Visual exploration 2 - Illustration (L4)

In the fourth week into the module of character narrative, we explored imaginative character creation through a life drawing session. In this session, our lecturers posed and used props and costumes through a sheet to create a silhouette/shadow in which we then explored developing these shapes into characters. We were encouraged to continue our life drawing skills (such as perspective, linework and lighting) and experiment with colour, shape and framing. Also, this session made me think differently about my concepts and employment of techniques and materials for my character narrative projects more broadly. For instance, I enjoyed using bold shapes, linework and colour in these different sketches as they made the character studies significantly more expressive and enhanced the form of the dynamic poses. Warm up quick sketches (2-3 mins) Starting to explore character narratives through imagination and shape (7-10 mins) Experimenting with framing and using colour to enhance visual langua...

In continuation of my research for the module visual exploration 2: Character narrative, I decided to chose Marie Antoinette as my primary character for my research development. I chose this character as even though both characters have notably interesting stories and themes to develop I found Marie had a more visually captivating appeal which could be enhanced throughout the project.  During this continuation of my research, I cultivated a variety of different facts that I thought would be relevant or notable to integrate into my project development and conception. These included; - Marie worked closely with Rose Bertin, a fashion merchant and designer, until her death - Marie bought over 300 dresses annually, but never wore anything twice - Rose Bertin's partnership with Marie was both the greatest success in her career and the greatest undoing of her career after the French revolution - Marie enjoyed both masculine and feminine attire such as her extravagant dresses in contrast ...

In the third week into the module of colour story, we explored colour mixing and how word can evoke and tie connections to particular colours. For each of these colours, I used a swatch sheet (as shown below) to test out my colour mixing to ensure I had the correct shade/tone to compliment the chosen word. For instance, for summer I went for a light greenish blue that replicated the water of a stream or lake in the midsummer sunlight.  Once I had defined each word with I colour, I then began different combinations of pairs of words to see how they'd integrate visually and in terms of the word's meanings.  Colour mixing swatch sheet Colour mixing names Colour mixing name combinations

In my continuation into my research for the module colour story, I decided to primarily focus on the colour venetian red (as researched in the previous weeks). I chose this colour as it has significantly interesting history, visual exploration options and has a notable amount of information available about its composition and utilizations.  To begin my research, I decided to find a variety of examples in which the pigment of venetian red had been used within artist's compositions. These examples throughout history include: Portrait of a man, Jan Van Eyck (1433) The nativity, Piero Della Francesca (1472-1474) The red studio, Henri Matisse (1911) Blood relations, Anish Kapoor (2007) Red, white and blue, Mark Nielsen (2012) In each of these examples, venetian red was employed as an integral part of the visual language of the composition to contrast with the environment and/or subjects. Furthermore, another example of the employment of venetian red that I found in my research was red f...

In the second week into the module of visual exploration 2 character narrative, we continued to develop our historical character research through a collaborative task and experimented with rubber stamping. During the historical character research task, we each created a large "spider diagram" of a handful of facts we had accumulated during this last week of research to present to the rest of the group. Then, to collaborate we each read everyone's research thus far and were able to add any knowledge we'd known ourselves in either/both notes and illustration. As shown, below this was my sheet which had some additional facts/illustrations from members of the group. This task notably broadened my ideas for my continuation of my research and helped me in beginning to include concept illustrations alongside my character research development. Later into this session we began our exploration into character design through the medium of rubber stamping. These characters were de...

In the first week into model of visual exploration 2 character and narrative, we began a task of character design within shapes. These blogs of ink challenged us to expand our conceptions of character design, utilizing the positive and negative spaces and stepping out of our comfort zones.  Initially, I found this experiment difficult as the shapes made for extremely imaginative concepts. However, as I began to experiment with the employment of the shapes and test out alternative ways of illustrating the variety of characters it became easier. Primarily, I did these illustrations with a fine tip ink pen to match the colour of the ink blobs.  This task significantly made me think more about how I can utilize shape, proportions and exaggeration to enhance the visual language of an illustration's ability to display individual characteristics. 

In the second week into the module of visual exploration 2 colour story, we explored creating a variety of different illustrations on a colour pallet sheet. In this exercise we were encouraged to explore and develop our concepts and comprehensions of ideas such as integrating colour pallets, what colours match/clash and how the name and visual language of a specific colour can be interpreted.  During this task, I decided to try different variations of colour pallets to broaden my experimentation such as complementary colours and monochromatic. Also, I used a combination of different mediums such as coloured pencils, acrylic paint, ink and oil pastels to try show how different colours can interact and the textures they can create. If I was to improve upon this exercise, I would have liked to explore this with digital tools instead of the traditional route I chose. This way I could have explored how screens and printers effect the shades of colour and using technology to identify a c...