--FINAL EVALUATION--
In response to both the project brief and the commission piece, I have created a short illustrated flipbook based around my chosen piece from the ‘I Want! I Want!’ exhibition, Portrait of C.L. 2006 by toby Ziegler. Through thorough research and experimentation into my chosen audience, artists, techniques and media, I have been able to create a professionally produced piece which I believe will effectively reach out to my audience of young children.
Before the whole progress began, I had to chose one particular piece from the exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery which would later help me form my final piece. The exhibition had a variety of works displayed, from videos to sculptures which I was drawn to from the unique content, however most pieces I found to be overcomplicated and just generally too much. Whereas when I came across the giant constructed pineapple by Ziegler, I instantly knew that this would be my chosen subject piece. I was drawn to the simplicity of it and its unique shape and the media used to construct it, plus I knew that it would be more versatile to work with and would hopefully spring many different ideas that could be used towards my final flipbook.
According to the brief, I was to consider my audience in order to help me frame my ideas, so before any research or trials I began thinking about what sort of age range would best accommodate this subject piece, and instantly I decided it would be a good idea to go for a younger audience, primary school children to be specific, as their brains are in that learning stage, I could possibly create something more educational.
So from this I started to do a little research into particular artists, for example illustrator Llew Mejia, who creates these weirdly beautiful designs full of bright bold colours and contrasting patterns. His work really caught my eye and made me think about how i could present my work in a similar way, and through my own quick trials I was able to get an idea on how I could present my own similar style. As well as artist research, I also looked into the various different medias I could produce my work with, beginning with an array of inks and charcoal, each had their own visual benefits, for example the charcoal gave a really rustic effect. However through this process I came across the idea of using promarkers, and after testing them out to see how the outcome would turn out, I was surprisingly pleased with the outcome, the colours turn out very bold and vivid, brightening the longer you leave them, and they also left a very smooth untouched finished, like they had been airbrushed. This made me think about cartoon style illustrations and tv cartoons themselves and how they're always very smooth and perfect to look at, no marks and no errors, which children nowadays are obsessed with looking at/watching. Overall giving me the idea to create something fun and cartoon like in order to grab the attention of my audience, and after my experience with pro marks, I believe that this is the best way to do so and to capture the best quality of it.
Connecting the pineapple to its exotic roots, I had an idea to base my designs around this and incorporate elements of the rainforest, where all is exotic and beautiful. This would give me the opportunity to involve bursts of bold, warm colours and also take advantage of the organically formed natural shapes, such as plants, fruits, trees and more. Now choosing to go down the root of cartoon themed illustrations, I decided it would be important to involve some form of character design, giving me audience something important to latch on to, so from my tropical theme, I wanted to involve some sort of animal to be that character, and after some research, I decided to choose the cheetah, because of its long form and beautiful pattern, I could use that to my advantage and play on those to create something more interesting.
After all my research, ideas and experiments, I finally concluded my style and how my final flipbook, would turn out. Overall I am very pleased with the final outcome, I think that it was very professionally presented, both the designs and the overall presentation of it. It definitely will appeal to my audience of young primary school students and the vivid colour schemes will hopefully attract their attention with the wacky title name ‘The Carnivorous Pineapple’ and through my use of character design and a cartoonist approach to the illustrations themselves, I think they will definitely find it very interesting and different to what they have seen before as my story switches up reality with a carnivorous pineapple, taking away the cheetahs predatory status, hopefully widening my audiences imagination and opening their minds up to different things. If I was to complete this brief again, I wouldn't change a thing about my designs and the layout of them as I think they are very effective and work well to what I chose to do, however if i had more time, I could have made the flip book longer than what it is which would probably have made my final piece more effective by giving more to look at, so overall if i had to do this again, I would start the actual production of my piece earlier, allowing myself more time, however i am also very pleased with my final outcome and how i have adapted to the brief.