Studio Brief 1: Idea Pictures

 

Overall, I'm really pleased with the outcomes for this project. From my initial thumbnails, I realised in the feedback session that the chess based idea was the most effective and interesting in communicating the book Animal Farm. The square chess board illustration was the original idea, and then the other two were developed afterwards. 

In my opinion, the portrait and square illustrations are the most striking of the illustrations, I don't think the landscape illustration is as effective.

I chose to use lino print as the medium for this brief because it's not something I had previously explored but I've always had an interest in it. I think its appropriate for the aesthetic I was going for as well. However, it is slightly frustrating that the next part of the project is all print based, so I could've spent more time exploring this idea during that part and done a different idea for this brief.

We had to use two colours, so I decided to make the pigs head a motif through the three illustrations and make it pink. The original prints are just back and white lino prints, and then I scanned them in and added the pink by cutting out some pink tissue paper and photoshopping it in. I really like combining media within my illustrations and I think it worked quite well for this.

Although I am pleased with the outcome of this project, I wish I had fully considered the sizes of this illustrations before I made them. The square illustration is my favourite and I cut it out of a large piece of lino, but when I actually printed it out to the size the illustration had to be, it was really small and I think it is a more effective illustration when viewed at a larger scale. Because of this, I think I might make it into a screenprint at some point.

I tried to create a sense of narrative throughout these three illustrations. The first illustration is the landscape one, and this was supposed to represent the battle between the farmer and the animals at the beginning of the book.

The second illustration is the square one, and this was to represent the emerging inequality between the pigs and the other animals on the farm.

The third is the portrait illustration which I wanted to represent Napoleons eventual rule over Animal Farm.

Study Task 3: Illustrators who use Print Processes

Kevin Bergquist:

• illustrations are scanned in and distorted, then screenprinted
• no information on whether he sells his work or not

Sophy Hollington:

• the examples I have chosen are both lino prints and I think the use of these for comics is quite unusual but really effective
• most of her work is editorial illustrations commissioned by newspapers and magazines

Nathaniel Russell:

• woodcut prints
• commissioned work for events

Study Task 2: Editorial Illustrators

Michael Haddad:

• Quite straight forward, simple compositions often using blocky shapes 
• colour scheme is all similar, uses relatively muted colours 
• Lots of use of visual metaphors within editorial illustrations

Kelsey Wrotten:

• illustrations are super colourful and vibrant to attract attention and convey mood 
• all illustrations include characters, perhaps to make them easier to identify with?
• she uses coloured pencils mainly and this gives all her work a really nice textured feel to it, even when its viewed online

About The Author: 25 Pieces of Information

All this information is already in my sketchbook but I thought it would make sense to put it on here as well.

5 Quotes:

• Four legs good, two legs bad!
• Seven Commandments:
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend
3. No animal shall wear clothes
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed
5. No animal shall drink alcohol
6. No animal shall kill another animal
7. All animals are equal

5 Motifs:

5 Characters:

• Mr Jones - farmer
• Napoleon - pig
• Snowball - pig
• Boxer - horse
• Moses - raven

5 Locations:

• farmhouse
• harness room - headquarters for pigs
• shed for incubators - snowballs study
• windmill

5 Pieces of Information About the Author:

Study Task 1: About the Author Zine

Animal Farm is the only full book of Orwell's I have read, so I decided to use my zine to explain the context and meaning behind it.

Since we only had a few days to produce a 12 page zine, I spent one day planning out the zine and the different pages with all the information I wanted to include, and then I spent the next day in college producing the zine. 

In order to try and speed up the process, I decided to use the photocopier and found imagery for the majority of the zine. I'm relatively pleased with the result, although a lot of the feedback I received was that I included too much text and explanation. 

 

A lot of the zines that I like have a very low-fi quality to them which I tried to replicate within my zine, and I think I achieved this because this was also in the feedback I received.

About The Author: Animal Farm

I have tried to do some drawings based off Fahrenheit 451 but I just wasn't inspired or interested in it enough to be able to do much from it.

Although I said that I think a lot of people would be studying George Orwell for this project, I have decided to switch to studying him instead. I finished reading Animal Farm and its easily my favourite out of the three books that I've read so it just makes more sense to use a book that I've been inspired by.

About the Author: Ray Bradbury

After reading works from the three authors I was most interested in, I've decided to focus on Ray Bradbury. I wasn't a huge fan of Fahrenheit 451, but I am really interested in the other books he has written. I am going to order and read The Martian Chronicles, but in the mean time I think I will research Ray Bradbury himself and maybe do some drawings based off Fahrenheit 451.

While I enjoyed Brave New World, I found it difficult to visualise in my head and I'm not very interested in the sound of his other books so it wouldn't make sense to choose Aldous Huxley to research further.

I really liked Animal Farm but found 1984 too dense to read, and I feel like a lot of people will be choosing Orwell to focus on for this project which is why I have ruled him out as well.

About The Author: George Orwell

I think I previously mentioned in another blog post that I have already read half of Animal Farm by George Orwell. I really enjoyed the book but because I borrowed it off someone I can't read the other half unless I buy the book.

Animal Farm is about a farm which is originally run by a farmer, but then overthrown by the animals living there and they are now in charge. The farm is then run in a communist manner, where all animals are treated equally and live by a set of rules written on one of the barn walls which follow the lines of just doing things differently to humans. However, over the course of the book the pigs begin to elevate themselves above the other animals and start living more like humans.

I think it is a really interesting book and I love the way Orwell has portrayed real events and depictions of society using the animals in the farm as a metaphor. I think this could be quite fun to try and illustrate.

I have also read a few chapters of 1984. I'm also really enjoying this book but I'm finding it harder to visualise than Animal Farm because its set in quite a surreal dystopian society, and I think I would have to read the entire book to understand it properly. I'm not sure I have time to do this, so I think the best idea would be to choose a different author to research further.

About The Author: Fahrenheit 451

To learn more about Ray Bradbury I read his book Fahrenheit 451. I enjoyed this book but not as much as Brave New World.

Fahrenheit 451 is about a world where books are illegal to read or own, and firefighters set fire to any books which are found. I think it's a similar dystopian society as Brave New World. The people in this society aren't allowed to learn or do too much in fear that it will spoil their 'happiness'. In this book, the main character is a firefighter who decides he doesn't want to burn books anymore, he wants to save them and learn from them instead. The book follows his journey.

I'm not sure whether I'm interested in researching Ray Bradbury much further because while I enjoyed the story, I didn't like the writing style that much and found it difficult to picture things from the book. This would make it challenging to explore visually. However, I really like the sound of The Martian Chronicles, a science fiction selection of short stories. The Illustrated Man also sounds really good. Maybe I should focus on short stories instead.

About The Author: Brave New World

In order to establish which author I wanted to research further, I read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley to see if I liked his work.

The book is about a dystopian future where children are no longer born from parents, and are instead grown in laboratories and conditioned and grown in certain ways depending on the castes they are meant to go into when they grow up. For example, Alphas are the highest social class and so they are made the smartest and allowed to read and learn when they are older. The society Huxley describes is state-controlled, where the citizens are given something called "soma", a pill that makes them happy. All citizens are conditioned to be happy, to not want to be alone, and not question things. However, in different parts of the world there are things called reservations, where people are still born normally and aren't a part of the big state system because they're deemed to uncivilised. The book highlights the differences between the two types of society, and makes the reader think about what it means to be happy.

I really enjoyed reading this book, although I found it quite dense to get through sometimes because there were lots of technical terms in it and the different scenes throughout the book were difficult to follow as there weren't clear changes between them. However, there were lots of descriptive paragraphs which means it could be quite good to explore visually. I'm going to read some works by the other authors I was interested in first before I make a decision. 

About the Author: Further Research

By further researching the authors on the list, I am trying to narrow down the authors that I really want to focus on.

Italo Calvino’s short stories sound interesting, and from reading more about him I have found out that he is a strong supporter of communism. He lived through the Second World War and much of his work is based on his experiences from this time. Later in his life he wrote fairytales which I think would be more fun to illustrate, but I think I would prefer to focus on a different author to this one.

Kafka was someone that I was really interested in exploring during this project. I’ve learnt that a lot of his work revolves around the theme of a father-son conflict, and there are heavy themes of existentialism within his work. I wanted to read one of Kafka’s books because of their significance in literature, but I’m not sure if his work is what I want to use for this project.

I am a big fan of science fiction and dystopian novels. Aldous Huxley interested me because of his dystopian novel Brave New World. He has also written several short stories. I am keen on learning about Aldous Huxley and his work so as I am narrowing down the authors I am interested in I will read some of his work and see if I enjoy it.

I like the sound of Cormac McCarthy’s work for the same reason, as he has written a few post-apocalypse novels. However, I’m not very interested in the gothic or western stories so maybe I should focus on an author who’s work I am more likely to enjoy as a whole.

George Orwell is someone who’s work I am really interested in. I have read some of Animal Farm and I love the way the animals are used as a metaphor for society and the subtle themes within the book. I have also wanted to read 1984 for a long time, so although I think a lot of people will probably choose Orwell for their project I think his work could be really good to explore because I know I’ll enjoy reading it.

William Burroughs’ work appeals to me because of all the experiences that he has had in his life, such as travelling around, addiction, legal problems etc. His book Naked Lunch was written in a non-linear style which I think would be fun to explore visually, especially since narrative would play less of a role in this case. He has also written short stories, so exploring William Burroughs’ work would be good because there is so much variety.

I think I’m definitely going to read some of Ray Bradbury’s work. Fahrenheit 451 is about a future society where books are outlawed, and sounds quite dystopian. The Martian Chronicles are short stories about the colonization of Mars. Both of these genres really appeal to me and I like the variety of subjects within Ray Bradbury’s work.

Ursula LeGuin’s work is also within the science fiction genre, which is why I was initially interested. However, I wanted the three authors that I chose to research further to all be in different genres so I think I would pick Ray Bradbury’s work over LeGuin’s if I was choosing a science-fiction authors work.

The authors I think I am going to continue to research are Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, William Burroughs and Ray Bradbury. Once I have read some of their work and researched their lives more I will be able to choose which author I want to base this project on.

About the Author: Initial Research

These are some initial notes on the key features of all the authors on the list that I've made in order to try and narrow down which authors I would like to focus on.

Italo Calvino – Italian writer, short stories and novels. Fairy tale esque writing style, sometimes more realistic

Douglas Adams – most well known for hitchhikers guide to the galaxy trilogy, whimsical and non sensical writing style

Donna tartt – neo-romanticism inflected prose borrowing from the style of nineteenth century literature

Franz kafka – one of the major figures in 20^th century writing, characters often face surreal predicaments, well known for metamorphosis

Samuel beckett – wrote in English and French, books are quite bleak and involve black comedy

Agatha Christie – crime novelist, best selling novelist of all time

Aldous Huxley – best known for Brave New World (set in a dystopian future), and other non fiction works. Also wrote short stories and poetry

Edgar Allan Poe – poetry and short stories. His books focus on mystery and the macabre, credited with contributions to the science fiction genre

Shakespeare – English poet and playwright, mainly wrote tragedies and then later on in his career wrote tragedies that were also comedies

Margaret Atwood – novels, poems, short stories. Most well known for novels. Feminism is a strong theme within her work

Cormac Mccarthy – gothic, western and post-apocalyptic novels, 10 novels, some short fiction

Lin Yutang – chinese writer, inventor, linguist and translator. Witty and wise populiser of chinese philosophy

Naomi Klein – author and filmmaker. Books centre around globalization and capitalism

Susan Sontag – writer, filmmaker, political activist. Wrote about areas of conflict and struggles in the world

Haruki Murakami – Japanese writer, considered one of the most greatest living novelists. Work carries themes of melancholy and surrealism. Well known for 1Q84

Carl Sagan – astronomer, astrophysicist. Known for his research into extra terrestrial life. Assembled the first physical messages to be sent into space

Harper Lee – most well-known for To Kill A Mockingbird

Wole Soyinka – Nigerian poet and playwright. Politically active. Work often was about "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it"

Toni Morrison – novelist, editor, teacher. Works predominantly centre around race and feminism

George Orwell – most well known for 1984 (dystopian novel) and animal farm. Works focus on social injustice. Orwell opposed totalitarianism and supported democratic socialism

William Burroughs – big influence of the beat generation, work is semi-autobiographical, featuring subjects such as heroin addiction and his travels

Malcolm Gladwell – writes about social sciences

Leonora Carrington – Mexican artist, surrealist painter and novelist. Focused on femininity and sexuality

Angela Carter – known for feminist, magical realism and picaresque writings

Oliver Sacks – neurologist, naturalist, historian of science and author. Published books on neurological disorders

Rachel Carson – author, marine biologist and conservationist. Work was focused around marine life and the environmental movement

Ray Bradbury – sci-fi, horror, fantasy and mystery novels. Well known for Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles

Ursula LeGuin – sci-fi and fantasy novels. Also wrote childrens books and short stories. She has been described as the greatest living science fiction writer by The New York Times

There are quite a few authors that have interested me from this list. I have already read work by Douglas Adams, Haruki Murakami and George Orwell. I enjoyed all of them but I think I should perhaps try and focus on authors that I’m not as familiar with because this will be more exciting to explore and base my illustrations on. Although I love the stories written by Haruki Murakami, I find his writing style overly poetic and melancholic so I won’t be exploring his work further. I have only read half of animal farm which I really enjoyed so George Orwell is an author I might explore further, because I find some of the underlying political points in his books really interesting and very relevant to the world today.

I really enjoy science fiction and dystopian novels, so the other authors I am going to research further before I chose my three authors are Aldous Huxley, Cormac McCarthy, Carl Sagan (for his work on extra-terrestrial life), Ray Bradbury and Ursula LeGuin.

The other authors I am interested in are William Burroughs – I did a project on the Beat Generation for a project during my foundation and while I am familiar with the beatniks on a whole, I haven’t read much beat literature apart from On the Road by Kerouac. I find the Beat Generation and the subjects they explore really interesting though, so Burroughs is someone I will potentially research further.

There are a few more authors that I am going to look into a bit more and maybe read excerpts of their work before I make up my mind, but I think that these are the main authors I am going to look into.

End of Module Evaluation

End of Module Student Evaluation

BA(hons) Illustration

Module Code: OUIL406 Visual Communication

Name: Abigail Woolley

Student ID: aw258410

Please identify where the evidence for each of the learning outcomes is within your submission and how well you feel you have met the learning outcomes. Please also grade yourself in relation to the learning outcomes using terms:

> poor, satisfactory, good, very good, excellent (Note- This is so that the team have an understanding of how well you feel you have done. It is not an indication of the actual grade you may receive)

Learning Outcome	Evidenced where? Blog, Sketchbook, Roughs Final Illustrations, development sheets etc.  (No more than 75 words)	Your grade Using words: > poor, satisfactory, good, very good, excellent
4A7 Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between visual language, visual communication and problem solving in the development of appropriate solutions to defined problems.	Blog, sketchbook, roughs, final illustrations	Good
4B6 Demonstrate a critical awareness of individual intentions in the production and contextualisation of work related to appropriate creative practices in illustration.	Blog, sketchbooks, roughs, final illustrations	Good
4C8 Identify, evaluate and select appropriate practical and conceptual approaches to the development of visual solutions to set problems.	Blog, sketchbooks, roughs	Good
4C9 Demonstrate the ability to incorporate visual skills and sensitivity to appropriate media in the development of a body of individually identified responses to set briefs.	Blog, sketchbooks, final illustrations	Good
4D6 Effectively manage time and resources in order to document, present and evaluate a self-determined body of work in response to set briefs.	Blog, sketchbooks	satisfactory

Evaluation (See guidance below for more information)

You are required to write a 500 word evaluation of this module.

I’ve learnt a lot during this module. I’d never made a gif before and while I could have been happier with how they turned out, I really enjoyed making them and it’s something I want to pursue after this module, particularly the hand drawn gif. I think that during this module, I also learnt how to simplify my work down so it’s more effective at visually communicating something. In particular, I’m pleased with my sticker outcome. I didn’t want to use text in my finished design because I felt that if an illustration is to be effective in encouraging someone to perform an act of kindness, it shouldn’t need text. I spent a lot of time experimenting with different outcomes and I think the finished design works quite well because it’s simple. I also learnt a lot about using vectors and Illustrator through this project. I think that my practice was best during the Persons of Note project. I made an effort to blog alongside my work with this project and as a result I think that my work was more considered and refined well because I was writing down my thoughts and reflections as I went along. Blogging at the same time also helped me with time management because it helped me figure out what I needed to do next. My image making has changed a lot through this module because all my outcomes were mediums I don’t usually work with. For example, making a 3D gif, using Illustrator for the sticker and collage for the final project. I think that out of all my work for this module, the gifs were the least successful because I was struggling to visualise how the illustration would end up looking when it was animated. However, I found it an exciting and challenging method to image making and it’s something I want to work on. I really enjoyed using Illustrator for the sticker project but I think it’s something I would only use for certain illustrations, like more graphic, bold images. For the final project, I used collage which is something I never really enjoyed before. However, I think it worked well for this project because for the outcome I wanted, it was the best method of image making I could use to achieve it. I think that if I had more time I would’ve screenprinted the final poster because I lost some of the bright fluorescent colours when I scanned it but ultimately I’m happy with how it turned out. I was influenced by Dr Me and their unique approach to collage for the final project, and that’s something that helped me experiment and work in a way that I’m not used to during this module. I was also influenced by the way John Cage composed his pieces and trying to replicate this in my work really helped me to try out new ways of working that I wouldn’t usually. I’ve learnt a lot through this module such as different approaches to image making, and simplifying down work to make it more effective. I think the main thing I have learnt from this module that has made the most difference is time management and using my blog to help me reflect on my work. These are all valuable things that I’m going to take into future modules.