This first set of sketches were more literal. 

Whereas with this one I tried to push myself some more to think about not very obvious representations of my phrase "broken relationships". From this set, my favorite illustration is the broken flower. The flower represents a relationship (something that's growing) but that can suddenly break. ​

For this exercise, the idea was to read a text, answer some questions and create a portrait based on that. 

• If this were to be made into a film what would the main character be like?
It would be a man, around 45 years old, a medium to big body frame. He’d have medium length hair, a bit messy, manly face features, and some wrinkles already. It all took place around the 40’s, II World War. 
• What clothes would the character be wearing?
He’d be wearing a shirt, probably white or sand color,  with a loose tie and trousers. Clothing wouldn’t be very sharp either fashionable, on the contrary, plain and a bit worn-out. 

• What furniture is in the main area in which the action takes place? 
There’s only a few pieces of furniture:

• A large desk and chair. On top of the desk: papers, a typewriter, and a phone 
• Two small guest chairs
• One “hanger” fort he coat
• A big “archivo”
• A clock on the wall

My vision of the story:

• Roughness
• Sepia or black & white
• Austerity 
• Sereisousness

Creating the mood-board and the investigation takes me too much time and sometimes it feels like it's a part of the process that is putting me away from sketching and actually making art. I'm still figuring out how to fit this phase, which I understand is important, into the whole process. 

Mood-board:

www.pinterest.com/astrid_badell/ocas-projects/exercise-choosing-content/

The goal of this exercise was experimenting with a variety of materials, papers and to explore different techniques of mark-making.

On the first place I realized that I'm very confortable working on white paper and wasn't really experimenting with different colors. Regarding textures I also realized I didn't have a lot of variety since I'm very used to buying watercolour paper. This was a good opportunity to explore with pieces of scrap paper I had at home and to buy a small block of pastel paper with a variety of colors. I also got to use some home made paper I made a few weeks ago. 

Regarding materials I used ink, gouache, oil pastels, acrylic in, charcoal, poster paint and different combination of those. However, I didn't experimented a lot with the different styles of mark making and I think I could take the exercise to another level. It was a really interesting first step to get me out of my comfort zone and I'd definitely be investing more time on this topic which I find very interesting. 

In this exercise we worked around the decade of  the1950s and the idea was to collet as much visual information as possible, research about the visual characteristics of this period, to the produce an illustration of someone sitting in a chair and surrounded by the typical artefacts of the era. 

To gather inspiration and learn more about the decade, I created a Pinterest board where I collected images as well as articles about the 50s: www.pinterest.com/astrid_badell/ocas-projects/the-decade-of-the-1950s/
​
From a visual point of view, this decade was describe as one full “bubblegum colours, sci-fi shapes and technicolor textiles as some of the trademarks of the era.” Because of its post-war character, it reflected the need to have fun and live life. It was also the time in which many movies and rockstars where taking their first steps and many big films where produced. 

From the images I collected in my Pinterest board, I took the one that from my point of view better represented the decade and created the following moodboard: 

This one my first approach to a final piece, however it was very difficult to me to include the character, also I considered that making such a complex image was taking me away of some details I wanted to add. So, I started over and produce a second image which is my final illustration for this exercise.