Exercise - Travel guides

Brief - produce three illustrations for a series of book jackets, for the locations Istanbul, Helsinki and Milan.
Bring elements together in a diagrammatic way. Use hand-drawn type in an  appropriate style that works with the subject and country. Based on size 210 x 148mm (A5).

For the first part of this I referenced the titles available and then produced a series of mood boards to give me a feel for the individual places and also to help me to find suitable subjects to draw and colours to suit.

I was trying to get a 'feel' for Istanbul and also the popular symbols and relevant shapes and images that
could be used in the form of a sketch or line drawing. I initially have the idea of a simplified outline of one or two of the famous landmarks, with suitable solid colour shapes in the background.

Looking here at symbolic shapes such as the evil eye or the Arabic slipper. Also playing with the idea of 

a list of popular places to visit within Istanbul, each nameplace being drawn in a hand-drawn font. 

Helsinki Moodboard

I have produced two other moodboards, for Milan and Helsinki looking for interesting shapes, sights fonts and colours that represent the city.

Milan moodboard

Above are thumbnails of different ways of producing the series of travel books. On the top line is the 

collection of three with a common theme to tie them together. The main place name at the foot of the page would be in a strong font, maybe white-out of a primary colour, a simplified line drawing of a landmark surrounded with place names (hand drawn) as mentioned before. 

Playing with different font ideas, I like the idea of the word 'Istanbul', drawn with the towers ascending to combine the place-name with the iconic imagery of the mosques.

I like the way this particular style of font is slightly reminiscent of the arabic fonts and 

can foresee this working well in the finished artwork maybe.

Hoping to use this sketch of the Mosque as the main illustration. I intend to redraw in Illustrator to 

simplify the lines.

Pen sketch 1.

Tiled image maybe a possibility?

Pen sketch 2

I'm thinking now of using the two pen sketches above , and separating them with the coloured tile image. It should work
well and also suit the brief. 

This image is looking better. I've added a nice blue sky in Photoshop for this and also the sketch of

the mosque as below.

First visual for Travel Guide.

On the visual above I have incorporated the two sketches around the tile image of the Turkish

symbol and star, and then added the hand-drawn 'Istanbul' text.

Not sure I like this though, with the red and black colours it looks a bit like a Man Utd programme.....

Visual No. 2.

This looks better and seems to be going in the right direction. The colours look better,

bit more like a West Ham fanzine.... Seriously though, the illustrations look better, with

the sky added, but maybe the background red needs to change. I have used Arial font 

for the other text, which seems to compliment the hand-drawn 'Istanbul'.

Exercise - Editorial Illustration

For the first part of this exercise, the object was to find an illustration in my newspaper that accompanied an article. The article in the Times referred to how the FA treated footballers who had been seen to commit offences, in this instance, the England captain, John Terry and his alleged racial attack on a fellow player. It also compared other, similar cases that had occurred before. The Illustration, below shows a player, supposedly locked in the goal, a metaphorical 'jail' with a huge lock in the centre, surrounded by a strong green background, symbolising the field of play. It also gives the feeling of how players actions are magnified when they are on the pitch, and constantly in the public eye. I think it is fairly representational in the way it represents the article and makes you think about the implications of being a professional footballer and responsible for your actions.

Another illustration I found was the one below by Jeff Dekal to accompany an article which seems to be about education and the influence of Hip-Hop culture in the classroom. Its informational in that it does what it says on the tin and gives you an instant idea of the subject matter of the article. I love the image, its representative of the subject with an abstract feel in the way the students head is fading out. Where is his head at? What is he thinking? And the way the headphones are clearly identified says something about the way this particular medium is guiding the students thoughts and behaviour.

Another article below, goes with an article about match-fixing in Sumo wresting and depicts a couple of Sumo wrestlers carrying off a huge bag of Yen. The connection to the article is again, using a metaphorical bag of Yen to represent the greed of the guilty wrestlers in an informational cartoon.

I decided to go for 'Loves me, loves me not' and found an article in the Guardian entitled 'Loves me not', which seemed interesting enough to give me something to work with.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/16/artnews.art

In brief, and to save you the bother of linking and reading the article, the story is of a 51 year old conceptual artist, visiting Berlin when her mobile beeps, its an email from her boyfriend. In a hideous message about human emotion, he dumps her via text, finishing with the line, "Take care of yourself". She's heartbroken, but then she starts to think of it in terms of her art.
Over two years later she showed to missive to 107 women professionals and then photographed them reading it and invited them to analyse it according to their job. His text has been pulled apart, pored over and judged by among others, a crossword setter, a chess player, an actress and a judge.
She goes on to describe how at first it was therapy, and then art took over and she filled the French pavilion of the Venice Biennale with an exhibition of the whole sorry tale.

I first went through the lengthy article highlighting words and sentences which I felt to be important parts of the text, trying to find connections between some of the words and phrases. It was a mixed bag and the initial selection seemed to lean to the side of heartbreak and suffering, but then it changed to the problem of displaying his misdeed as well. Thrown in with this was the womans reputation as a conceptual artist and her use of stuffed bulls heads, zebras, tigers in necklace's and a rocking chair? There was a real mix of stuff in there, but how would I be able to reflect this in my illustration.

One of the women who viewed the text was a crossword-setter and I had the idea of creating a crossword with all the relevant words and phrases cleverly installed, but halfway through I realised this was for one thing, not very interesting, and for the other beyond my literal capabilities...

I carried on sketching out random ideas such as a bulls head, not sure where that was going but enjoyed drawing it, and then a zebra, French flag and then the idea of a judge which I quite liked as it seemed (in my opinion) that she had basically put him before a judge and jury, which was probably a fair result.

I then thought about taking the judge and jury idea a little further, but to spice things up a bit decided to include the bulls head and maybe other animals in the jury's box.....yes I know its a bit random, but the whole article is a bit weird and I thought this might reflect the same.

I then went down the road of a decorative border based on the obvious but still appealing route of 'he loves me' flowers, with the petals, hearts and text showing the words 'Take care of Yourself', which I thought was one of the most poignant parts of the story. I had the idea of a sort of lace like pattern containing the flowers and text in a very delicate frame.....not sure about this.

I decided to go back to a spider-gram by re-examining some of the words and phrases I thought important to the article, based around the word 'Heartbroken' and this led to the image of the couple facing away from each other with the obvious body language and the split down the middle.. still not happy wth this, a bit obvious for my liking.

I did come up with the idea of 'The Little Dumper Truck' along wth way, with the front cab of the truck replaced with a phone front and the broken heart in the back. I'm quite pleased with this play on words but not sure its suitable for the article. Could be mileage in it for a later date though?

A few more random sketches led me to the idea of how to describe an exhibition of the whole sordid act, and this started to come to fruition with the sketch of the mobile phone framed on the wall. I then added a crowd of onlookers, surrounding the picture which I felt summed up the topic pretty well. I then had the idea of adding judges wigs to some of the spectators heads displaying the feeling of judgment and also her idea of using the whole emotional experience as a catalyst for her art.

First visual

I will add some text onto the screen of the phone at a later date, need to polish it up first.

I've added the screen to the phone along with some text, I have tried out a few colour options but

feel it works better as a black and tone image. 

Although it was difficult at first to try and find a way of capturing the story,  I found it useful just working my way through different ideas, and then its seemed as I went through this process the ideas either wore themselves out, or evolved into newer versions which seemed more appropriate. In the end I have produced a simplified, informational type of illustration, which, in its own way narrates several parts of the story.

Fishy fishy...

Original scan of watercolour

after some jiggery-pokery...

I did this watercolour the other day, just messing about with shapes which took on the form of

fish, which evolved into this collection of multi-coloured swimmers. I like the way they 'flow' around 

the space and intend to use these again at some point. 

The fish will return...

Tattoo me.

Last year I discovered the work of illustrator genius, Al Gray in the form of beautiful screen prints,

based in the style of Japanese woodcuts, but with a contemporary twist. As soon as I saw the first print

I knew this would be a great basis for a tatoo. 

The one above was the one that I wanted. I really loved the strong use of line and the composition of the figure, so I booked myself in for a full days worth and handed the illustration over to talented tattooist, Jamie Greaves of Real Art Tattoo. He explained that the tattoo would have to be changed slightly, especially the girls tattooed back, as the detail would be too fine to replicate, but thought it would look really nice in the form of a half-sleeve, with his Japanese style work, surrounding the figure. 

When the day finally came, I was really pleased with Jamie's design, which he then, by means of a transfer and hand drawing sketched out the tat. Six and a half hours later and stage 1 of my half sleeve was finished. I still have about another three hours left to go, with some colour to add and the remainder of the inside back of my arm (the painful bit), but I'm looking forward to it. Overrall, I'm more than delighted with my sleeve and as it heals the detail is really coming out. Its like my own moving work of art.

Assignment four - Magazine Illustration

The brief for this assignment was to develop an illustration for a magazine for the topic of 'Lost'.
The illustration is to be based on a still life of which I have the freedom to choose and have creative free rein. Decisions made on the choice of subject, arrangement and placing of subject in the frame, along with the choice of media should contribute to the overall description of the subject I have chosen.
To start things off I decided to do a spidergram based on word associations around the word Lost and tried to look at the less obvious linnks to the word.

Some of the words associations that came out of the spidergram were interesting, in that they made me think about the other meaning of lost, such as lost in thought, being emotionally lost, lost in thought and how I could convey these in the illustration. After some debate I decided to go the more obvious route and based my idea around Lost Property, by illustrating a sort of lost property collection, with each item in its own box referencing some of the word associations in the spidergram above, such as the heart for lost love or the road signs for loss of direction.

I was still not sure of the media I wanted to produce this work in and had an idea of producing a number of these 'lost' items as line drawings which I could then redraw in Illustrator. I have an idea of each item in its own coloured panel, drawn in white line and overlapping the other panels. The opacity of each panel is such that the colours will show through each.

These were the basic sketches I did with the intention of then producing digital line drawings in Illustrator. I was thinking of the obvious items such as lost teddy bear and shoe, but then the more random objects such as false teeth, (who wouldnt be without them) and then the skull which I thought would always look good on a shelf. I also included a sat-nav, which is vital whenever you get lost.

Above are examples of the illustrator line drawings, with the white out line on a strong background colour. Below are some roughs of the kind of page I was trying to create.

Rough 1

Rough 2

After some experimenting with this idea I decided to abandon and go back to a more traditional image, more in keeping with the rough line sketch I did earlier of the lost property cupboard containing the same objects, but a little less abstract. I also felt I had wandered away from the original brief which had stated the image should be in the form of a still-life.

From the visual above I produced a finished version in watercolour, pen and ink, as below.

Final artwork

It's been quite a journey to get to the above illustration but I'm pretty pleased with the outcome and feel it conveys the subject 'lost' quite well. Yes, it is a bit obvious at first sight but I think it offers something new every time you look at it. I then tried the image placed in the context of a page of editorial. See below.

Page mock-up

Page mock up

Looking at the final mock-up, seems to work quite well in the context of an editorial. 

In reflection I think I got sidetracked down the wrong route for a while and misunderstood 

the brief, which is the most important thing after all.  If you don't match the brief, then 

it doesnt matter how good the illustration is!