Project: Library

This was quite a quick turnover project so I feel like I'm somewhat lacking in sketchbook stuff for this. I had a run of 6 events in November '16 and was just really tired, and the sessions for this ran on Fridays, when I was at work.

The brief was to create either a record of or an entry for a library, or do our own collection. We were supposed to pick a library but I set my heart on Salford Zine Library. I've always loved zines, there's soemthing very intimate about them and I own quite a lot.

The library houses thousands of zines but I was particularly interested in one of their most dedicated ziners, Emma Falconer, whose perzine series "Fanzine Ynfytyn" is really interesting: off the wall in design and yet so personal. The things she writes about and collects clippings from remind me of conversations I used to have with my mum: I read a lot about random stuff and love dumb facts but the only person who would listen to them was my mum. It takes some kind of courage to think they're worth collecting into a series of zines.

I decided I wanted to do a perzine of my own- I tend to do zines aimed at an audience of sorts, instead of just about my own thoughts- and thought a collage-style zine about my favorite books (a library in itself) that I could sent to Salford Zine Library to become part of the collection really completed the cycle.

The front is a self-portrait, the whole think is digitally collaged with either photos or my own illustrations and some personal reflections. I also designed a number of patterns for use as backgrounds, such as the books and the mushrooms.

This is a lot easier to read if you download the PDF from my Gumroad.

Overall this was a relatively successful project. It makes for a pretty cool zine and it one of the more effective uses of my own art style this year. Some pages have soe dead space and I made a few mistakes, particularly with scanning images from hardback books, plus I feel some of it is too neat or lacks the edge Falconer's zines do.

Project: Editorial

This project was hard. I enjoy politics and am very well-read on political issues but there's something about using it in art, and indeed, creating images with such a strong message that I can't seem to do. That said, because of that, this project stretched my skills and even though I don't feel like I created any good piece of work, I still learnt something.

There was almost no prep work to this project: it was stressed that editorial pieces typically have a quick turnover and therefor need to be perfected quickly. This is true, but I feel it might've been more auspicious to see both sides of editorial: not all editorial are small news images. Some are developed, full-sizes, well-considered illustrations for something like a thinkpiece or timed investigative journalism, like a lot of the work Yuko Shimizu does.

Our first article was NYT's "Billionaires' Row and Welfare Lines".

However, we did start with some thumbs of sorts, exploring different compositions. No one (including me) could seem to get their head round the topic (on the widening gap between the uber rich and super poor and the horrifying reality of child poverty in the US) but it helped to hash out a bunch of wrong compostions to work out what visual language wasn't working.

For example, as most of the article seemed based in New York and cities. For the primer I did a bit of research around the topic in general and two NYT articles stuck with me: "Where Nearly Half of Pupils Are Homeless, School Aims to Be Teacher, Therapist, Even Santa", about children at Manhattan's Island School and the complexity of poverty for families (and schools trying to educate their children); and "A Sea of Charter Schools in Detroit Leaves Students Adrift", about how greed, politics and an education system that's lost sight of who matters most has ruined the lives of children already in extreme poverty. As someone who grew up in the countryside and moved to the city, I know there's something specific and horrifying about urban poverty and homelessness. That's not to say it isn't a problem anywhere else, but cities like New York, Detroit and London promise fulfilled dreams and wealth with their sights and skyscrapers, but so many people are left behind and with no good reason: it's the best place to see the canyon between rich and poor. 

These worked but the message got a bit lost and particularly the scale idea seemed a bit too didactic. The second one in particular, if carried to completion, would also make more of a point about gentrification than people.

I then tried to work with the visual language of money, given that that's the stupid thing this all comes down to. It somewhat worked but it's hard to get such a specific point across in a clever way; for example, the SOS banknote would have been more detailed in completiton and may not have been recognisable for its message. The first one, with a stack of money, doesn't make sense: it presents the difference in capital between the two, sure, but doesn't look to comment on hat that measn to the poor person. I therefore extended that idea to the third idea, where wealth is a burden and throws the poor into darkness.

The last ones don't entirely make sense but I as trying to use the child-poverty side of things. Charities always use children in their campaigns because the thought of child suffering tends to distress people who have a heart. It seemed somewhat cheap- when I hear the phrase "women and children", I always think it's stupid that men and/or adults aren't considered to be able to be vulnerable and lost and in need of help when they so clearly are. Life just throws adulthood at all of us and people shouldn't be denied help because of age (or sex). Maybe that feeling is what makes us want to protect children though: the power of being an adult gives you the ability to protect children so they can either get the protection you benefitted from and/or give them the protection you never had.

I then tried to develop one of the pieces into something more planned out. They didn't work amazingly- I sent them to Luke for him to crit and he thought it looked like the person was sad because the bank wasn't open, and there was too much focus and not enough of a point for the presence of the cityscape.

Alas, I still had to complete some work, so I ended up using this idea but working in an advert in that day's LES that I thought was pretty effective: simple graphics, point made, and a version that could suit the placement of text.

Unfortunately, though they show a divide and the graphics are relatively good, they don't quite make their point effectively. The colour aren't as strong as on the LGW advert, possibly because I worked in greyscale and then used colour layers to make sure the colours worked harmoniously, but this meant they weren't as bright. It also fails to underline the anger and misjustice of the situation, and the vast extent of poverty in America

I feel these are slightly more effective but still not perfect. The iconography of a wealthy business man (and faceless, as is often the sentiment) is well-executed and I'm particularly drawn to the one casting a shadow across America as patriotism and enemies of the people are strong calls to arms in the States. The shadow one is also vaguely based on an illustration I saw for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 but cannot for the life of me find: a watercolour of the map of America with the shadows of the Twin Towers cast across it, without the Towers standing. That was more poignant because of that, and because of the idea of memory and casting a shadow, but I think the idea somewhat remains.

This last one also doesn't work so well- it was pointed out the tag references more the price of good etc, rather than wealth. The colours also seem too upbeat and the shadow perhaps not strong enough to effectively make its point. However, the form is good and it's not a terrible illustration- it might make its point OK if put next to the article.

Our next article was slightly more in my comfort zone, in that it talked about a topic about which I feel more fluent: "Who is the Black Man?" on the violence and commodification of black masculinity.

I did some basic thumbs for this but mostly jumped right in, given I had a clearer idea of where I wanted to go with it.

It's a slightly cliche image and I improved on it in a number of ways, but it makes its point about the violation of the black man's privacy, dignity and body and white culpability, a lot better than my previous attempts at editorial. I also tried to use my own style, which is slightly less effective and I feel somewhat subtracts from the seriousness of the message, but doing so means I'm one step closer to better integrating my own style into my university work and therefore a mistake as part of an integral learning curve.

I also did this one, an attempt at demonstration the diversity of what a "black male" is and why it's so stupid to pin it down to a bunch of stereotypes. Some of my earlier ideas had a white guy holding up a black guy stereotype, which might've worked better, or these guys holding up question marks over different parts of their body. I feel like more characters would've made the point clearer: filling the screen with them to emphasise the sheer vastness of the term, but I was short on time for this and I think the style doesn't work anyway.

I eventually went back to my first piece to improve on it: making the man look older, adding more violence and slightly more diversity in skin tone in the hands, as well as more texture in the background. It's far from perfect but it's one of the more effective pieces of the project and would actually work with the article. The fake 3D effect is maybe slightly overdone but generally the colours are better and add to a sense of violation and danger.

Draw Rotation: Arts and Crafts

I'm not sure if it was because it was the last week and a bit before the holidays, but this rotation felt somewhat directionless for me. The idea of the project, looking at the past of the building of Camberwell College was great- I never knew it played such a key role in the Arts and Crafts movement, and seeing archive material on both the original building and the Brutalist addition was fantastic, but it didn't make for amazing drawing material. I therefore feel much of my work for this project is bland.

We started with a talk on the history of the Arts and Crafts movement, which was largely a repeat of what we'd heard in the lectures, as well as a review of the rubbings we'd done for the primer task, which I've not scanned because they are so boring. Many of them look the same and while I understand it was intended to give up an appreciation of the many textures around Camberwell, I couldn't think of using rubbing as a method of drawing for anything other than perhaps creating textures for Photoshop (and even then, they'd be quite abstract).

We also had a more in-depth look at some architectural drawings of the 70's development of the building, a Q and A with an old guy who'd worked in the college for decades and therefore knew about both the 70's development and the current development. We also had a tour of the college which was mostly interesting, more for navigation and knowing how much space other students have compared to Illustration, but seeing some of the stained glass windows was enlightening.

We were then sent to draw parts of the building. I chose a lot of staircases as I've always liked the way they're structured and they supply interesting effects when drawn from different angles.

Given that we'd spent most of the day walking around the building and not drawing, I feel some of these drawings were rushed. While they get the message across, some of them could have done with a bit of colour or maybe a more interesting lining style?

I think the looser of these drawings have more character, plus it's far easier when drawing architecture or interiors on location to depend on a less precise style.

I liked the last one- I think if it were overlayed with a bit of colour it would be very busy and interesting, which I might do, But I think the sketch needs finishing at the bottom first (cars kept driving by so it was difficult to draw much of it)

Here's a more tongue-in-cheek one, referencing the fact that Camberwell is less a building, more a building site. I also think it's testament to how I felt a little directionless on this rotation.

We then had a monoprinting workshop. It was the first time I'd done monoprinting and probably the last if I had a choice- it's an interesting technique but had to master and expensive and messy if I were to do it outside the studio. 

The first few I did were a little bland, given I tried them on newsprint. The textures on the second one are really interesting, perhaps if I was doing another Great Expectations ilustration I'd use the texture to create a Gothic affect, but with this project it acts more like noise to the final illustration, obscuring all but the centre of the image.

I found I was happier doing these prints on thicker paper- they came out better and the remaining texture is much more complimentary, even if these drawings are still a bit bland. I could have experimented more had I had more time- some of the other students were doing cool stuff with the style and had I been more au fait with monoprinting, I might have been more adventurous. 

As an example of this, I managed to mess up my thinking on how to mirror images twice!

This project lacked a final piece which I think is what made it directionless. This said, my lack of motivation is my own and I'm not happy with how little work I produced on this project.