OUIL404 - Shape

This week we were looking at shape. The task asked us to explore shape and produce 3 portraits of 3 different people in a nice outfit. We needed to consider how to create shape and what different materials and tools we could use and manipulate to create our illustrations. 

"Minimal and dynamic results come from flat colour, hard graphic edges, and a minimal aesthetic. Often used in a commercial context because of its universal and immediate visual function" 

"People see more, when they see less."

I had a quick play around with shape using some posca paint pens, I found they were really great to use to start getting my head around shape because they are really thick, bold colours. I made a few little patterns and some other doodles trying to stick to using shape and minimal line work. 

Funky Socks - Cut Paper and minimal line drawing

Patterned Scarf - Cut Paper and minimal line drawing

Winter Hat - Cut Paper and minimal line drawing

Bikini girl - Cut Paper and minimal line drawing

I was really dreading this task to begin with, I'm a lot more used to creating work that has a lot of hand drawn detail and minimalistic shape wasn't something I'd ever experimented with before. I ended up really really enjoying this task, it was really fun to sketch out different designs and illustrations and then cut all the bits of paper down and fix them all together. From this task I learnt that shape can be used in a dynamic way to create really ineresting, fun pieces. I think if I was to work with shape again I'd definitely try and push myself to create more complex patterns, to see whether this works as well as the more simple minimalistic images and patterns that I created. I'm really looking forward to using shape again, I feel that I could incorporate this quite nicely into my studio practice and also the personal work that I complete at home. 

OUIL404 - Tone, Mark and Pattern

This task asked us to explore tone, mark and pattern within our illustration work of our chosen themes. Mark making and line can be used not only to describe contours but also light and 3D form, this can be really useful in adding depth and perspective to your work. 

Kinds of mark making include hatching, cross hatching, scribbling, shading, made marks and patterns. These can be applied accurately and precisely or in a more suggested, stylised way. The pressure, stroke, direction and gesture of line and mark can give different results. It's important to experiment with these whilst keeping up a speed and fluidity with your line. 

Mark making in itself was super fun! I liked messing around with materials and seeing what kind of marks i could make, this kind of experimentation is really fun for me and really helps me to engage with my work more. Unfortunately, trying to apply this to even the simplest of line drawings sucked! I've not worked with tone in this way before, I used to be a stippling fanatic, making detailed drawings using line and dots but this way was some messy and expressive and completely took me out of my comfort zone. I think I definitely still need to develop this way of image-making, it was interesting but really tricky for me to grasp. 

I think I much prefer the monochrome drawings, it was easier to differentiate between lighter and darker areas and I was really liking drawing in biro for a change. I stuck to a simple image to try and add tone to because I didn't want to confuse or overcomplicate things for myself or just get pissed off at the task and give up on it. I think I'd prefer mark making to create tone in smaller areas, rather than creating a whole image out of line and tone, maybe I could have just used little marks dotted about the image to suggest tone rather than going for the whole sha-bang. 

OUIL405 Visual Narratives - One Week Book Screen Printing and Final

Washing our screen out

Setting up our screen on the bed

First Colour

Having screen printed before I was quite excited to get back too it. I find that screen printing is a really clean and professional looking way of producing images, and can also offer the chance for experimenting and for some unexpected results in terms of offset printing and experimenting with colours and overlapping colours. 

I was really pleased with the final outcome of our book, I think that the colours work really nicely together and that the different styles of everyones work really add a unique, hand made feel to the book. 

From this little brief I have learnt how to work quickly and manage and organise my time. I have also learnt how to work better in a group and although I am quite shy I feel this has helped me develop my confidence in my work and in myself a little bit, I feel like I'd be quite happy to work as part of a group again. I think you have to commit yourself to a group project a lot more than you'd probably comment to work that you're completing yourself, mostly because everyone has their own role and responsibility and it's your job to complete these tasks so as not to let the group down. 

I also learnt that when screen printing I need to be really careful to make sure that the lines on the positive are solid black. There were a few issues with my illustration as some of the lines didn't come through clearly on the print which meant some of my illustration is missing. Apart from this I  am very happy with the final book and also with how well we managed to work as a group to produce our little book in the space of a week.

OUIL405 Visual Narratives - One Week Book Development

I found working as part of a group quite difficult, mainly due to my quiet nature and also my lack of confidence in my work and my ideas. Although it was difficult for me to gather the confidence to have a larger input into group discussion and decision making, I found that overall we were working quickly and efficiently as a group, and quickly had an idea to make a book that was based around the people that we had seen and spoken to around Leeds. 

I was given the task of illustrating the florist, which I was quite happy about as I like drawing flowers and this gave me a bit of an excuse to draw some plants. 

Chosen colour scheme - Orange and Turquoise

I really pushed myself to try and work in the chosen colours and to use pencil crayon to draw my Illustration but I was continuously disappointed with the work I was producing. I decided to stick to using a pencil and then work out where the different colours would be afterwards. This meant i could produce an Illustration that I was pleased with and then go to think about colours. 

Final Illustration

My final Illustration was drawn from the photo we took of the Florist in the market, I then added a table of flowers to the bottom and a market stall to the top of the page, this type of layout was consistent through the majority of the book, with the exception of the chestnut man who was across a double page spread. 

Overall I was quite pleased with my final illustration and was excited to take this to the group and put everyones work together so we could start to get a sense of what the book would look like as a finished piece. 

OUIL405 Visual Narratives - One Week Book Initial Group Research

For the start of this task we were given the task of adventuring off into Leeds to do some visual research with our groups, with the aim of being able to go back to the studio with research to make a picture book from. 

Wilf in front of a statue

Crystals in the Crystal Shop

Crystals in the Crystal Shop

Flowers in the Market

Market

Drink at Whitelocks

Fancy Dress 

Fancy Dress

View from top of car park

View from top of car park

Florist

Crystal Shop:

"Clear Quartz is very popular, it's tactile, very relaxing"

"You need Aquamarine - you need to be strong and courageous" - Emma, shop owner

"Aquamarine is soothing, calming and cleansing, it inspires trust and letting go" 

"Moonstone is calming and can be very effective in soothing emotions"

Fish Monger 

"The people make Leeds, it's middle class but it has working class roots. It's working class done good."

Florist

(What do you hate about Leeds?) "The smack heads"

Egg Lady

"I don't like much about Leeds but we won't go into that"

Chestnut Man 

" My great grandfather started the business" "It's good to be out in the fresh air and adding to the festive atmosphere

OUIL403 - Module Evaluation

1.  Which practical skills and methodologies have you developed within this module and how effectively do you think you are employing them within your own practice?
Although I limited myself by only using hand drawn techniques, I feel I have developed these practical skills which has allowed me to effectively work in a variety of different styles with a selection of different mediums. I also think that I have developed practical skills in terms of producing roughs before moving onto final pieces. This has helped me to visualize what my final work will look like and give me an opportunity to see whether or not certain things would or wouldn’t work for certain projects. I think that I’m effectively employing these within my own practice throughout this brief and throughout others.
2. Which principles/ theories of image making have you found most valuable during this module and how effectively do you think you are employing these within your own practice? Limitations on colour and format across all three briefs really made me think about how I was producing my work. I usually work in quite a lot of detail and had to learn how to simplify my Illustration in order to fulfil the mandatory requirements of the brief. Limitations on colour meant that although sometimes I was limited to one or two colours, I could still work with different tones of that particular colour, this allowed me to be a bit more flexible with my work and add a bit more depth to it without ignoring the requirements of the brief. I also think this brief has introduced me more to critical thinking as I’ve had to be constantly analysing and evaluating my own work, I think this is one of the main things I am employing within my own practice as on-going analysis is important to the development of my work and the development of a brief as a whole.
3. What strengths can you identify within your submission and how have you capitalised on these?
I feel that my main area of strength in my submission is the quality of the final work produced. I took pride and care within my work to make sure it was of the highest standard I could produce. I also feel that another area of strength would be my idea generation. I took the time to make sure I brainstormed ideas thoroughly and explored a variety of different paths to take my work down. I think this helped me a lot as it allowed me to explore different possibilities and produce a range of work that was carefully thought about. 4. What areas for further development can you identify within your submission and how will you address these in the future?
I feel that the main area for development in my submission would be the experimentation and development process. I feel like I got the hand of trying out new materials and developing my ideas throughout the module but also know that in the earlier briefs this was a weakness of mine. In the future I will address this by spending more time exploring a range of materials and spending time developing how I use these materials in my work. I also feel like I limited myself to hand drawn illustration and would like to address this by pushing myself to explore different ways of image making such as cut paper and collage.
5. In what way has this module introduced you to the Ba (Hons) Illustration programme? I think this module has introduced me to the programme in terms of how broad a subject Illustration is. It has taught me how to apply my Illustration to different kinds of work, such as editorial and book covers etc. It has also introduced me to a structured way of tackling briefs given on this course, which in turn has helped a lot with my time management. I also believe that this module has helped me realise that Illustration doesn’t just have to be hand drawn imagery. It covers a broad range of techniques and materials from collage to Photoshop and although I did limit myself in this brief I am looking forward to widen the range of materials I use and discover different methods of image making.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance	x
Punctuality		x
Motivation				x
Commitment				x
Quantity of work produced		x
Quality of work produced			x
Contribution to the group	x
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

OUIL403 - Do Judge A Book By Its Cover Final

Overall I was really pleased with the way my book cover turned out. I felt that overall it communicated my concept clearly as well as looking quite effective and I personally would say it's at least a slight improvement on the original cover of the book. Although I didn't experiment with as much material and processes as I probably should have done, I really felt that using fineliner was the best route for me to go down with this brief as it's a material that I am comfortable working with and that I know can create different textures and quality of line when used efficiently. 

What I did well: 

• I think that the quality of the book cover is quite high. I'd say that I spent a sufficient amount of time making and drawing this cover and I am quite pleased with the look of the end result. 
• I was pleased with myself for drawing things that initially came to my head after mind mapping and researching. I usually leave the creative aspect of a brief until I am set on an idea but I tried to draw around my theme for this brief so that I could see my progress and let the initial drawings that I did develop into better ideas
• Experimented with my chosen design. I'm glad that I spent some time developing the rough that I had chosen and making little mini book covers. This really helped me to see what the final book cover was like and allowed me to find what worked and what didn't work in terms of layout and design. 

What I could improve on: 

• I feel like i could have taken more time when it came to looking at what kind of typeface to use and how I would lay this out. I didn't see this as an 'interesting'' part of the brief so brushed it aside a little but I understand that type is important and that I should consider it more.
• I feel like I could have developed the spine of the book a little more. This is usually the first part of a book that someone will see and I think it's the part that I focused on the least. 

What I'd do differently: 

• Make full sized mock-ups, some of my measurements were a little off which led to me having to make a few copies of the final book cover
• Explore colour more and see how this can be used to communicate a concept or how it can enhance an existing image
• Spend more time looking at and developing type. Consider layout and size as well as choice of typeface

Front

Back

Spine