D+P Book cover- further research and development of designs

Sketching ideas for a new composition and simplifying the theme of patriotism and relationships represented here by the joining circles.

Typography experimentation focusing on enhancing the childlike and personal nature of the diary by using hand drawn lettering.

I used watercolours to make my hand drawn lettering freer as the smooth nature of the brush allowed the letters to flow better together. I also liked how the water allowed the colours (representing the Union Jack) to blend and merge enhancing the carefree and almost naïve characteristics of a child’s mind.

I also wanted to intensify the image of a diary by using a simple black line to make it look as though the writing was on a ripped piece of paper instead of using a picture of an actual notebook or diary page as I felt that a lot of people might be doing this.

I then set about putting all the elements together in Photoshop but had trouble figuring out how to make the background work with them whilst also maybe saying something about the book. I tried painting a Beigey kind of wash and merging it with the image of a crumpled piece of paper but I didn’t like how this looked. I then decided to select a colour from the elements all ready on the page and experimented with various shades of blue as the background and thought this worked much better.

D+P Book cover- first draft

For my book cover I wanted to include things in the Secret diary of Adrian mole that particularly stood out to me. At one point in the book, Adrian recalls the royal wedding between prince Charles and Diana. This reminded me of the excitement surrounding the most recent royal wedding and I wanted to incorporate this through the use of the colours of the Union Jack and imagery of bunting. In my opinion, one of the dominant themes in the book is how a person develops relationships and their perception of them as they get older. I therefore used multiple overlapping circles to signify this and filled these with the colours of the Union Jack. I particularly related to the scenes including his dog and, even though he sometimes finds it a nuisance, he really does care for it. I therefore edited a picture of my own dog, and played with the layers on photoshop to add white to the blues and reds of the Union Jack in the circles. I also continued this theme by adding paw prints walking across the front, spine and back cover.

I am not that happy with this outcome so over reading week I might removed the dog picture and replace it with another image perhaps representing something more to the theme of building relationships.

D+P Book cover- research and development

Initial image experimentation picking up on particular scenes and themes in the book that stood out to me, including the almost love hate attitude he has towards his dog and the love he seems to have for his country.

Developing roughs

Further colour and image experimentation and more ideas for “roughs”.

Previous Adrian Mole book cover research

Figure Drawing project 1 viewpoint- Final Piece

I chose to base my final piece for the viewpoint project on one of the sketches I did for homework looking at foreshortening. I liked how the foot almost became the dominant feature in the piece as it is in the foreground of the composition. The figures clothes and the shadows within them is one of the first things I focused on. I also wanted to add colour especially since her surroundings provided a good opportunity to do so, so I decided to use watercolour which I thought would allow me to add my own style to the piece. I chose not to add colour to  the figures clothes and blanket as I liked how the graphite pencils worked to illustrate the different shadows and textures of the materials.

Figure Drawing week 4- Tate Britain David Hockney Exhibition

I hadn't seen much of Hockney's work before attending the exhibition and had a perhaps bias view that most of his paintings had a style that was quite simplistic and childish. When looking around the exhibit I felt that sometimes my expectations were correct, however I actually quite enjoyed looking at the work by the end. Overall I seemed to like his later works better, some of which included the photography collages, moving images (of the different seasons in the same place), figure and digital (iPad) drawings. I particularly liked the moving images where the viewer was drawing into and emersed by the environment depicted. It enabled the viewer to experience it how Hockney would have experienced it.
I also liked the way his digital paintings were displayed. They were shown in the form of a recorded time lapse, enabling the viewer to see his drawing process and how when he wants to change a part of his painting, he will just draw over it instead of rubbing it out and do the section again like most people would. A lot of the time during or sessions in the studio we were told that it was ok to make mistakes and we could just work over the original drawing to get the proportions of the figure right. Whilst I understood this at the time, I felt like it only made full sense to me when I saw this happening in Hockney's process. By using this digital medium I saw how Hockney was able to focus in on elements of his paintings, creating detail where necessary when the painting was complete and enlarged as he continually was able to add to the canvas and expand his work surface. This eliminates the possibility of not finishing the drawing within the work space which I often experience as I don't always plan my drawings out very well.

I particularly liked his photography work where he recreated images by collaging and overlaying small sections of the original.

Pearblossom Highway, 11th-18th April 1986

In this example you can see that Hockney hasn't aligned and positioned the smaller photographs in their exact place and orientation on the larger canvas. This distorts the image but miraculously the viewer's brain is able to work out where the different images are mean to be in relation to each other and imagine what the artist originally saw. What is increasingly interesting about this piece is how the lighting differs when comparing some of the smaller images, suggesting that he took separate photographs of the same landscape at different times of the day and then composed the piece combining all of these variations of lighting.

Overall the exhibition was a good experience as I was able to see how figure drawing and image making in general can be very experimental due to the many different mediums that Hockney used. It also gave me the opportunity to see his very much trial and error approach to image making, encouraging me not to be so afraid of making mistakes.

Figure Drawing week 3- Tate Modern Location Drawing (Looking up + looking down)

For this weeks session on location I tried to focus on just drawing the outlines of the figure and adding in any context visible around them so as to make the viewpoint more obvious. I think that I was successful in doing this in some of the drawings, for example maybe both the drawings on the right in the picture above. To make the view point increasingly visible in my drawings I need to focus on what sections of the figure I can see more of, for example when looking down you will see more of the person's head and their upper body will appear larger than the lower body, almost in a cone sort of formation. Again this partly includes the need for me to draw what I see rather than what I know is actually there.

Whilst these drawings are ok, I definitely need to add more information of the surrounding context as it is not always clear what the figures are doing...

It was particularly hard drawing figures on location as often they would move, not giving you much time to record the visual information. This was true for all of the drawings but particularly those from bellow as it quickly became obvious to the subjects that I was drawing them and then they would move away. It was also difficult to see details of the figures as some were quite far away, I therefore often ended up just drawing shapes that resembled figures, rather than focusing on getting the proportions of all the parts of the body right. I guess doing lots of these sketches quickly was good practice as I was able to see what the general form of the figure would be if I were viewing it from above or bellow. I could then apply this knowledge to my more close up and detailed drawings of figures from these viewpoints in the future. I also quite liked the look of this more general view of the figure as I think it works quite well in the drawing of the figure in the window above. I couldn't see more than just a dark figure in this high up window and therefore just decided to draw it as a silhouette which makes the person look quite mysterious.

I really liked the dramatic angles of the architecture in the Tate Modern and this gave us a good opportunity to drawing in the surrounding landscape and use it to suggest and aid the depiction of the actual view points. The multiple views of different points on each of the floors in the Tate obtained from my positioning in the Turbine Hall, allowed me to capture people doing different activities, adding a certain dynamism to the drawings as there are so many different scenes to look at.

Figure Drawing week 2- Homework (Drawing from above and bellow)

Drawing from above

Even though this drawing isn't completely in proportion I was quite please at how quickly it took me. I only spent about 30 minutes on this drawing and for me and the amount of information I got down it is an improvement... I also feel like this drawing does give a slight sense of the viewer looking at the scene from above as you can see the top of the head of both the girl and the dog. I also think that by drawing in the context, the scene looks much more natural than any of the previous drawings I have done.

I don't really like how this one turned out as again I seem to just be drawing the outlines of objects, however I think the addition of the surrounding context (e.g. the stairs, banisters and second floor) helps to make the viewpoint more dramatic, making the image actually look like it is from above.

Similarly the stairs, banisters and the skirting board in this drawing makes the viewpoint look more dramatic and therefore fits better with the brief. The fact that we can see more of the top of her head also helps to depict the intended viewpoint. I also liked drawing the hair in this picture and think it works well with the addition on the shading on the jumper. These two elements also make the drawing more interesting as it is more than just an outline of the figure and it's surroundings, there is some indication of lighting. The reason why I was able to do this was because I spent more time drawing from the model, something which I probably won't be able to do on location so I need to think about perhaps noting down other visual information, such as the direction of light, in words to add to my sketches later.

I should think about drawing the figure first, recording as much information as possible and then putting in the context later as most of the time this will be the only thing that stays the same.

Figure Drawing Week 2- Eye level and Perspective

3x 10 minute poses

Again these quicker drawings are not very good and incomplete as it sometimes takes me time to get used to what I am drawing. The fact that these poses were also 10 minutes meant that I should have been trying to get as much information down as I could by planning and reshuffling the drawing which I felt I didn't really do. The only time I may have done this a bit better was the first drawing, although I still need to think about putting in the surrounding context. It was also very confusing drawing from above and my drawings often didn't look like they were from the intended angle.

30 minute pose- Colour

I wasn't sure how I would react to drawing in colour as most of the other students didn't really like it and found it more difficult, however I really liked it and felt that it helped me to better get the right proportions and record information down quicker. I think the main reason for this was that it encouraged me to look at the image in terms of different shapes and allowed me to split the drawing up into sections categorised by colour. Although I still seem to be drawing the figure in terms of single lines, I seem to be drawing the outlines of the different coloured shaped rather than the whole body. I felt that this exercise opened my eyes to the way I work, a way that is better for me. I also think that the addition of colour made the activity of drawing more interesting and engaging for me as it was something that I previously thought was quite boring and time consuming. 

30 minute pose- Colour

This second exercise, also using colour, again enabled me to record information quicker, as I was able to split the drawing up into different coloured sections allowing me to visualise the image better. I also liked the addition of the coloured sheets as I find objects like this easier to draw and therefore it allowed me to place and arrange the figure around this. The fluid nature of the sheets created interesting shadows which again enabled me to add my own style to the drawing. I think adding the context of the table to the drawing and the position of this in the frame does make it look like its from the intended viewpoint (above). However I think I could have done more in terms of the proportions of the figure and adding more context such as the bottom of the table to make the viewpoint more dramatic.

2x 30 minute poses- Tonal

Despite not finishing either drawing, I think that using three different tones (white, grey and black) helped me in a similar way to drawing in colour as I was forced to look at the figure in terms of tonal shapes. The pastels had a much larger surface area than a pencil encouraging me to draw the whole shape of a section of the body at a time. This worked particularly well for me when drawing the legs as I used the pastel to draw each leg in sections of ellipses, improving my depiction of the overall shape of this part of the body.

In both of these pieces I don't think I executed the exercise properly as I had trouble grouping the different tones in the overall image and appointing them with one of the 4 available shades.

For the pose pictured above I again liked the addition of the scarf/sheet as I find these shapes easier to depict and therefore was able to use this to help me with the figure. I think the bottom half of this drawing is ok, however I have obviously got the proportions of the top half of the image (shoulders, neck and head) all wrong probably because I ran out of time.