Nathan Leader

Nathan Leader University of Salford Student Instagram

[nathanleader]

Framed final Piece Mixed media on cardboard (Spray paint, bitumen, ink, paint markers, acrylic)

[nathanleader]

Shared with Dropbox

The 7 deadly Sins Zine from my last project 

[nathanleader]

OSGEMEOS (b. 1974, São Paulo, Brazil), translated as “THETWINS”, Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo, have worked together since birth. As children growing up in the streets of the traditional district of Cambuci (SP), they developed a distinct way of playing and communicating through artistic language. With the encouragement of their family, and the introduction of hip hop culture in Brazil in the 1980s, OSGEMEOS found a direct connection to their dynamic and magical world and a way to communicate with the public. Guided mainly by their willpower, together they explored with dedication and care the various techniques of painting, drawing and sculpture, and had the streets as their place of study. - http://www.osgemeos.com.br/en/biography/

[nathanleader]

Site Map

[nathanleader]

Onoe Caponoe – Voices from Planet Cattele (High Focus Records)

          Onoe Caponoe aka Jim Willow, A young London hip hop artist venturing into the more psychedelic realm of hip-hop his collective ‘Funk Mafi’ are prolific for. ‘Voice from Planet Cattele’ is Onoe’s first release on High Focus records and will surely not be his last; the album is entirely produced by Chemo, a resident producer signed to High Focus but is still consistent with Onoe’s usual unique instrumental choice. He draws influence through various genre’s, from old school hip hop and jazz to psychedelic rock. He sets himself apart from the rest with his own unique style of structure too as at the end of nearly every track he has a mini-track, a skit almost, a treat for those who have the patience to listen to the whole track, one of these I find particularly interesting is at the end of ‘Goth Bitches (The Serenade)’, Onoe has been doing this for a long time within a lot of his other albums.

          Although not every track is for me, in comparison to his others this album has a lot more tracks I can get into as sometimes his work is a little to obscure for me. A personal favorite is ‘Horse in the Hill (Quadrant)’, this track is like a bad trip expressed through sound, the heavy 808 bassline and sparse drum line leave plenty of room for onoe’s unique flow to power through, paired with the trippy visual which is directed by Taz Tron Delix, another member of Funk Mafi. Even though the subject matter is not clear emotion is still conveyed using mysterious soundscapes and the powerful vocal.

Although I’m fairly keen on most the tracks, ‘Space Jungles of Cattele’ is definitely the track I like the least, definitely too obscure for my taste, the track is overall very slow and although I like the offbeat nature of raw hip hop tracks this track goes outside of what my brain can comprehend.

I guess it’s refreshing to have someone as passionate about his own unique sound as Onoe Caponoe signed to one of the most influential UK Hip Hop labels around currently. His back catalogue shows that in the past he has progressed rapidly and this surely won’t stop any time soon.

Listen or Buy Digital here : https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/voices-from-planet-cattele/id955143896 Vinyl available at : http://www.high-focus.com Onoe Caponoe Facebook :  https://www.facebook.com/onoecaponoe

[nathanleader]

Final Website

[nathanleader]

Screenprints (Digital Version)

These are the two of all the pages I wanted to screen print as part of my blog for my final piece. Unfortunately due to complications I did not have enough time to do these. I planned to either use an inverted version of these images and expose that and then print that with white ink onto black paper or expose the whole black original and try print that onto white. both could would have created completely different effects, one  of these would be the texture that came from printing the full black image as I have previously stated i’m not yet experienced in the print room and my prints aren’t consistent. The white would have looked more like Joshua Hughes-Games’ work in that with the vinyl’s I have of his work which have been hand screen printed, the white does not create a fully clean look and it does not completely cover the black, its a softer tone and it would of looked better sitting on the paper instead of so much ink.

I am disappointed that I did not yet get to screen prints they could of played a big part in my final submission, I could have possibly combined an early idea of creating merchandise for etsy. i also personally would have loved to have one or two outcomes to keep.

I have possible gallery opportunities in the near future and if the owners would be interested in displaying these works I would be really happy to print all and display them all as a series.

[nathanleader]

Final Zine

[nathanleader]

Texture Re-work

Comparison of texture before/after.

Process:

Increase brightness

Increase contrast

Decrease hue 100%

Invert

The image after the simple process has a very different and interesting aesthetic appeal in comparison to the original, i'm unsure as to wether anyone would agree but it has an almost x-ray look and it definitely has a mysterious, dark nature. These will make for very interesting backgrounds as to balance out the stark contrast of the white on black.

As I have a lot that I can transfer into this style I may use them on every page and revise my original design (see here) and I have already tested using varied amounts the texture in the page and it works really well.

[nathanleader]

Screenprint Textures

These are a few I have chosen to show the overall look of how most came out. I created these by using leftover ink and simply using it through the screen variating the pressure I applied, the areas I placed the ink when i re-applied it and how much I let it dry, these all made for interesting images and using varied techniques within photoshop I can make these really strong creating another level to the images and text.

I plan to use these within my zine as background textures, to give the work depth and stop the awkward look of imagery placed on a black background. On the versions I will screen print i don't think I will have these overplayed as I am really terrible at screen printing I think this kind of texture will come out naturally during the process.

[nathanleader]

Development

Here are the two version I have came up with to use in my final pieces, I decided to take time and consider my options before actually creating the full book in both styles. 

The first image I believe is too busy, it is visually appealing but doesn't really respond with recent design trends. It's not very current and although I think the text above works really well but the smaller repeated text does't really work as well, the colour responds to the colour associated with anger, I think the colour works well with the harsh contrast of the black and white but I do not think some of the other colours associated with the sins would not work as well, e.g violet, light blue, these would give off a completely different vibe than to what I intended for the imagery I have been creating.

I created the second image in direct response to the work of Joshua Hughes-Games (see here). The harsh white on the black works really well in my opinion, I believe the simplicity and the fact there isn't too much information about the imagery, leaving a mystery about the animal and why this animal represents the sin. I believe this would work best in a series of prints too, although I am not sure which way round to print it. Black onto white paper could possibly leaving interesting textures around the subject, leaving variating white space around the area of the image, whereas white onto black has a really nice effect (see Joshua Hughes-Games' work, link above). A criticism I received about this format and imagery was that the space may not be being used properly and that more text could be included to show or tell more about what the image means, I understand this but I did not create it to inform people or to teach about the sins, this was strictly to show my work with a subject matter, I believe both my illustration, creative typography and possibly my printing could be displayed in the final zine.

[nathanleader]

Joshua Hughes-Games

This is an artists who's work I have been familiar with for a long time due to his work with Bandulu Records (pictured above), I love the expressive strokes and scratches and the harsh use of white on black as a house style. His works content is fairly open to interpretation but the themes are generally dark, which is represented equally well visually. 

This artwork is received well by the public and fans of Bandulu Records, me equally, I personally find no negatives to his work, it has a strong style distinctively his. As I would like to create similar work through different mediums this is to a similar vibe of which I would like my work to look like. Strong detail but still evoking emotion in that it isn't clean, it isn't commercially appealing but still is clear, eye catching and bold.

Instagram

Tumblr

[nathanleader]

7 Deadly Sins - Animal Skulls

This is the first of the representations I have created for one of the 7 deadly sins, this one was a bear, the animal representing anger. I first roughly sketched out the skull in pencil then began roughly and expressively creating lines and shadows with a 0.1 fine liner. Because i have used such a thin pen it enabled me created some really subtle cracking on the surface and it also enabled me to shade thoroughly, leaving very small gaps ensuring the image is still seen as a drawing and not too computerised with after the harsh contrast.

I think these are something a lot of people could be interested in as it is of a quite dark subject matter yet still seems aesthetically pleasing and intricate.

I plan to create a similar look to Joshua Hughes-Games, I will publish so research I have found on him and images of his work shortly.

image source : http://www.headhuntertaxidermy.com/sell_skull/bear_skull_page2/sell_skull2.htm

[nathanleader]

7 Deadly Sins

Pride - Horse / Violet

Envy - Dog / Green

Anger - Bear / Red

Sloth - Goat / Light Blue

Greed - Frog / Yellow

Gluttony - Pig / Orange

Lust - Cow / Blue

source: http://deadlysins.com/sins/history.html

These, according to the source linked above are the animals and colours related to each of the sins. I plan to create a zine based on this history using the animals stated, instead of the 'punishments in hell' for committing these sins as originally planned (see sketchbook).

I drawn a skull of a bear in my book to see how this imagery could work and I along with my classmates believe its my strongest idea but I am yet to figure out how I could lay this work out.

[nathanleader]

Young Echo Cassette Design

This is the process I used to create the Young Echo artwork and the final outcome. I used all my own imagery and textures, minus the font I used and the original logo which I recreated in illustrator. The first texture I used to create a colour base is a crop from an old mono print I then changed the hue of. I then began to layer with glitchy, distorted imagery I made by taking a page from a graffiti magazine I had and moving it along with the beam of the scanner therefore elongating the images unpredictably and making everything on the pages unrecognisably. I used another Image I made in the same way to then lay over the top of the other to create a darker background, on this layer though I acted differently and decided to take out the space where the logo sits, leaving it less covered by shades of darkness so the colour can come through.

See here for process.

Lastly I layered a greyscale layer over everywhere except the logo again, I think the difference between the dark grey shades and the bright blue, almost turquoise hue of the colour layer once created into print will look really beautiful and eye catching. I could've possibly used some colour on the spine as if when they were in store if they were stocked sideways they would be just as attractive visually. 

Although I think the artwork turned out really aesthetically pleasing I think I was sidetracked by current artwork and logo's used by young echo and this LP, see here. If I decided to create cassette artwork for my final piece I think it would be best to use non-existent music or even artwork for some of my own music that has not yet been released.

[nathanleader]

TML Stars mixed media 

I plan to create similar work to these images using a character of my drawing style and taking 3 crops from it, I can create a set of 3 works with these crops using similar colours to keep the theme prominent throughout. I want to do these on canvas using a variety of media's, most likely spray paint, collage (train tickets or magazine/newspaper), finalisers and markers.

I like the idea of black with white lines and detail and then on top of the collage (outside of the actual character's face) a mix of grey's, purple and maybe a small speckle of a light blue and white. I plan to cut a stencil of the face shape to spray around and even inside.

[nathanleader]

TML Stars

During the years when I first started painting illegally I would see TML crew's work about, popping up round Manchester, far beyond anything that was being painted or created at that time in my opinion. I took inspiration In my early years of painting and would always create plaque's from wood and cardboard like this. Even though they haven't been painting around Manchester for a while I have still kept up with their movements through flickr and checking out their shows they've taken part in.

I like the way they use the same face as their recognisable symbol just variating elements. I do the same thing with my own illustration characters.

Image source: http://www.invisiblemadevisible.co.uk/2014/04/graffiti-life-presents-tml-stars.html