Visual Language: Poster

 I was unsure of how much development to do for this. I wish I had done a bit more, I have a terrible habit of just having one idea and sticking with it which is what I did here. For shape and texture I had already done some collage work and during this I also did a couple of digital collage's very quickly. (which I enjoyed because there were not tiny shards of paper spraying everywhere)

My idea was a poster for a horror themed drag show called 'Dragula' - combining my theme with my current obsession with drag queens.

This brief being collage based allowed me to crack out the textures I had made for shape & texture again. I tried out a face to begin with for layout/idea purposes. The shadow under the jaw looks awkward as it's meant to look as if it's underneath but since it's collage and it's on top of the white layer.

The layer of brusho for the eyeshadow was pretty successful as it was a change in texture from the rest of the collaged pieces.

I just didn't know what to do with this hand it facing upward would have been best for writing information on - as I wanted it to look like an event poster but going sideways just looked better, to me. 

I think doing the neck in a grey shade really makes the face pop and gives it that shadowed effect I wanted. I used two pieces of paper, and I cut one so it had the bump of an adams apple showing - the way it overlaps accentuates this. Honestly this little detail was one of my favourite elements. 

I am really happy with the final poster. Usually I absolutely hate collage but I had a lot of fun with this, I still hated the little bits of paper everywhere but this outcome is so much better than I could have expected - I'm not sure if part of this came from the spontaneity of the piece ad I didn't plan it out too much I just got sticking things down and editing as I went. 

The Visual Journalist

Researching what animals are native to British forests. In my adventuring I have seen squirrels, pigeons, crows, owls, some kind of tit/small birds. Wandered round a few woodland areas in Steeton & took more photographs but it was quite dark so a lot of the pictures aren't great. The woodlands here were a lot cleaner than the wood I visited near my accommodation in Leeds as it's not very close to any houses - its kind of a secluded area between fields.

The sky & Trees looked really beautiful at night.

There was quite a bit of wildlife around but I didn't photograph any because I didn't want to scare any animals with the flash. An owl swooped down dangerously close to me though, it was wild (the experience - I know the bird was wild) 

The more I think about what to do with the book the more confused I get because I keep having more ideas that don't relate to anything I've already done which is a little frustrating. I don't want to focus on something I don't really like concept wise just because it'll make a good book but I also don't want to pursue concepts that won't translate well even if I like them personally.


http://www.wildengland.com/wild-animals/mammals/land-mammals
http://www.english-country-garden.com/

Project Proposal - Visual Narratives

Picture Book Title: Unsure of title, if any title. It may just be title-less.

Idea: What is your picture book about?
My book will show scenes of British woodlands and wildlife in opposition to Tropical wildlife. The tropical wildlife will most likely be pictured in man made environments, I also want to document man made things in natural environments.

Intent: What are you trying to achieve?
I want my book to show human's effect/interaction with nature - showing how man made items are left in natural areas and natural animals and plants are kept in man made places such as zoo's.

Structure: How Might this book function?
I currently stuck between a concertina with both sides filled in - one featuring the British woodlands and one showing the tropical wildlife.

These ideas are based on my research into:
The woodlands by my flat, Canal Gardens and Tropical World.

In order to develop these ideas, my research over Christmas will be:
More trips to woodland areas and back to tropical world, or other places with captive exotic animals.
I may also research into British wildlife.


What have you discovered about research over the last two weeks?
Research comes in many shapes and forms. Going out into the world, watching, photographing, documenting and just experiencing something is all some form of research. Primary research is a lot of fun and a great way of gathering information to develop ideas from.

Which approaches to research did you struggle with?
I struggled with talking to people in my selected environment - in the woods there were not a lot of people there and at tropical world I was just too nervous to approach anyone. It was a bit of a struggle to draw on the spot - wrangling with camera and pens and sketchbook with nowhere to really lean. It was easiest to get photographs to draw from later - but on the spot drawing has such a fluidity to it!

Which approaches to research did you find beneficial?
Most of it really! I didn't find any research I did non-beneficial. Anything that didn't end up being relevant still was good to research at the time.

What do you regret about your approach to research during this brief.
I regret not choosing what to research quicker or just going out and researching loads of places to narrow it down late. I think I could have gotten a lot more interesting material if I had just dived in instead of thinking so much about what I would do.

Visual Language : Shape/Shape and Texture

For this task we had to create images using only shape. Some line could be used to add detail but shape is the main feature. 

I found this task quite challenging as I draw basically everything with lines and it was hard to keep away from doing that. The image above I feel is successful but I'm not sure the shape element is as prominent as it could be as I've added detail with some lines which steals the focus. 

I love how this image turned out. I combined both collage and painting to create it, the texture on the tv really gives it a static look so I'm definitely pleased with how that turned out. The simplicity of this image pleases me as I think this is one image where I haven't tried to add too much detail and it is mainly shape! So it's one of the most successful images I've made in response to shape.  

Sorry for this horrifying editing

This Vincent Price drawing is another one of my favourites! I used copic markers which gave excellent contrasting colours so making highlights and shadows worked really well! This wasn't sketched out at all, just built up from shapes and the media and technique worked amazingly well for this image! I really want to do more drawings using this style because it's so effective and striking but I haven't yet because I wanted to experiment with other media rather than just sticking with one. 

The dry brush effect here has been very successful in creating textures. I am really enjoying how different tones of white can be made from different media (acrylic & coloured pencil) 

I wanted to do a collage with a material that had some 'texture' but not just the scratchy dry brush textures I had created so I made another image of Vincent Price with cut out bits of comic. This was really difficult to create as trying to cut out shapes to correspond with each other is not my strong point (dyspraxic power). Ideally all the image would have been collage but I had to add some detail in pen or it would have just ended up an unfinished mess, and I'd rather make a mixed media image that I am happy with. Next time I will push myself to do a full collage but I'm glad I didn't on this image.

I wish I had spent more time on shape but I got caught up with other projects. I really need to manage my time so I can do all the exploration work I need to do.

The Visual Journalist - Ideas & Crit with Kristyna

Because I've been to two places I'm not sure which one I really want to focus on for my book. Initially I was more drawn to the woodlands but I'm having a lot of fun drawing the tropical animals so it's really making me want to focus on that. 

This idea for a book is pretty simple. A saddle stitch book based on my personal reactions to cool animals which is generally "Nice" This would be informational in some way as it would say what the animal is (and maybe have more info on it). This feels a little too simple though?

I really like NoBrow's consertina books that are one continuous image - this was my inspiration for this idea that shows the deterioration of a beautiful forest into a withered woodland filled with trash. Concertina would lend itself to the panoramic style of this image.

Another idea I had was to have a really deep forest with trash hidden within it, sort of like a where's wally of rubbish - and the same kind of thing but with tropical animals as the idea works with either subject really.

Crit with Kristyna  

In the crit Kristyna suggested merging the two themes of woodland and tropical animals as British wildlife and tropical wildlife are sort of contrasting but at the same time complimentary themes. 

• Themes of  decay & deterioration may be relevent. 
• Tropical world and woodlands running as parallels - double sided concertina book or opposing pages in a saddle stitch book
• Subject matter - Environment - Issues of mankind's relationship with nature.
• Explore format of book.
• Explore more of Leeds - Woodhouse Ridge, Meanwood Urban Farm, more animal places and woodlands. Maybe go back to tropical world?
• Keep Exploring. 

I like the idea of merging the two themes but I think it could either work out really well or be totally catastrophic - only more research and testing will tell. 

The Visual Journalist - Drawings

 The Woods

While going through the woods I started drawing all the trash I found there, sort of like a collection. I only went out with my brush pen because it was a wet day so I'd have to work stood up.

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I took a lot of photos of the sunlight hitting the woods and I thought it was beautiful so I wanted to capture this in a sketch - adding tones of orange and yellow on the trees. The contrast between the beauty of the woods and all the trash being left there was really odd and pretty saddening to think people will ruin a beautiful area by being too lazy to dispose of rubbish properly. 

Tropical World

I took more photos here because there wasn't a lot of time or opportunity to draw but we found a bench and drew some birds. The sketches had to be quick because the birds just kept moving around. 

I did a lot more drawing from my photographs. When I was actually at tropical world I wasn't sure about using it as one of my themes and was considering looking at a couple of other places but when I drew from the pictures I felt better about it cause I really enjoyed drawing the animals and the simplified plant drawings like below. 

In my sketchbook I documented quotes, events and thoughts of the trip. These could be a basis for the book. 

Visual Language - Digital Collage

Seeing a burleqsue performer dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein inspired me to make a somewhat burlesque themed image. I think the theme could have been exaggerated more in the image but I like the overall image anyway. The green cloud gives a real toxic, spooky, horror look to the image. 

This horrifying creation was just something I was messing with while doing my poster. Christopher Lee's face with Alaska 500's mouth and eyes. I think I could have pushed this further and made it really lo-fi and choppy as if it had been cut out of magazines but I prioritized my poster. 

These two were quick and simple I'm going to try and do some more digital collage because I found doing these fun and interesting. If I experimented more who knows what I could make.

The Visual Journalist - Adventure: Woodlands

I decided to explore the small wooded area - next to a field that I can see from my bedroom window.  The area looks more dense from afar but when I went in I found it wasn't so heavily wooded. There's a lot of spindly little trees (very hard to walk through) and there were a few trees that had fallen down. 

THE TREES ARE DANGEROUS

they will hit you, in the face. 

I found this shoe hanging from a  tree and from that point in the woods there was LOADS of trash all over so I decided to take photos of all the bits of rubbish I found.

It was sad seeing all this trash ruining a nice organic area.

All the orange leaves were beautiful especially when the light caught them. 

The Visual Journalist -Adventures: Gardens

Outside Tropical World were some gardens that had some woodland areas that I thought would be good for the parks/woodland theme. 

 some of my photographs are not the best as I am getting to grips with manually using a camera rather than having it on automatic all the time. 

Though the quality isn't great I like how these images show the silhouette of the tree rather than detail.

It was getting dark and I didn't want to use my flash so some of these pictures are fairly dark but I love the way they show the orange light hitting the trees - I wanted the images to capture exactly what I saw and these images enhance the magical feeling of the garden. 

The floor of the woods was VERY squashy and moist. I got mud all over my shoes and nearly sank into the floor! I tried to take a video but my camera had run out of battery which is a shame.