#k00320518

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Emily Carroll's graphic novel "A Guest in the House"

Paul Gardiner kindly lent me his copy of this novel to read.

I read it cover to cover in the library taking notes on my favourite pages.

It's really visually stunning with superb use of colour and composition.

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movement: artist research: Louis Le Brocquay

Sylvia suggested I look into this artist for his bird forms, and murmurations. Particularly his Táin series.

The Morrigan in bird shape & Chariots charging

The pieces relating to birds are most relevant to me however I think how the artist depicts these forms that resonates with me.

Implying what the form represents without too much detail.

A Flock of Birds

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movement - graphic design: intro to illustrator

This afternoon Sharon gave us an introduction to Adobe Illustrator. We focused on copying a Bauhaus style poster as seen above.

This is my final version from our step-by-step explaination.

It was useful to familiarise with this software. I found working previously with other Adobe software made this considerably easier.

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movement project- Scale Painting: small scale

Working off of this photo I took last year that fits well within my subject theme of birds.

The connecting thread between my paintings has been the birds themselves, possibly form + shape and also the wires present.

I used a small piece of hessian that had already been painted white. I kept the normal edge of the hessian as I like the rough look to it and the seam adds character. Due to impatience I did this piece really quickly, painting the background the day before, adding the tree.

I problem solved on how to carefully do the wires. I had thought to try use the hessian twine string to print the lines on but I found it easier to simply tape on the painted string. I later glued it down with PVA. I think it looks more interesting like this with a minor 3D element.

Photographed the colour looks less accurate to my photo.

Here it is in comparison to my A3 painting (which is kind of like a medium size if it were included in the scale series as a third painting)

I must get a photo of it compared to the crane painting

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movement - graphic design: typography

Reusing one of my images from last week, I set about adjusting the levels and curves again. Trying to making them look different as possible bases to add test to.

These were my type thumbnails from Monday.

I had my polkadot cutout photocopied to make a flat image, printed with different blue colour settings which gave different shades.

I used the Flight type with blue pieces to imply wind.

I also altered the polkadot images, inverting it and adjusting levels and curves.

I added one of my transparent images from last week and some serif flight type. I find these designs are in fact too busy with the polka dots which distracts from the type. I'm sure I could figure out a better design. Maybe using my portrait image at the top of this post instead.

Sharon helped me photocopy my wind thumbnail and we stretched it using the photocopier by moving it as it scanned to get some interesting shapes.

I applied this on top of a cropped section of my painting that I had already photoshopped birds into last week.

I layered the work wind in different colours. The lettering is currently quite thin so layering it helped bulk it up a bit. There is some grain from how the pencil got picked up digitally which I usually would like but I'm a little unsure about it here. It's a little like sand in the wind which would be very fitting for the painting's location.

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movement - graphic design: combining photoshop, painting and photography

Using skills learned earlier in the week and just messing around with different setting in photoshop I set about editing my painting.

starting with this image, I deleted the tape boarder (I still haven't actually taken off that masking tape for the edges yet...). Then I got to editing in doilies, an idea of using them coming from Sylvia. I do have some doilies I'll stick into my sketchbook but it was easier to just get a transparent image online.

Using the above photos I took of gulls over the summer, I cut-out the birds in photoshop then started editing their colours.

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movement - graphic design: editing our 3D pieces in photoshop

Using Photoshop and the Magic Wand tool we took out the backgrounds of our 3D pieces and used Adjustments to edit the images.

I inverted mine, and used levels and curves to edit some others. Also used the cyanotype preset.

Then I removed the background to turn them into transparent pictures. I think they'll be more useful as transparent images as I can apply them further.

The most finished looking pieces I got with some ideas from the tutors on changing the opacity.

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movement project: painting

Because of the bank holiday there was no class Monday so I started painting with Sylvia on Tuesday.

To start I did a quick watercolour blocking out the colours first and get a sense of how to paint it.

I also did a tonal sketch too to try out the tones.

I slightly procrastinated starting the acrylic piece after I sketched it out on the card so Friday morning I did an Indian ink tonal painting on brown paper.

Next photo I took was once I had blocked in all the colours as an underpainting. I'd never tried underpainting properly before the live painting so I tried it again here.

I also had painted the clouds in at this point, finishing them off with fingerprinting.

At this point I had begun working on the grass after finishing the sky. I tried to work on the furthest away elements first as your eye is drawn to the last details painted. So I wanted to finish with the closer parts.