25.11.13 Spot Illustrations Colour and Composition Development.

Hello again.
So I've been still working on the more abstract and block colour interpretations of some spot illustrations.
Im really happy with how these outcomes are coming along.
I had a one to one crit with Chris today about how the project is getting to those final stages and what could/needs to be looked into before we hand-in on friday.
Overall the feedback was good, he was happy with how the illustrations were developing into being more graphic and abstract and that i should continue down that route.
We also spoke about how it might be nice to refine some of the outcomes to maybe 3 or 4 colours to really get a cohesive feel to each piece.
I suggested that it might be good for me to go back on what i had decided as my finals and re evaluate them with the more pattern and block colour way of approaching the work, Chris agreed that this would be a good idea if i wanted to, and that to only do this if i had time.
I'm really pleased with how things are going with this project, i'm glad that i have planned out my weeks well so that i'm not rushed or disorganised coming to the ending of the term.
Up above are a range of the ideas that i looked at today.
I think these specific ones still need to be tweaked but hopefully tomorrow i will have something more refined to share.
Update Soon!

19.11.13 - General Update.

Hello again!
Apologies for the absence these past few days.
Dont worry, i haven't been far, i've actually been stuck here, seen in the photo above.
For the past, few days i've been deep into the essay.
As it stand now, at 17:30 im 900 words in and going through the loooong process of getting together all of my bibliography and working out the mind field of citations!
So i promise i will be back shortly, but these last 2 weeks seem to be slipping through my fingers with how fast they're going!
Update Soon!

14.11.13 - Pop-Up Exhibition Desicions

Hello again.
So i seem to be always writing these post now, the morning after before everyone gets into the studio, i just have no energy when leaving the studio at 6pm, you can understand this right?
Being honest,i had a rough day work wise yesterday.
I did get some good development work done, which I'm pleased with and will share on the blog as soon as i have the time to save all the files as JPEG's but printing wise i did not.
Being honest once more, i am out of my depth here, when it comes to the technical side. I have no clue what I'm doing when i comes to printing, I've picked up chunks of information here and there from friends but I'm worried its just going to be to much for me.
And its not really something i can just flake out on as it completely alters the final image and makes it look crappy.
Hurumph, very annoying.
Update Soon.

13.11.13 - Colour Development

Hello again!
So i actually write this the morning after on the 14th as i was absolutely shattered yesterday from doing all full day of just editing ideas for what might become finals.
These are the images that i came up with yesterday.
After speaking to glyn a few weeks ago about refining my drawing style for the falling Phaethon image, i went away and found some reference materials of falling figures. I think because of this the images have turned out a lot more realistic, in the sense that they have so much more movement to them.
Out of all of the images above i think number 5 and 6 i'm the most happy with.
I think i can safely say at this point that i would be happy to have these as finals and i already have plans for getting the text within the images to look at some layout ideas.
Im, to be honest, not very happy with all the other images.
I think its good to put them on the bog because i need to show development of ideas, but i just don't think they are in keeping with the look im now going for.
I think im going to have to spend some time and re evaluate what i want on each of those pages, and keep them within a theme that will work as a cohesive set.
Anyway, guess that'll be what i'm doing today!
Update Soon!

10.11.13 - Juno Layouts

Hello again

So these are some more layout designs that i have put together for the Proserpina illustrations
As you can see throughout the layout designs im trying to put WAY less text in
When i was making up the plans i realised that i had way to much text and it over overwhelming the page.
especially as i'm working with poetry for this text and there is a specific layout already in place for poetry, these layouts look far to academic tet with how much text has been used on the page.
Hopefully tomorrow back at the studio i will get some time to type out the original text its already set layout and work from them instead of this sample text.
Update Soon!

08.11.13 - Layout Thumbnails

Hello again.
So i know the photographs might not make it look like much but these are clear directions moving forwards for the work.
As i might of let on earlier in the week I'm getting a bit stuck with just constantly going over the same two images and tweaking them slightly on photoshop over and over again.
I needed to move forwards and Ive actually done that by taking one step back.
Ive come to the decision today that I'm not going to continue with 5 interior illustrations.
At the moment, i want to only take ahead 4, so I'm cutting Actaeon from the five.
I want to give my attention to quality over quantity, so Ive made very quick thumbnails of ways i can present the illustrations in the book.
Initially i was just going to have the illustrations taking up whole glossy pages within the book but now i think i want to play about with layout, i feel it will give more to the illustrations and also add to the book.
I feel like since I'm working with poetry, i can work with the pacing of the poems. They have already been broken down structurally to short sentences on each lines and my illustrations could work well around this,
Today Ive drawn up 3 of the 4 interiors into 6 thumbnails and from this, will take 3 of them forwards into development on photoshop.
Now bear with me as i have absolutely no idea how I'm going to make plans of book layouts so this is a bump I'm hoping i can get over quickly.

Update Soon!

08.11.13 - Overlapping Images: Ben Howard Album Artwork.

Hello again.
Its friday and i have only about 20% of my list crossed off with things i was supposed to do this week so today is going to be a busy day!

I thought i would start off the day by showing this image i came across yesterday while walking home.
I had my shuffle on this popped up.
I've done some research and the illustration is by Owen Tozer, who seems to do all of Ben Howards artwork and merchandise.
Im not particularly drawn to anything else in his work, but this image worked for me.
I have been using the Photoshop layers alot in my work recently but have been trying to use it in a way that doesnt look like its been done on purpose.
When i saw this it occurred` to me that i should use them to my advantage rather then trying to hide the fact its been done on a software.

I haven't got around to getting my drawings started for "Proserpina" poem yet, but i really want to use this effect in some way for that interior illustration.

So yes, i hope you will see a lot more blog post today.
Update (very) Soon!

07.11.13 - Development Images

Hello again!
So its thursday evening and i thought i would update on whats been going on today.
This morning we had a workshop with one of our lecturers Catrin about research and practice.
It wasn't specifically to do with anything i can work into this project but the images, text and films she showed us was really interesting and afterwards we had good discussions about all the different texts and how they work well with one another.
I spent the rest of the day working on these Photoshop images as we have a review next week about our work we've been doing so i want as many images of different ideas i could develop so i can discuss them with the rest of my group.
Im not to sure where things are going at the moment as my heads a bit up in the air with also thinking about the essay.
blaaaaahhhhh, i'll give a real update soon!

05.11.13 - The Weekly Schedule.

WEEKLY SCHEDULE Week 3 of 5

DATE: 04/11/13

AREAS TO COVER: Scan in and highlight all books taken from library Start a log/bibliography of what you have been looking at Decide on an overall theme for essay Draw falling male figure for Phaethon  Draw more female forms for Juno  Get initial ideas started for other interior illustrations  Look into female figures in symbolist paintings for Juno (blog post)

AREAS TO COMPLETE – INCLUDING NON WORK TIME. Sort gas and electric people Contact estate agents about painter Clean room

AREAS OUTSTANDING: Development of colours on Photoshop/ general colour theme for five illustrations Look at what emotions are being used in each of the illustrations Make links with these emotions to specific paintings and artists 2 Artist studies on the blog Sequential illustration blog Oh comely blog post

Remember to cross off/tick completed areas for your reference.

05-11-13 - Sunflowers and their Symbolism.

Clytie’s unrequited love for the sun god caused her to pine away until she was changed into a flower which always turns its face towards the sun. For modern readers, the primary source of this myth is in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

In Book 4 of theMetamorphoses, the sun god (referred to only as “Hyperion’s son”, but who is obviously meant to be Apollo), after ratting out Venus/Aphrodite during one of her own escapades has a curse put on him. He falls head over heels in love with a sea goddess named Leucothea (sometimes spelled Leucothoe), to the point the he causes the sun to set and rise at abnormal times. He forgets about Clytie, his former love, and disguises himself as Eurynome, Leucothea’s mother, so he can have an opportunity for a tumble.

Clytie becomes furiously jealous and tells Orchamus, Leucothea’s father, that his daughter has been defiled. Orchamus buries Leucothea alive. Apollo, after vainly trying to bring her back to life, douses her grave in perfume so that she will evaporate with the rays of the sun and return to the heavens with him.

When she realizes that what she has done will not return Apollo to her, Clytie goes insane. For nine days, she sits with her gaze fixed on the sun until the gods take pity on her and turn her into a flower.

Ive been finding quite a lot of information recently about the relationship between unrequited love and the use of a sunflower.

Although it is not the same text as one of the passages i have chosen to look at, i really feel like it would incorporate into my illustrations well and still keeps some basic themes that i want to be strong in them.

I understand that a lot of the blog posts that have been going up recently are all taking about what I'm GOING to do, rather then what i have done.

Im finding my balance between the essay and the project really tough at the moment, its a real struggle to balance my time well so just keep with me for now!

Update Soon.

02.11.13 - Chat with Glyn

Hello again.

So yesterday i had my scheduled one to one with Glyn, it was about 5/5.30pm by the time we got to talk, so my head was a bit frazzled but we seemed to get enough spoken about.
I had earlier printed out some of the developing photoshop work so we could both look through them, the quality came out so terribly when i printed them out, i need to work out how i'm going to get around the printing out the illustrations in the future as i can see it being a really annoying problem that i wont know how to fix.
We spoke about the fact that the colours and overall layering technique is working well, but that some of the meaning to the patterns were not clear enough. Glyn advised that because its poetry that can be taken in different ways, it might make sense to make some of the patterns and their meaning of what they were a little clearer.
This, i'll be honest makes life easier for myself but is also a little bit frustrating. It was picked up on a fair few times last year that i was being to literal with my illustrations and that i needed to think more out of the box, so ive tried really hard this time to take a more abstract approach and take real thought into what i will use to visually symbolise certain parts of the story. But, it clearly isn't clear enough, so its two steps forward, one step back in a way, which is still progression, if not slow.
We also spoke about the fact that the composition is leaning towards just being dropped in the centre of the page, which is totally right as i've just been doing this exactly with the photoshop layers, so i'll be working on that next week. Also on the fact that the figure in the Juno illustrations needs to have more feminine features to her figure to represent more of her character, which can also be tweaked to help the audience understand a little more.
So in essence, to work on next week:
- bolder mark making (different sized brushes)
- work on figure/character drawing
- be brighter with colours (look at chris corr and alfred wallace)
- more clear symbols to setting a scene
- continue development on other 3 interior illustrations.

We then went on to talk about my research report, and i spoke about that i knew around abouts where i wanted to go with my title and that i wanted to look at hidden narratives and symbolism in art. Glyn advised that it was unclear what "hidden narratives" was and that my use of the phase made it sound like it was an art movement, so i needed to be more clear with what kind of art that i meant, but its really hard to describe because the intangible thing im trying to talk about is spread through art as a whole so widely!
So thats annoying.
I think i need to make life a bit easier for myself as start to break down a specific subject to look at, but i just don't know it yet.

Anyway, its saturday. Im working from bed today in fairisle print leggings and my big cosy scarf, leave me alone, i don't want to talk about essays, god.

Update Soon.

01.11.13 - More Juno development.

Hello again.

Its 3:30 at the moment, and I'm waiting for my one to one session on my work so i'll update you with a few more pictures on whats been going on.

So I'm still working through the plant cell paintings that i did yesterday, trying to find ones that work well with my pre existing figures ( i really need to get on and make more figure images to work with my patterns) and just playing around with colour and composition.

In the first piece I've put up today, is the one I'm most liking at the moment, i was trying to work with the painting that i had done on some of the structures i had done on the plant cells and i was trying to have it so that juno. the figure was somehow in the centre of the nucleus of the cells as she seems to be a centre point for all the character as she is Jove's wife. I also noticed while i was putting the images together on the computer that i had painting the nucleus red, just like how Jupiter (Jove) is in the solar system

I thought this was a really nice link of also showing the connection that Juno is always linked to Jove in some way. Plus they make a lovely contract together in that specific painting.

The two below are more colour and composition studies more than anything, its definitely the first one that i think has the most development.

I think i might do some very quick thumbnails of different compositions to try rather then just playing around with it on the computer, i want to put some thought into it rather then deciding what i like after I've painted it.

I do also have a few life drawing sketches from yesterday that i will hopefully be putting up later today/tomorrow.

Update Soon!

29.10.13 - Layering Day

Hello again!
Another day spent doing development work from the initial drawings about the different passages.
Im just to bluddy tired as its 6:12pm and I'm still at the studio so i'll update you later.


Update 30.10.13: Hello again, fresh faced at 9:30 this morning so i think i can talk a little clearer then last night.
I haven't actually put that i was working till late because i lost about an hour and a half of my work yesterday which was slightly frustrating, but i think that I've almost been able to get back what I've done again.
I was still trying to work with the layers, but this time looking at the character Juno in "Echo and Narcissus"
I already had a clear image in my head of one of the idea i wanted to look at in this illustration, and when i have an already identifiable image in my head, it just helps to get it out and draw it or i'll just always be thinking of it.
I first spent some time doing my initial water colour drawings, and now knowing the knowledge of how to put together the layers, decided to draw the objects on their own so i had more control of them when it came to putting them together on photoshop.
Im slightly intentionally trying to keep a colour pallet going for each illustration. I had looked at blues and greys for Phaethon as it had that dark celestial feel to the passage. For echo and narcissus its focuses around longing and unrequited love. With this in mind i wanted to look at warmer colours, and with this illustration focusing on the start of the tale, where Juno curses Echo to repeat the last words she hears another person say, quite a lot of the focus i wanted to have on Juno.
Researching into Juno as a character on her own i think will need some time dedicated to it if i wish to have her as a central point to this passage.
But keeping the images all having a similar feel to them i used the patterns from the previous paintings and some new ones to give that similar unearthly effect.
As as well at this point i didn't want to give Juno that much of an identity, inept her a ghostly figure just to represent her being surrounded by the words she's saying to Echo.
I think these have come out well, I'm happy with how the Photoshop effect is bringing together all the elements i wanted in my illustrations, I'm just now trying to think of ways i can develop them further and continue the learning journey with them.

Update Soon!