Thursday, 13 October 2016

Charcoal Portraits

Today, we started to experiment and draw with charcoal. There have been thousands of artists that have created masterpieces with charcoal. This is an example on Google.

I have never drawn with charcoal before, so this was interesting.

At first, I did some of my usual, cartoony sketches to get to grips with the charcoal. It was hard to sketch with as the charcoal doesn't completely stick to the page, so when you slide your hand across, it smudges. However, doing a self-portrait and a fashion inspired sketch, I used this to my advantage to create shading and highlights.

My sketch is quite simple and basic, which I like but can improve on. I think more detail and learning how to smudge purposely and not on accident will help. I could, next time, try sketching with a real model in front of me. Because I used a webcam to see my own face, when I looked down to draw and then back up, my position had changed. This didn't help with proportions and sizes.

The next one had dried a bit weirdly. I had accidentally used too much spray to dry it, which made the charcoal run around with it excess spray. I can fix this with chalks, etc, but next time I know to be a bit more sparing with the spray, and dry it on a flat surface.

Monday, 10 October 2016

Frankenstein Poster

We had to create a infographic about Mary Shelley, with all the research we had gathered. I decided to do a simple one, with similar colour themes through and 'older' font styles.

However, to catch the eye, I used symbols and text boxes to design my layout and information. The yellow also makes it bold and bright and eye-catching.

To improve, I would want more. More information, more icons, more to fill the 'blanks', as it does look a bit simple. I also would'v drawn it out by hand and maybe kept it that way, so I could keep adding to it with ease, and get all my ideas out at once.

Colour-ways

We had to learn about different colour-ways and what works with who. What this means is when you designed something, you alternate the colours to create different moods and feelings. For instance, this is an example from Google. It has the same design and shape, just completely different colours within them. This is a good way to experiment.

I decided to use different colour-ways with something I had previously designed that I had given up on. This is the original piece that was meant to be used for a tattoo idea. I did like it but I thought I could improve on the simplicity of it all. This was a perfect opportunity to experiment with colour.

Firstly, I added colour behind it. This made the piece 'pop' little more, and added some fun to it. I also changed the colour of the birds, however, I thought I could do more.

That evolved into a 'blue' vision of the girl. I liked the orange behind and how it contrasted with the blues, but more experimentation was necessary, and that led into these other versions.

Overall, my favourite has to be the purple girl with the navy background. The colours compliment each other well, and it's pleasing on the eye. I would've chosen the orange and blue girl because of the contrast, but it was very bright.

My least favourite the red background and the yellow-ish girl. Ths is because it almost looked natural, but yet off. It was plain and very close to the original.

Next time, I would experiment with different types of colour schemes like complementary, etc. Just to get a wider variety in choices.

Accessibility Poster

We had to create a poster, that reaches as many audiences as we could - including people with disabilities. This was to 'put around college' to inform people. Given all my research on dyslexic fonts, colours for colour blindness, and more, I decided to create a poster about College IDs.

There is a new rule in college that we have to wear our IDs around our necks. So, I decided to make a poster telling students to, and why. Despite it being an informational poster, I wanted to make it fun and cartoony so it caught the eye. So, I had the initial idea of having the college ID as the poster. This is visual, so anyone with trouble reading from a distance could make the connection with the poster and the content already, so it is good for short-sighted people and colour blind people.


This is the poster I designed in my sketchbook. If I could improve anything it would be the colouring. As this was made with disabilities in mind, I would've completed it in the college colours - blue and white - instead of plain black. Also, I would've cleaned up the text and layout - but it was only a rough draft. (Colour-ways blog, here).

I could test whether or not it is good by handing out A5 sizes and asking people for feedback, or hanging it on a wall next to feedback forms. Alternatively, I could gather people with dyslexia, or colour blindness, and conduct a focus group.

Finished Tattoo

I decided to put my tattoo in digital form as a final piece.

Overall, I liked my idea and initial design as it was creative and represented something meaningful. However, if I could go back I would spend more time on hand-drawing the tattoo, as that would've made it more of a realistic looking tattoo. I also would've tried to improve the text a little by hand, but I didn't add any digital fonts because I wanted to act as if it were a real tattoo.

Friday, 7 October 2016

Museum Visit

On Thursday we went down to the museum 'Bath at Work', which is a reconstructed old factory including over a million collected items from real old factories. Our task was to draw still life in the museum. These pictures are ones I took of some things that really interested me.

This ranged from a typewrite, vintage bottles, and even an old fashioned car. Being not quite talented enough yet to draw a real life car, I decided to pick smaller areas of things to draw. This is a snapshot of my sketchbook.

I think with some more practice and time, still life can be something I can draw with more ease. I enjoy putting textures into things, so I liked to draw things like wood and paper. Glass, metal and shiny things I struggled a bit more with drawing, so I think if I continue to draw shiny objects in my sketchbook maybe everyday or so, I can - hopefully - only get better.

This is a skill I'd like to learn and is very useful in the publishing world. To see something and draw it can be useful, as that could inspire you or remind you
of something and help with designing other things for clients.