Studio Brief 2 - Illumination

After I had figured out the three illustrations I wanted to do, I started to think about the colours and media. For the purpose of figuring out a colour scheme, I did all my roughs on photoshop.

I experimented using different tones of the same colour, but I wanted to keep my illustrations simple so I tried to use fewer colours.

After this I was quite set on a blue and orange colour scheme with shapes.



In terms of media, I wanted these illustrations to have a handmade feel to them so I decided to use cut outs of coloured paper for the background and photocopy the illustrations on the top.

Studio Brief 2 - Illumination

These are some of my initial sketches for the article I was given on neoliberalism and lonliness.


I wasn't too happy with a lot of my initial ideas as I felt they could've ended up being quite uninspiring and generic, especially if I tried to centre many of my ideas around the social media aspect of the article.

Instead, I decided to focus on a different aspect of the article. It talks a lot about the different parts of modern society and why that is making us all lonely, so I focused most of my illustrations around cavemen being confused by parts of modern society to emphasise this.



With this idea I think the second illustration was more visually interesting but I felt the composition of the first drawing works better as an editorial illustration.



I experimented a bit with media on this page but I didn't like the idea of my illustrations being too abstract. I did however decide that I wanted shapes to be a key component of the final drawings.

Studio Brief 2 - Illumination

For this second brief, we have been set the task of producing 3 editorial illustrations for an article. As a warm up for this task, we were all given a word (which we weren't allowed to tell anyone) and we had to illustrate this in as many different ways as possible, using metaphors or drawing things relating to that subject. I was given the word birth and these are my responses.

I found this task really challenging, since after the first few drawings I ran out of ideas. However, it was useful in getting me to think about drawing in a different way. I realise I wasn't as exhaustive as I could have been with my drawings - I could have redrawn them from a different angle, or considered the term 'birth' on a wider scale or in a more abstract way. 

Visual Language - Line Quality

During our visual language session, we focused on the importance of line quality in drawings. The task was to draw 20 straight lines, 20 squares, 20 zig zags and 20 circles, all with different line qualities and using different tools and media.

This task was quite interesting because I hadn't considered how important the line quality is in a drawing before. It can massively impact the way a drawing is perceived - for example a drawing with a solid thick line with have a different atmosphere to it to a drawing with thin scratchy lines.

After this, we had to draw someone else on the table using one of the lines we had found. I chose the line quality that I had created by dipping the end of the paintbrush into ink.



I really enjoyed the result of this technique. Using the wrong end of the paintbrush gives a more unpredictable result, since I had less control over how much ink I used. I also liked how the thickness of the line varied as I drew, this draws attention more to certain parts of the drawing than others.



I tried to use a different technique on this portrait and I'm not as happy with the results. I used a paintbrush dipped in ink, but waited until it was drier. This gives the piece a more scratchy, faint effect, but I prefer the bolder line quality of my previous drawings.

Visual Language - Sketchbook Drawings

These are the sketches I've done so far. The visual subject I chose was Robots and Technology of the Future. I'm enjoying what I've done so far, particularly the colourful and block line stuff because I think it relates to the playfulness of kids robot toys, which is primarily what I've been focusing on so far.

I want to do further illustrations and maybe explore the Technology of the Future aspect of my subjects a bit further, because I haven't really explored that yet. I also want to try out some different media, perhaps gouache. I think colour is an important element of this subject.

Typology Poster - Development

This was my first draft of the poster. I was happy with the way I drew the ninjas, as I think the elongated arms and shifty facial expressions add some humour to the piece. However, i felt that the grid layout was a bit uninspiring so I experimenting with different layouts after I had figured out some of the ninja moves.









After I had figured out all the different moves I wanted to use in the poster, I started to experiment more with media and colours.




I eventually settled on black ink on pink paper because this colour combination makes the ninjas stand out quite well, and I really liked the slightly uneven effect of using ink. I also considered using charcoal to imply movement, but came to the conclusion that this might make the poster look a bit too messy and overcrowded. After this, I played around with the composition of the poster a bit more.

In the first image, I scanned in all my rough sketches and changed the position, but I found this too difficult to do so instead I photocopied all the sketches and laid them out on the sheet of paper i was going to use to get a sense of how all the ninjas fit together, and this worked much better.

This is the finished poster. I'm quite happy with how it turned out, I think the font I used for the title matches the illustrations well. I think if I were to do this again, I would make all the ninjas fit together a lot more and elongate their limbs further to make it more comical. I would also name all the moves and write them around the outside of each character in the same font as the title.