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Exercise: Identifying tools and materials

14/10/2020

The idea of this exercise is to look for illustrators who use a particular medium and that we like, catalogue them according to similarities and the way they use their tools. Then we were asked to choose one image that we really liked and write about it.

Finally we should take an older visual and render it using the same material as our chosen artist. This last part of the process we should repeat with a very different artwork.

For my first round, I chose several illustrators, by coincidence all females; who work a lot with dry mixed-media, such as: pencil colors, markers and oil pastels. Specifically I chose an artowork from British illustrator Nina Cosford.

Reference image nr. 1 by illustrator Nina Cosford

I chose the above image from her series "Girl!" because I appreciate the story and the message that's being delivered, which I find witty and smart but the overall piece is not overcomplicated. I find it very spontaneous, even with a "sketch" style to it, however it also looks like a final piece that could be in a magazine, book or a piece of stationary.

The color palette is reduced and the whole image is a simplified version of reality. For this exercise I was very lucky to find an online workshop/class from Nina herself where I could follow along her process.

Overall I'm happy with my results, however I do see that I'm losing a lot of quality when I scanned in my images, and in this specific piece I also feel that the final result is too similar to the one of the artists, but it was definetly a good practice.

My personal artwork using the same materials: process and final piece

Reference image nr. 2 by illustrator Gemma Román

What I like about Gemma's illustrations is the use of color and textures. In this case I had the opportunity to take her Domestika course (not all) but I could see how she sketches manually and paints digitally in Photoshop, which is something I wanted to do since long time ago.

I took a picture of a page of my sketchbook and painted on top of it in Ps, then added some extra elements. Finally, I did a few color variations until I was happy with the result. I'm sure this is a technique I'll be using in the future.

My personal artwork using the same materials: the process

The piece of my sketchbook from what I took my inspiration from

Digital versions using Photoshop

My favorite version

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Assignment Three: A poster

18/9/2020

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The brief

To design an illustration for a poster for a music event. An Early Music concert, a Jazz evening or for a pop group. You can choose.

The finished poster will be reproduced at A3 size, but you can work at the size, in proportion, that you feel most comfortable with. You will need to provide your working drawings – the thumbnails and visuals – with the finished piece.

The poster will include the title of the event, the date, time, place and any other information you think appropriate. You can either include this on your artwork or indicate where it will be positioned.

Stage 1: Moodboard & Thumbnails

Stage 2: Line visual of my two favorites

Stage 3: Color visual

Additional experimentation with shapes

Final analog illustration

Final illustration

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Exercise: Making a mock–up

25/8/2020

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The purpose of this exercise was to create a mockup of a book with an existing illustration or a new one. I chose a book which I really like, called "The Female Brain '', it's a very informative book that explains the development of the female brain since birth, through puberty, pregnancy and menopause. I found it to be really interesting and it showed me the whole world that exists inside our brain.

I created a drawing which is mainly a women's portrait with a focusing element which is a landscape of the sea and sunset. With this I wanted to represent the vast world inside of the female. Then I scanned the drawing and in Photoshop created a possible book cover. Finally I searched the internet for a professional book mockup and adapted my piece to that one, there I encountered some difficulties since the format of my original book cover wasn't the same as the one in the mockup.

I'm quite happy with the final result since I find it to be attractive from an aesthetic point of view but it also tells a bit of the story of the book through the look in the eyes of the character and her unique piece of clothing.

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Exercise: Client Visuals

25/8/2020

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For this exercise we were asked to choose a pir of illustrations from our archives and reproduce them in a line drawing much bigger than the printed format. I chose two images, one from a fashion illustration book and another from an art magazine.

It was a fun exercise to do, I paid special attention to the proportion and distribution of elements on the page. To do so, I divided the whole area with horizontal reference lines. In the painting of the two men I divided the page in three horizontally and for the fashion illustration I just used one horizon line. I was also paying attention to the relationship in position and size of the elements.

Overall I’m pleased with the results, speciale with the most simplified version of the fashion illustration where I pushed myself to be further away from a sketch that’s going to be developed into a final piece, and focused on representing the composition in the way of a visual.

Most simplified visual

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Exercise: Viewpoint

25/8/2020

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This exercise was about creating a composition of objects around a theme, in my case I chose “Summertime” and making pictures of it from different angles and in different formats. Then we were asked to sketch the same collection of objects in a different ratio than the one we were looking at, creating more thumbnails and a final visual of our favorite thumbnail.

Also, we were asked to answer the following questions:
• Which viewpoint best fitted the word your objects illustrated? Why was this?
• Which format best illustrated your words?
• Did changing viewpoints make you think differently about your choice of objects and arrangement of them?

My favorite viewpoints were those in which the hat and the sunscreen were closer to the camera. I also like very much looking at the objects directly from above. I think those two objects represented very well the term “summertime”. However, I don't think that changing the viewpoints made me think differently about the objects or arrangement, they did offer more interesting options to illustrate but all in all I felt that my chosen theme was pretty clear.

In my first sketches I decided to use a red crayon instead of a pen, just to invite more creativity to the exercise and to move away from the pressure that sometimes is linked to “paper and pencil”. I also tried to use “weird” formats like the irregular rectangle that the exercise suggested.

Finally, I chose to make my final visual in the landscape format and from a viewpoint where the sun crema and hat were closer to the viewer. This time I did use a pencil like the exercise suggested.