ˈpalɪm(p)sɛst (noun)
- a manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing.
- something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.
This project was much wider than the other projects and a lot more of it was self-led in terms of subject choice, so the outcomes from all the students in the workshop group were very different- more highlighted everyone's strengths and interests, both artistically and socially (given that the project revolved around social perceptions).
Our palimpsest study was Old Spitalfields Market, which is definitely worth a visit if you've never been (like I had), it's kind of an old curiosity shop both in terms of people and finds.
We didn't start at Spitalfields though, instead carrying out some research online and in the Museum of London.
Sort of self-explanatory since the stories were too good not to take some notes, but they found a woman in her mid-twenties in the sarcophagus in 1999; if I remember rightly they have a remodelling of the woman's head. In the middle ages, the cemetry was built on to become a hospital (that's not creepy compared to the fact that portions of NYC are built on Native American/ African burial grounds, go figure) but the middle ages part of the museum was lacking on Spitalfields content so I have no drawings for that.
I should point out, we were only allowed to use graphite, which I guess was both a good challenge and tedious after the 8th or 9th drawing. I think I used it well- it's been a while since I've only used pencil and I'm a lot freer with it than I remember being which I like.
The market then became a silk-weaving and trade centre around the late Renaissance, which then leant itself to the natural entropy of an antiques market. The "Modern London" galleries leant themselves much more to a Spitalfields-based project as much of the bric-a-brac there I suppose was like upmarket versions of what was being sold off stalls at the market itself, so it made for easy comparison.
The medal was the most difficult thing to draw, given the detail and the fact I was very much trying to avoid using lines and so, when approaching things like the tiny horses, had to think ahead about drawing the space around it rather than the shape of the animal. I also got bored, which I suppose is a good thing because it meant I switched up my method of drawing to something with more economy, which people liked in the crit, even though I was happier with the more tonal drawings. I think this is testament to how sometimes technical ability isn't always the key to a good illustration, which I something I need to remember more in order to expand my scope artistically.
Then we actually went to Spitalfields! It took a little bit of time to get to know the place (in fact, the sort of buzz and eclectic nature of the place was the hardest to get down because there's just so much going on. I started with a stall I thought would be interesting though, not selling anything in particular yet still lit up and colourful as if it were. I feel this illustration is a little bland, but still adequate notetaking.
This is the guy running the stall was pretty plain, almost bald, with a stripey pink scarf that sort of reminded me of a sofa pattern. Also, he looked like One Punch Man, which I would later try to caricature, but for the moment I tried getting down only the necessary details.
Here's two more of him, also including an old guy who came over to chat and apparently taught art or something ("That's good," he said, pointing at the earlier drawing of the stall, "And I can say that because I taught art," as if I was going to argue with him). There was also a woman in a fluffy baseball cap which was pretty weird, but I once again discovered watercolour isn't great for illustrative note-taking because it doesn't dry very quickly, so the fluffy effect is sort of not put across very well.
I then moved back to where I'd actually started, but had moved away from given it wasn't an antique stall- I found the salt beef stall- particularly its stallholder- fascinating.
Neither of these images are very developed, however- I think I've been getting frustrated with the fact I feel I can't draw quick enough. Or rather, being at art school, there's pressure for your work to look good yet still a need to get everything down on paper, and it's hard to balance out these two things. However, I did later layer them up in photoshop and they look pretty interesting that way:
I think this works because watercolour on its own it too washy to properly portray a busy scene quickly (for me at least- Jonathan Edwards does an amazing job) and my technique with fineliner is too bland, but together, layered so to show the idiosyncrasies and mistakes of each piece, I think they look much better.
Salt beef guy moved a lot because it was the lunchtime rush, but he was a kind of lanky mid-twenties white kid in a flat cap and general old man attire, which not only looked weirdly cool, but also seemed to personify the market a little, given I noted most of its attendees were either old people or millennials.
Moving on, I did some quicker, looser drawings at a stall selling big tin letters and strange dolls, some of them missing eyes. The guy running the stall was great- I suppose he looked a little like a pirate, in a good way, and had interesting creases on his face that it would've been great to draw longer, but he spent most of his time talking to a guy about buying in his letters, and I spend a long time wondering how the stall owners managed to fund doing their business, given it sounded quite futile, plus stalls like that are expensive and hard work, especially every week. London's full of a lot of people where you're not sure how they can afford to do what they do though.
His stall was great, I wish I'd brought my markers or anything that wasn't watercolour at that point just to get all the light and colour down, especially the tinny texture of these giant letters. This drawing was a good start- it has good composition and the lines are very sure.
We then took the work back to the studio to develop and idea. This was pretty free (I'm not sure if it was supposed to be but it felt it) which was in a way good, because we got some funny ideas as a group, but also I think I got a little directionless at one point and was just doodling.
I started with some caricatures, mostly turning the bald guy into One Punch Man, and then Salt Beef Guy into some kind of bishounen shoujo anime hero. No one really got these except some of the Chinese students so it seemed counter-intuitive to take these ideas further as they relied on contextual knowledge that didn't tend to crossover with the sphere of the market and its attendees. However, some of the ideas about Salt Beef Guy as an attractive hero character I Anglicised and toned down to use in my final piece, given they were amusing and got a good reaction from the other students.
I then developed the pirate guy as some kind of antagonist pirate guy for a sort of soap-esque thing, but like I said, I wasn't really sure where it was going. I progressively developed an idea for a comic surrounding the adventures of Salt Beef Guy
There was a loose script and my idea was for a slightly existential, off-the-wall comic as a zine about Salt Beef guy, with a little strange humour that was based more on the drawing style than the actual guy I observed, in that he became a separate character. He was initially a very cutesy character, playing on the pretty-boy shoujo manga trope, but I thought it was funnier for him to have very thick glasses that make his eyes small and dumb, but still have many fangirls. His style was based somewhat on Western cartoons, particularly Pearl from Steven Universe's body shape:
I originally started out writing it as a zine, given that the project had naturally progressed into a comic and a zine seemed the most comic friendly format. However, I didn't finish what I'd started straight away, and therefore had a better idea before I came back to it.
I went for an A3 poster, which is easier to read as an everyday item, and also allowed me to present the comic as part of the stall, which seemed more of an engaging and topic-related presentation. It was also according to the brief supposed to be a quick piece of work, and is therefore in a limited palette based on what Salt Beef Guy was wearing, with review from Johanna and some other people's input- ochre, salmon and olive. The ochre became a darker, more saturated brown after I adjusted the levels on Photoshop, simply because I thought it looked better.
It didn't end up being a quick piece of work but I'm still relatively happy with it, though I'm not sure it fits well with the "palimpsest" theme, but then there seemed no sense in not pursuing what I perceived to be a good idea. I feel the script could have been improved and I had to cut it down a lot due to space constraints, which is something to learn from in the future.
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