Average Jo

Kingston Illustration Animation Student

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Printing Brief - Experimentation and Final Product

After my tutorial on Friday I was on a bit of a high and managed to finish the majority of the box on Saturday and with all that enthusiasm I forgot to take progress pictures like a fool but I have a few from earlier today so we will have to deal with those! Things seem to be moving at a great pace however, I brought all the materials after the tutorial Friday, im using a natural coloured Balsa wood for the shape and then an A4 sheet of ‘frosted’ plastic, it wasn't quite opaque (I hope thats the right word) enough so I covered either side of the plastic in a sheet of the tracing paper to diffuse the light a bit more.

I managed to finish the box not too long ago and here is the final result! I used a light from a bike I had that I haven't been using as much as I should - im using the weather as an excuse but I just haven't got a bike lock yet. the tracing paper really diffuses the light to be a lot softer which makes the whole print seem a lot more serene; I just hope everyone else can see what it is I was trying to achieve too!

Photo of the light box and print taken in the dark to capture the print at its best

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Week 6 - Rotation Group K

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Week 5 - Location Drawing Brixton

This week for our final rotation we went on location drawing, this was the one I was most nervous for as I find the style of reportage drawing way out of my comfort zone, THANKFULLY I have tried to combat that with the self led sketchbooks so I felt a little more confident about this than I did a couple of weeks ago. 

We walked around the various locations of brixton starting off with warm up squares and embracing all the sounds that brixton had to offer which put me in a great mindset! Working with Josh put me at ease too which I couldn't be more thankful for. Once we got settled we were off walking around the high street and then back through some of the quieter areas I was really impressed with the amount of things I could put down in paper and loosened up really quickly.

Just before lunch we got to explore some of the Brixton market, the colours were so rich! The colours from the fruit stalls were so vibrant and the smells coming from the restaurants were amazing till you got close to the fish stall which ruined it all; it was a sensory overload thats for sure.

I managed to get through a sketchbook and a half and I have never felt prouder as my aim was to complete a single sketchbook, I plan to go back and finish the rest of the other book off as I feel it will look really impressive having them both filled and it will develop my reportage drawing skills so much more. I can honestly say I have never been prouder of the way I loosened up out there I really feel like im finding my way within reportage drawing and I can now say I willingly want to go out and document what I see more and more!

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Printing Brief - Experimentation and Tutorial

I had another tutorial Friday because I was so concerned about my time frame that I had left, thankfully I had a lot more to work with! Since my tutorial with Rachel I had invested in some Lino and produced one A5 and one A4 print, I experimented with the idea of printing on tracing paper as since last time I really liked the transparency and I wanted to see if I could refine that idea more, I also brought some natural fibre paper and white ink to use on top of it, like with the idea of white pencil on tracing paper becoming invisible I wanted to see if I could recreate that by using various paper and trying to pick up the natural fibres within the print.

scans of the prints on tracing paper and on natural fibre paper

My meeting Friday went a lot more successfully than my previous ones reaffirming that I was on the right track. He liked the way the white prints looked on the natural paper and felt that they alone would be something to consider putting up as a final piece but I should consider how to present them if I were. I liked the idea with presenting one of the smaller pieces but I was clueless on how I wanted to present them, I said how I liked the way the light shone through the print as they were hanging infant of my window to dry which prompted him to come up with the idea of making a Lightbox; I was drawn to that idea quickly I wanted something that shown the delicacy and softness of the female form without feeling like its showing off the body in a way that was sexual. I wanted it to feel natural and free and something as small as a Lightbox really fit that idea of what I was going for. Making it is going to be the hardest bit I think.

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Printing Brief - Experimentation and Tutorial

It was a busy reading week, in-between work I looked into Gill, I thought maybe making a sort of inspiration mood board page might help me get into his mind set of what inspires him and when looking into him I found he had produced and published a series of works on his thoughts and feeling about various topics such as art and religion. I read into those seeing if I could cherry pick some quotations to run with but sadly nothing stood out. 

After that I started to play with the female form again, it was certainly idea I was drawn to but I didn't want to run with that first idea without getting some research to back my thoughts up! I played with drawing the female form on receipts which then moved on to drawing on tracing paper, a medium I think gives any image a sense of magic or something similar to that! I drew the female form using a white pencil and liked the way the image was invisible on a white background but popped when put on top of something with colour. In my head it was as if the image had control of what was seen by the viewer depending on the background which I liked a lot. I then chose to play with basic potato print printing over the image with ‘>Object’ it was direct which I liked.

Scans of each idea

After my tutorial with Rachel we discussed how being so direct maybe isn't the right path to go down if I am chasing the celebrate the female form as something that isn't objectified and something more than that, I also expressed my enthusiasm for woodcut but due to the concern of time I chose to recreate the same effect with Lino which I could do in less than half of the time than wood carving. All this gave me a lot to work on.

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Printing Brief - Experimentation

I found looking into Eric Gill somewhat fascinating; not only has he managed to do so much within the art and crafts movement yet he has also managed to be the most problematic in his conflicting views between Catholicism and is curiosity for seeking pleasure. Its a shame because it affects the way I see his work now, i’m not even surprised at the fact that his personal opinions have been sept away or sugar coated for him to continually be celebrated.

Finding this out about him has helped me in a starting position however, I've chosen to look into the female form and reclaim it as something that is not just the object that Gill perceives it as in his work. After speaking to Hannah in my tutorial I want to see what more Gill has to offer before as I still feel a little lost in this project but im hoping a little research will help me start things off!

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Print Brief - Research

ERIC GILL

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Week 4 - Illustration Print Brief

Tate Britain - 16th October

This is our first brief that actually reflects our chosen pathway which is super exciting, we were told to meet outside the Tate Britain where we were to go over our brief and get more info about what what the days plan was.

We had been given a print that was located within the secret print room inside the Tate and had time slots within the day where we could analyse the image, I had been given a beautiful wood cut print by Eric Gill that dipicted 6 small illustrative images with latin text around one of the images. Within the brief there were questions that gave us prompts of what to look for and what we could analyse; having these to work from was helpful and it also allowed me to look into the other prints that were around and influence my thought process!

After leaving the Tate I chose to look into the artist, the type of printing method he chose and his other works

Images from around the Tate Britain from the trip

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Week 4 - Rotation Group K

After Effects

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Week 3 - Rotation Group K

Self Led Sketchbook

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Week 2 - Rotation Group K

Annoyingly I have managed to miss my first set of rotations due to medical catch ups! Im missing Thursdays CHS session too which is a great start to the academic year. 10/10! 

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Week 1 Drawing and Photo Project

After taking photos once per day over the summer break and drawing once per day we were told to bring a selection of each of these (10 if I remember rightly?) and to bring them into class. We had help in the class with Jane who I adore for all her enthusiasm, we pinned up all the images we had to display them and in so create a sort of story through our work? 

My work shown on the right hand side

After getting into groups of 5 we had the chance to look at and analyse another person’s work that was on display and find out what we liked about it. Looking at someone else work gave me a perspective on my own work and what it is I would like to achieve in my own progression.

The pink Post It’s were the notes we left for the person saying what it was e liked about the images and work they created. The rich colours and the textures they were able to create really attracted me along with the gorgeous dogs.

Once this was done we had the opportunity to develop one of own images and recreate it however we felt we wanted to, as a group we were really drawn to the drawing Maha did of peoples faces and we chose to recreate that by having her draw upon our faces like she would in her own drawings, she herself is really drawn to colour so we chose to be as colourful as we could as to really capture her artistic flair.

Pinning the images next to each other made things look a little bit crazy but I think we were really able to mirror the portraits Maha captured even if our facial expressions weren't too close! I had a lot of fun working as a group doing this, I've given myself a target of loosening up this year and this seemed like the best way to get the ball rolling!

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Week 1 - Silent Movie

The silent movie brief really had me testing myself, I loved the thought of making a movie but the topic we were given was really playing me, how on earth could you produce a film that didn't involve words depicting how History was Irrelevant? Guess thats the point though isn't it?

We started off brainstorming our ideas and looking into the form and against of the topic we had been given, that helped to a point but they were just the opposite of each other, like every fact you found that was positive you found a negative one that was the exact same. didn't make things too easy! A lot of it was opinion based so we tried to use that to our advantage.

We wanted to show how our own history was just as important if not more than important that some global historic moments, emphasising that our own personal histories are just as valid making general history both relevant and irrelevant depending how you looked at it. This idea was hard to create a movie from so we looked into how history was just something you over looked and as trivial as going to the toilet for example. We got filming for this idea and had a lot of fun doing so, to us the idea and the work we created made sense and what we made im still pleased with today!

Snippets from the Silent Movie - History is Irrelevant in colour

After the crit where we had a group of people watch the film and review whether we were able to get across the point wel,l we found that a lot of people thought that we were showing how much we hated history and was ‘shitting on it’ so to speak, looking at what they had said I can understand why they said as comparing it to going to the toilet may not have been our best comparison. The film itself was made well the idea behind the film needed a bit more work to it but the comments we got as a response to this film have been helpful. 

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Week 1 - Summer Comic Project

For the summer project this year I chose to develop a something that had personally happened to me into a comic, although its personal I feel its something that a lot of people have gone through and I wanted to highlight just how terrifying something like this can be!

I felt pretty pleased with the outcome but its nerve-racking putting something quite personal out there, the story seems pretty clear though I could have refined the method I used to colour it with but as first drafts go Im pretty pleased!

::EDIT:: After getting feedback from the crit I need to develop my story and refine the imagery, specifically the facial reactions to parts within the story as people have sad they look very samey so I need to work on that - pretty happy otherwise!