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.