was grand
He started goin' steady and "bless my soul"
He out-bopped the buzzard and the oriole.

How to Bop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bDjjTabSQU

Nithin Rao Kumblekar Inspiration piece - Methodology

After looking into Nithin Rao Kumblekar I drew up a sketch of a robin to put onto some stock. I found this beautiful photo provided by Faestock on Deviantart. I added the cloak over the top in red to match the colours of a Robin. I am ultra happy with this picture; the beauty of the model matches the elegance and nobleness of the Robin.

Mixed Media - Methodology

I decided to do some work with water colours and incorporate some photography in with the work. So I thought about using my own stock photos mixed with an illustration of a Robin. It was pretty simple pasting it onto the post but I like how easily the Robin fits into place as if it weren't an illustration at all. I think I might try out different styles of drawing and paste it into similar photographs.

 

I like the contrast of the black post and green vegetation against the Orange breast of the Robin. I'll probably add some artists who use mixed media in this style to my sketch book.

 I found an artist called Nithin Rao Kumblekar which produced a whole series of illustrative images mixed with photographs which I love and would definetely try and do some influential images from.

New year, new project - Methodology

I haven't posted in a while so I have set myself a goal to write at least one post a week! I totally lost track of the book project I did so I thought I'd just chuck in the final design as well as my new project starting point.

So these were my final cover ideas for the book "Lolita". I enjoyed researching this book so much, it really was an enjoyable project. 

So my new project involves picking an animal and basing our whole project on it, with lots of research. (Which I happen to love doing research. ) My chosen animal is a Robin!

Auto Portraiture - Identity through print

Doing another workshop today, looking at Portraiture. Not one of my favourite things to draw, my own face, but nevertheless a very valuable skill. I enjoyed the workshop more than I thought due to how the tutor told us to go about drawing. First we started with quick 1 minute sketches, continuing into continuous line drawings and lastly rough sketches in 30 seconds. The idea was to loosen us up and not pay so much attention to finer detail and worry about everything looking good. Lastly we drew a portrait of the person opposite us followed by a 8 portraits of ourselves using a distorted piece of reflective card. Some of my sketches I was quite happy with while others challenged my skill level. Although I dislike portraiture it is a big part of identity and these additions will add to my project.

Dave McKean - Identity through print

After having a one-to-one with my tutor he advised me to look into the work of Dave McKean an illustrator that uses many different types of media to create his art work. The specific book he recommended is called "The Wolves in the Walls"; I have decided to look into irrational fears and phobias so this book related well. 

I then looked into Dave's style and tried to develop an understanding of his technique. I thought of one of my own fears and followed a similar style of design. I took a stock photo of a woman lying down and painted over the top in Photoshop. I left the original hair like McKean seemed to do within the book. I added a bed hand drawn with my tablet and then because the project is print related, used the mono-printing technique and drew a creepy figure looming over the bed; almost like the boogie man. Scanning the mono-print into Photoshop I then adjusted it so that it appeared behind the bed but his hands reached over. I then added a wooden floor with a carpet "Soft light" over the top. Using a grundge paper stock I overlayed it on the wall and changed the setting to "Hard light". The picture as a whole has a sort of red devilish glow. Although I left the eyes in I think it carries the technique well.

 

Stock photo: http://shiskababe.deviantart.com/art/HIDE-133744128 

First monoprint - Identity through print

I had my first ever University workshop. Woohoo! Our project at the moment is looking into our own personal identity. We are using methods of print to help us discover more about ourselves. The first workshop was Monoprint, something I have previous experience with; I wasn't too delighted at the idea. I thought that after my college days that it would be a drag but I used some letter stamps along with the monoprints and actually enjoyed it a lot more than before. I liked mixing the media of stamps and illustrations together. We were only supplied with black and I felt a little restricted by the colour; although colour shouldn't make a difference I am use to doing much more colourful prints. So seeing as I love food, it was the main inspiration as well as Disney!

The 'mmmmm' was actually created with the letter N because I couldn't find an actual M. I just double up two nns to make a lovely m :)