Brooches of the jewellery box

I only just realised that I don't think I ever posted the final for my self directed project last year that I was working on and kept posting work of on here. So, here it is. It was printed out at A2 and hung up in the exhibition. You can't really read what any of the writing says but they're all quotes from my Nana.

This was by far my favourite brooch to draw and paint and I'm really pleased with the outcome. This whole final poster and all the work that went with it is something I'm actually really proud of and happy with.

Draw all the brooches

Carrying on from my previous post about 'making images' here are some more images from my development work for my self directed project. I have chosen to look at old brooches to make images of so naturally I went straight to my Nana's jewellery collection. I used a selection of media to make these images; fineliner, watercolour, graphite pencils, brown paper and fibre tip pen. I've got a lot more of these to do, but they take me so long to do. Fingers crossed I'll speed up the more I draw of them. Also the photos are horrible quality. I'm hoping to buy a scanner at some point soon. 

Learning to make images

My tutor at uni (whose work you can find here: http://www.matthewthehorse.co.uk/) for my self directed project has been teaching me about how to not draw, but to 'make images'. Illustration is about line, shape, colour etc. I made these images as part of my SDP to practice working with different materials and styles. I'm going to scan or photograph more of them another day but these are a selection of the images so far. For these images I used a variety of media, including fibre tip pen, fineliner, watercolour, brown paper.

Kidney's story

                   A selection of pages from my book which I have entitled 'Kidney's story'

I wish my brain was actually blue

These are the final illustrations for my book. I have only shown one of the kidneys but within the book there are several that are slowly changing colour and shape as the illness progresses.

Sorry about how badly laid out this post is but Blogger wasn't having any of it and this was the best I could do. Bloomin' thing. Feel free to let me know what you think of these illustrations, I know they are very very basic, but the whole idea of my book was to be almost like a Mr Men book. I experimented a stupid amount too to get to these final images/colour choices.

Once upon a time

Our new brief for uni is to produce an illustrated book based on an existing news story. (180mmx180mm) We then take the news story and turn it into more of a story book, including choosing the protagonist and fabricating their feelings and emotions etc. The facts of the story still need to be the original ones, but we are allowed to 'embellish' them. This is an independent project, followed by making a collaborative film in a group also based on a developed news story. We are still on the book part and the deadline for the digital work is in 3 days, well it's less than 3 days now and as it stands I'm not quite there yet. I do know what I'm doing, I've just still got some drawings and work on InDesign to do, which is my task for the remainder of today and tomorrow. It's taken me a long time to even get into this brief and my heart's still not completely in it, but I think a lot of that is down to me doubting my work, especially my ability to draw, which is necessary for this brief as photography is not an option because of my chosen story. The story I chose to use could have been recreated in either a very morbid and grotesque horror style, or alternatively a much softer, more subtle approach where the reader has more to think about. I chose the latter.

My chosen news story is the story of Amy Francis, a 77 year old woman who died from a fatal heart attack from blood loss after an experienced surgeon unintentionally removed the wrong organ during a theatre complication. Mrs Francis was having routine keyhole surgery to remove her cancerous right kidney when her liver was unintentionally removed, causing her blood loss, resulting in death. It is a tragic story and not one to be taken lightly at all which ledme to really think about how I wanted to tell this story. I didn't wanted a grim blood covered horror story told from the doctor's or Mrs Francis' point of view, I wanted to take the audience by surprise. That's when I decided to write the story from the kidney's point if view, Kidney as the protagonist (I did also toy with the liver as the protagonist, or alternatively both the liver and the kidney both as protagonists). Visually I want the book to be in a way like a grown ups Mr Men, in the way it is very simple in both story length, typeface and imagery. Like the Mr Men books I am having text on the left hand pages with all images (fingers crossed) on the right hand ones. The concept of my story is that the body of Mrs Francis is the organs' house and that they are all brothers and sisters within that house, Kidney and Liver are closest (both relationship and anatomically). The book follows Kidney as she becomes more and more ill with what Brain tells her is called 'Cancer', her decision to let herself be taken away and the awful realisation on the day she is to leave that Liver is gone and the house has been turned upside down, Heart has been attacked and all the lights in the house are slowly shutting off to represent the death of Mrs Francis. Each page only has about 3 lines of text. I am using Arial as Mr Men books use Sans Serif fonts.

I chose to create very simple images to go with the simple story. Using fineliners and copic markers I have been working on the 'characters' of Kidney, Liver, Brain, Stomach and Heart. The photo quality isn't great as they are from my phone but I will scan my drawings in at some point and post screen shots of the finished pages when I'm done. The idea is the Kidney gets paler and paler as the story goes on, which isn't as easy as it looks with these markers, it's endless swatches and tests but it's worth it for the end results, the colours are really rich and solid. They also look a hell of a lot better in real life as opposed to these photos.

The 2 images of the heart are not the line image I will be using for the final book, they were purely practice. The fineliner elements of the image needs to be much simpler to keep with the continuity of the other organs. I will also be using different colours; I have a bright red and quite a darker one which I have also been using for the kidney. So next tasks are: create a more simple heart and work on the colourings, repeat but with stomach and also with liver. Hopefully the InDseign side won't take me too long, I wish I wasn't such a bloody perfectionist or so doubtful of my work all the time, I might get more done and quicker that way.

Enough rambling about poorly organs now, I'll keep this updated (fingers crossed) as the project progresses over the next couple of days. Also need to think of a name and cover idea.

p's and q's

'Send and receive'.

 5 different quick projects over 5 weeks.

Week 1- create a piece of communication and find out if it is successful.
I created 3 typographic posters on Illustrator on the subject of manners (complete pet hate when people have bad/no manners). Helvetica for simplicity and calm, neutral colours for the block backgrounds. Really fancy making some screenprints of these, especially 'manners don't cost a penny' which seemed to have the best response when I posted the designs online.

love your birds nest!

Poster that I will be screenprinting tomorrow at uni. Made using InDesign and good old Helvetica. Will get a picture of the finished result, wish me luck! 

ooh arty

 

I drew a ring using continuous line drawing a while back before my uni interview, and ended up using it for some of my uni work the other day, edited it up a bit but here it is. Will be putting more work on soon. 

It's blue yo.

I'm sorry that I seem to have given up on my blog but I really haven't, I've just been trying to keep very very busy and having lots and lots of fun, yes :) IT'S BEEN AWESOME <3


on an even better note...
I GOT INTO VISUAL COMMUNICATION AT LEEDS ART SO I CAN ACTUALLY GO TO UNI THIS YEAR!!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY

I will update properly one day...promise.

I must have done something right...

I got a letter yesterday from Visual Communication saying I've got an interview on the 18th April! Yes! I'm so relieved that I've actually got an interview and also that now I have 3 months to prepare my portfolio so that I can wow them :) PHEW!

I'm having a portfolio review tomorrow morning at 9am to discuss my existing work and what other things I can do to make it even better so that should be really helpful. It's scaring me a bit though that it's so far away because I'll be panicking for even longer, like most people I know are having them in the next month or so, but it's okay, it's just a relief that I've got a good amount of time to work with :)

Had an awesome time at Frankie's; we had pizza and ice cream and other nice things and played on Scott Pilgrim, watched Scott Pilgrim, then played on Guitar Hero (which I hadn't played before) lots :)
Very very good weekend! Bedtime now, cya x

Visual Communication task - handed in, but not over yet!

I applied to BA Visual Communication at Leeds College of Art (where I study now) for uni and was sent a request for a preliminary work sample, which was a task that came with the letter. The shortest way I can explain the task is 'create a series of still/moving images to show how to make the world a better place, thinking locally rather than globally, using any media.'

I got the letter at the start of the Christmas holidays, just after my laptop had broken, Mike had lost his camera charger (I don't have my own SLR), I don't have any software and I couldn't get into college to do anything about it. I came up with my concept and my idea over a couple of weeks and had to borrow my friend Adam's camera and use Alex's Macbook to create my designs. They're lifesavers! Just hope the tutors looking at my work can see how much work has gone into it :)

I'm not going to put the images up until after I have received confirmation that my work has been viewed or that I have an interview.

I handed the work in about 40 minutes ago, and I'm just as worried about it now as I have been for the past month, it's nail-biting stuff. I just hope they get back to me soon to let me know if I have an interview!