Evaluation of Prep

My journey began with the idea of a dark and twisted side to the alice in wonderland franchise. I was trying to find the sinister undertones that are present in the books and films, the idea of a young girl lost in a world that she had wished to be true, an escape that children often dream up and play in in their mind. Initially I thought of the idea that Alice was insane, locked in an asylum where she explored wonderland inside her mind. the world of wonderland and the characters from within it would appear to burst from her head as Alice looked on with menace on her face emphasising the idea that wonderland was normal to her, even though if you explain to someone about the world you vista in your head and described wonderland, they would thin you where a rambling mad person (that is how you would appear on the outside). This would make the viewer the in-between viewing what is inside from the outside and appreciating the world she conjured but understanding that it wasn't normal. Other ideas where to explore the "hippie" idea that Alice was on drugs, giant psychedelic mushrooms, opium and wild trips with strangers, living free and wild with all the cares of a child (none other than having fun). Exploring wonderland from a secondary point of view as if alice was taking you on her trip again putting you in-between by not being on a trip but experiencing hers. Another was the idea of the monsters that where created for wonderland, put the viewer in the place of alice and let them experience the fear that Alice would have felt when she came into contact with the jabberwocky or the bandersnatch. Though I realised that this was far off from my original brief which was to illustrate scenes from the book. I found one particular scene being the little crocodile poem

To find inspiration and guidance I looked to the original illustrator of the world, that being John Tinnel to make my on versions of his characters. As all of the illustration in the book where black and white I looked to modern illustrator. I wanted colour. I found Raphael Vicenzi. The vibrant explosive colours in his work where what I needed bring my illustrations to life.

Through the project some digital experiments which where a big help in the find of a composition of my final piece. I also looked into the defining features of characters, that being the face an looked into tutorials on how to draw things like lips and eyes as they are not my strong points.

In conclusion I was a little disappointed at the end of the exam as i wanted to do three illustrations and managed to finnish two because of my decision to do the little crocodile illustration as an A piece. This  do not regret as as the extra size allowed me to add more detail and rendering giving a more fuller picture. I liked the project but would have enjoyed it more if the brief was more flexible to let me develop my original ideas.

Digital experiments (illustration Brief).

I began to experiment with pictures using tutorials from the internet. All in completely different styles and representing different emotions, scenarios and a multitude of different layering, drawing and picture editing techniques done in Photoshop.

First off I explored a tutorial created to show how to make a digital collage, working in the style Miles Donovan using layering and blending techniques. The tutorial was very different to my outcome in the sense that it was a lot more regimented linear and was based on London. I on the other hand based mine on Alice in wonderland and tried to recreate a darker more overwhelming world with the focal point around Alice from the perspective that she had just arrived. I decided that the images of mushrooms that I obtained where too life like, plain and realistic, so decided to first off change the contrast of the background of the bottom image making it brighter, breaking away from reality. I used the blur tool to give a mirage/ hallucination effect. I did the same with the rest of the mushrooms I used to make them more vibrant. I crammed the images together to give the idea off being surround and emphasise the lost feeling that at Alice would have been experiencing. The dark colours give the idea of despair and being lost to the world. I placed the mad hatter looking down on her and the Cheshire cat above her shoulder to give the idea that they are tormenting her.

The second was a Chris Ede inspire illustration tutorial except instead of using a bird I chose to use a caterpillar to relate the piece to Alice in Wonderland. The caterpillar is blue and as Chris Ede uses varied shades of the same colour, I did the same using varied shades of blue. I used postures effects on the caterpillar to turn the shades into blocks of colour. I change the contrast an the lighting on the mushrooms to give more of a negative like effect as if they are getting brighter and eventually will turn bright white giving the piece a buzz about it. For the rest of the foliage  used roses poppies. The use of the poppies relates to the pipe the caterpillar smokes, most likely opium which comes from poppies and was a popular recreational drug but was also legal at the time sand so I began to make giant dense garden the surrounds the right hand side of the caterpillar. I used the selection tools to allow me to delete the shape of the flowers from other pictures. The other pictures were blue butterflies which allowed me to get caring textures of blue and shade on the picture and by layering and rotating the pictures and changing the fill and opacity it gives the "garden" some depth and makes it look like a a lot is going on in there. I then began to trace over the original pictures with the pencil tool so that I could obtain the details of the pictures. I then put the traces over the top to give the effect you now see. I made a copy of the rose trace and placed it on its own so there was no colour to fill the empty space, making it look as if fading into the mist of the dissolved background.

This tutorial that I followed taught me how to make a vintage collage poster using a few layering techniques and the pen tool. Originally it was for a flying woman but I decide to add a little humor an incorporate the vault boy from Fallout, a game based on a post apocalyptic world which occurred in the 50s. I put a nuclear explosion in the background and in the foreground wrote the words have a good day in the typical "perfect American white picket fence" style where there is an emphasis in remaining ignorant in the face of danger.

Photographers Gallery trip

The photographers gallery is located on rambles street, around five to ten minutes from Oxford Circus tube station and is the largest public gallery dedicated to photography in London and it allows visitors to explore photography in all its forms. When we visit the exhibition the work of Laura Letinsky, Geraldo De Barros, Jan Svoboda's, Peggy Franck, Nicole Wermers', Batia Suter, Anna Parkina, Roy Arden, Clunie Reid.

Geraldo De Barros was a Brazilian painter, photographer and industrial designer and he is considered a pioneer of modern artist photography as well as for a generation of contemporary practitioners. Born is Sao Paulo in 1923 Geraldo first established himself as a painter and a founding member of the expressionist painting studio Grupo 15. In addition to painting he began experimenting with photography and in 1946 joined the Bandeirant photo club who aimed to rejuvenated photography by bringing it away from the realism in photos which come strait from the camera. Geraldo was influenced by Gestalt theory and the idea of an incomplete form in relation to the complete version. I could see this in his exhibition even though it was unintentional because he died before finishing a collection of work, the picture bellow is an example of one of those pieces.(Link)

This piece is in that unfinished style and is one of the last  in a series that he worked on. I think that the idea  of work intentionally being left unfinished expresses that the true art in in the preparation. The taking of the photo, the editing, developing and presenting of the piece. Using this picture as an example of that, the image looks as if the artist has posted a negative up on a wall to inspect the quality and details but also to compare against the other photographs they had taken.  They could all be of the same place, but on every occasions, one factor could be different meaning that every picture is unique. The Colours present to me the idea of a dream-scape. vibrant unnatural and out of this world. When I think of the significance of this in relation to the time period where there weren't computers with advanced programs like today Photoshop and illustrator and so most experiments would have been done by changing setting on the camera and by hand and most probably outcomes accidental adding o the art in journey idea. As he was elderly at the time he crated this image it would have been unintentional but the colours could be related to the prevalent underground electronic music and recreational drug culture. Psychedelically vibrant colours but also a lot of the music was created through experimentation and by accident.

John Tenniel in-depth analysis

Sir John Tenniel was a British illustrator, graphic humorist and cartoonist who's work was prominent in the later half of the 19th century in England. He is considered important in terms of the social, literary and history of art in that period. In 1893 he was knighted by Queen Victoria for his achievements in his field. Two of his most well known accomplishments are his work as the principle political cartoonist for England's Punch magazine (a weekly humor and satire magazine lasting from 1841 to 1992, drawing its name from the glove puppet act Punch and Judy) and later Lewis Carroll's Alice in wonderland and Alice through the looking glass.

This illustration is John Tenniel's interpretation of Davy Jones sitting on his locker. This image itself is dated to 1892 and shows Davy Jones reading a chart if the 1789 Ferrol harbour which was home to the HMS Howe which had run aground the same year. Davy Jones itself is an idiom for the bottom of or death at sea. The idea that when a person died there, their body would sink down into Davy Jones locker where it would remain. This satire illustration was making a joke of the incident by showing Davy jones looking for the ship on the map. 

Here is another example of the the work of John Tenniel. The piece was taken from Lewis Carroll's Alice in wonderland and shows the caterpillar smoking a pipe and talking to her as she peeps over the giant mushroom. When I look closer at the techniques that where used to apply the image, it appears    that initially pen an ink where used to draw the image because of the defined lines and the use of cross hatching. But of course this would be very in-efficient because thousands of copies would have been made. There for they would have created etchings and then put them into a print press.

 
In the sequel, Alice through the looking glass, Alice encounters the Jabberwocky. She first discovers the Jabberwocky in a poem in the back to front world of a looking glass. The Jabberwocky is a large reptile like creature, many features where drawn from dinosaurs, its scaled leathery skin and wings resembling those of a pterodactyl as well as its snake-like tale and claws with talons.

Raphael Vicenzi in-depth analysis.

Raphael Vicenzi is a self taught illustrator who lives in Brussels, Belgium. His work is heavily influenced by the beauty and the fashion industry as well as street art and graffiti and into his mixed media style he incorporates soft and delicate lines with with some dark colours and strong outlines. He also uses mixed digital media, painting and water colours with textures to express his ideas and emotions.

(Link) Here are two typical pieces of Raphael Vicenzi work and two that I particularly like and find relevant to my idea for a final piece. They are a jam packed explosion of colour, imagery and typography where each part seems to be interlinked in the same way that the worlds that Alice explores on her adventures live and breathe as one. The bright colours are a true visual representation of a persons imagination, full of energy and of course Raphael's work is his imagination on paper. He does this by bundling what may seem like completely unrelated images like phones and birds in the picture on the left or in the picture on the right mushrooms and donkeys which on the surface doesn't make sense but in the head of the artist they do. In the same way that when we daydream, we too will have thoughts that to us make sense but to others don't and it is this concept I will take into account when developing my idea because the world that Lewis Carroll has many elements which appear insane but in his imagination may have been normal.

(Link) Wonderland and through the looking glass contain sinister undertones. Characters like the Queen of Hearts and the Mad-hatter especially, display schizophrenic and sociopathic behaviour. Alice, a child, is traveling through an unknown land with strange creatures, people and a warped, dreamscape eco-system are the sort of thing you may experience in a nightmare or the delusions of a mad person. For that reason I chose these images, the one on the right because it is of a young woman/ girl who is close to the common interpretation of what Alice looks like in terms of the body profile. Long hair, slim and elegant and confidant in posture. I took the picture on the left because the is similar the the idea of my composition. Alice in black and white and the world of wonderland in colour but appearing to break out from her head as if escaping her mind.

Mood Board

illustration brief art in depth analysis.

Julia herself graduated from Kingston University in the U.K in 2007 with a BA in animation and illustration with her first major piece, her graduation piece receiving a lot of exposure on the internet and making its way to the front page of youtube as well as receiving one million his within the first two months. Since then she has gone on to complete an MA at the royal college of art and has been commissioned by clients such as E4, Skins, MTV, Virgin and Toyota.

      

This illustration is on a greetings card printed 6 by 4 inches and the image is of an elephant and a wild boar on horseback in the mountains. They are also satin coated to give better colour reproduction.  The artist who created the card is called Julia Pott and the piece is titled, "I love that you're here with me". Julia employs an amateurist style often referred to as awkward animations combined with anthropomorphises which she uses to explore the motivations between human relationships where by characters are represented by "mildly ridiculous animals". Although the style at first may appear childish, on closer inspection you can see the amount of detail that she has put into the hair of the animals and objects such as the log in the bottom right hand corner, the trunk of the elephant that is riding the horse as well as the trees in the background. This helps to create areas of visual texture where by the audience can tell by looking at the area what it feels like. Common to her work Julia uses predominantly muted colours with minimal vibrant ones helping to create a dreamy atmosphere and variation in tones which help the audience to focus on the key parts of the image. Where most artist would use thick bold lines to make parts of the image stand out Julia uses thin ones which helps to create this awkward style and the composition looks as if she meant the piece to appear like an instillation with each image standing in its own layer from front to back. I believe she did this because her work is meant to be personal, in effect she is creating what she feels inside, in her head from her experiences and the style is a representation of her personality. This layered effect to me illustrates the layers of our memories in combination with our feelings, each individual drawing stands on its own like each feeling is interdependent of another but to remember, we recollect specific parts of memories and feeling of the time and piece them together to recreate the scene in our head. Again I believe Julia uses her "almost" childish, awkward style to show how people become a "teenager" again when they are in love.

In comparison to the first piece which seems to be embracing a memory of two people who have feelings for each other, this seems to be more about regret. Initially I noticed the picture isn't as busy as the first, an almost barren land scape, dark and cloudy with lightning in the background. On viewing this picture you feel a sense of emptiness, minimal dull muted colours and the grainy texture used on the landscape create a tense atmosphere. The animals have been brought into the foreground and unlike the background the grainy texture wasn't applied so imidiate attention is brought to them instead. The same technique of "visual texture" has been applied to this piece through the fur of the animals, warm and fuzzy clearly showing that there is or at least were feelings of attraction between them. Their body language, lack of eye contact, hands in pockets and avoiding posture tell me that the relationship between them was at an early stage they maybe hadn't told each other how they felt and it was cut short. My understanding of the method behind the composition is that the animals visualy represent the moment and the background is a personification of what they felt at the time.

After looking at the work of Julia Pott, watching interviews and her animations I have defiantly concluded that she is a romantic, I have enjoyed exploring her style and her combination of texture and muted colours as well as her "awkward animations"  which are certainly a representation of her personality. She has defiantly taught me something about incorporating emotions into my work. As I will be creating an illustration themed by the "Alice" and "Wonderland" which incorporates feelings of needing to be connected and finding a way to fit in I will try to use similar techniques in order to bring the audience into the piece.

Exam Project Brief

Evaluation

My brief for this project was to create advertising and promotion for a festival that I had made up that was related to the record company I created in the previous project, "Red Lion". So to produce outcomes like wristbands, posters, t shirts and flyers. The main target audience was young adults aged 18 to 25 but this would also include people that where interested in the festival and the music that it supports. I came up with ideas for this by thinking about all of the events that are associated with music and what would allow me to produce the best type of outcome as well as give me room to explore possible different outcomes and the festival idea was the best.

Initially I started looking at the products that festivals and music companies related to the music genres produce, sell and use to advertise their events or business. I found a lot of the posters that are usually used to advertise the events are very computer generated and have a very digital feel to them, but because my festival is suppose to be about the bass music culture even though the music is electronically produced, the music has a very earthy feel to it because of the very deep warm feel that it has. Using a lot of computer generated imagery draws away form that vibe so I wanted to use more hand made techniques but as it is electronic music incorporate a digital/ modern element into it. After making that decision I started to look for festival artwork that had been created by festival goers, paintings on walls that expressed visually the music and the atmosphere of the festival.. These images re usually quite abstract and include anthropomorphism. I believe this is because they are trying to to say that when you listen to the music you become more in touch with your primal self , you lose all desire for material possessions and the need to impress others or care what they think about you. It's just you and the music. I found some work by one artist in particular called Mr Penfold, used simple designs mostly shapes and block colours put create a uniquely stylised cartoony image but in a way which can still be appreciated by a mature audience. This style relates well to the music which is minimalistic in terms of what he artist puts together when composing the music. Other artists that I looked at where keith harding and Blek Le Rat. Keith Haring being on the for front in the creation o the street art scene. I looked at and explored the work of Keith Haring and the deeper messages that his work contains to see f I myself could give a more deeper political meaning to my work. Blek Le Rat was the inspiration behind the style o medium  that i used to create my piece. I wanted to use the stencilling technique as this would give the hand made feel I wanted but  also an urban minimalistic feel. Blek Le Rat was a major inspiration for he British street artist Banksy. In previous projects I have analysed the works of Banksy in the past but this time I wanted to go back to the roots of where the style came form in the same way that some of the music of the festival is about relating with your origins. Blek Le rat is famous for his black rat which in effect is like his tag, but what I like most is the how the colours and the choice of surface he applies his work to look rundown and deprived but also earthy and full of life. This makes me think of Cuba in terms of the fact that when you look at the country, the towns and cities, it appears to have been paused form the 1950's on-wards  It has remained in that state while the rest of the world has been left to grow and develop because of the rules of communism that prevented them form doing anything and as such it is starting to crumble and fall apart, yet underneath all of that the music that they produce is full of life and the people are very into carnivals and enjoy partying.So to me Blek Le Rat's work brings life and growth to places that appear to be suppressing it. With this in mind I began creating my piece by doing sketches relating to the artists that I researched and the type of artwork, themes and vibe that I wanted to involve in the piece. For the creation of the emblem I wanted to incorporate the panda. The panda is quite a big and lazy animal and in comparison to the  music; dubstep, dub, reggae which all have slow deep baselines, the panda is the animal represents this the best. I used the anthropomorphism by putting headphones on it and so allows people to relate to it. To give an urban/ ghetto feel to this I put a gas mask on the face so that the image has a "fallout", back to square one look, but also because the mouthpiece of the gas mask look like the mouth and nose of the panda. When you are trying to send out a message, using lost of colours can distract from the purpose so I decided to use two, black and pink as his would make one of the colours look like they where popping out depending on how I arranged them. In the case of the lettering down the side the black stand out more on the paper version but on the spray painted version the pink on the emblem stands out more. As an experiment I tried using yellow and blue as they are primary colours and this allowed me to blend them at points to make green as well and was a good contrast from the black and pink. Spray painting onto the wall brought the image closer to the effect that I was trying to go for, the uneven surface gives more of a ware and tare feel because some areas where raised more than others and so they would have got more paint on them than the others. For further experimentation I took pictures of the wall piece and put it into Photoshop. This allowed me to play around with the hue, saturation, the contrast and the colours of the images as well as warp one of them. I selected one of the edited images and chopped it up separating the different parts and put them onto a template and designed a t shit. I then printed onto heat transfer paper and placed the designers one by one onto a plain white t shirt  using a heat press.

I think that the best part of my outcome was the wall piece because of the different effects that I managed to create. The parts that worked the best where the emblem and the get lettering because of the 3D effect that I managed to create. I also managed to cut out the stencils quite accurately and I believe I have greatly improved my stencil skills. I could improve my outcome by adding more to the pieces and fill the spaces. I could have planned better the imagery that I used so that every thing I created linked together better. I enjoyed the project as it allowed me to explore something that I have a great interest in through my art however in the future I would like to explore other styles of street art as well as forms of mixed media and incorporate more texture into my work.

Outcome

Once I had created my stencils and decided the order and the colours that I was going to use for the posters I began to apply them to A2 Card.

As you can see this is a more refined version of the first attempt. I adjusted the positioning of the pictures and  used  another stencil that I created so that the section down the right hand side would come out clearer. The only thing that I am disappointed with is that it doesn't have the smokey effect on the emblem that the first did, but it is a lot clearer and there are no smudges.

I experimented further by mixing blue and yellow spray paint, layering it, letting it dry and then spraying over it again. This as caused and interesting effect on the right hand side where by the detailed part is faint and the lettering bold which makes it appear to pop out. The "GET" lettering  also appears to be jumping out as the blue and the yellow have mixed to create green with small areas off blue emerging.

I decided to take my design further by stenciling onto a wall. I was particularly interested in what  the textured background would add to the picture or not and it has. Again I used pink but using black as the base layer has made it darker and and more gritty. To give a weathered ware and tare effect I sprayed in diagonal lines over the stencils and deliberately missed areas a concentrated more on others. Spraying pink on black has created a 3D effect which was exaggerated more by off setting the the stencils.


I decided to add some thing extra as this was the first time that I had spray painted onto a wall. Free hand, I sprayed the word "Ruffneck" changed to "RUFnEK", which is a common slang term used in jungle and reggae music, usually referring to a thuggish, rowdy individual. 

Here are some further developments that I have created using Photoshop by adjusting the hue, saturation and colour.

To further develop and explore the possibilities of my final piece I decided to to put my work onto a t-shirt using heat transferable paper. Using Photoshop I divided the picture up into three different parts so that I could spread it over the t-shirt and make the most of the space. The paper was A4 size so transferring the design onto the back was challenging but the divide was barely noticeable.  

Here is a student from my class modeling the t-shirt, showing each design that I put on it.

Creating my outcome

These are the initial stages that I went through when in creating the imagery for my poster and in trying to come up with ideas. This contains random drawings of pictures I have found and developments into my own images.

To help to brainstorm ideas and get a feel for the style of artwork that I will be using, I drew some of that pictures that I had previously obtained like some of the work of Keith haring, Blek le rat and Finn from adventure time. I drew the head of the ape from the Deep Medi music record label and the image second form the right as I will be using a cartoon art style initially to develop from. In the bottom right corner I tried to create a panda head emblem in the style of the deadmau5 head.

These images show the development of the emblem which will be a panda head that I will use on my poster. some of these images where inspired by others that I had seen like the right most two on the bottom row which where inspired by the ape from the Deep Medi music label. Others where random images of pandas in a street art style that I have made slight adaptations to so that tthey suit my purpose better.

This is the final version that I have decided to go for . The other images where for inspiration and I decided that I didn't want the image to be too cartoon like. Gas masks are quite a commonly used its in street art as they symbolise the idea of a rundown, hazardous, urban environment. Bellow is also a style of typography that I will use on my poster, with a fractured, distorted almost digital theme.

On this page I started to plan the dimensions of the type face that I was going to use that would run down the right hand side of the poster. I measured the side of the A2 sheet and created rectangles that decided the space I would use into eight sections, one section for each character. For this style I removed all of the curves only using straight lines. I introduced diagonal lines to that the design doesn't appear to rigid and vertical when the viewers eyes run down the page and spell out the word.

Because of the number of letters that the word contains they ha to be made smaller vertically to fit into the space and to keep the letters in proportion this also meant making them smaller horizontally leaving a lot of white space. To fix this I filled in the rest of the space with jagged broken shapes that fitted to the space that surrounded the lettering.

I wanted the lettering to be a different colour to the shapes that surrounded them this proved a difficult and painstakingly long task. As you can see in the  picture to the left, there are black splurges of paint from where I had to continually move and cover the surrounding shapes, paper and lettering to separate the colours. To eliminate this I sprayed the design onto another piece of A2 and the cut out the lettering so that I had as stencil for the lettering as well, then all I would have to do was line up the words after spraying on the first stencil and spray over those in black.

Here I have used the style that I documented earlier which say dub instead of get. This would then form the Phrase "Get Immersed"

This will be the emblem for the poster or the main image that will be associated with the event which is a panda wearing headphones and a gas mask.


This was a practice run through that I did to make sure that the images lined up and that the stencil would work but also to test any possible experiments an effects that could be created. For example the get lettering where I spray painted the pink first and then the black over the top to get a 3D effect. I also like the smokey effect on the emblem that I created as it gives a more hazardous, rougher look.