OUIL402 - Study Task 3 - What is illustration? Part 2

Narrative 

Adrian Tomine - panels from Shortcomings.

Adrian Tomine's graphic novels are narrative based illustration.

Craig Thompson - page from Blankets.

Ana Albero -  comic-strip for issue #112 of the Swiss comic magazine Strapazin

Kyle Platts - Megaskull

Luke Pearson

Communication

Donough O'Malley - for The New Internationalist

Donough O'Malley - for PC-Pro Magazine

David Peter Kerr - for The New Internationalist

WW1 Propaganda Poster

Rosie the Riveter 

Personal

http://alicedraws.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/more-sketchbook-work.html

Blu's sketchbook work

A.J. Purdy

http://blog.jeremyville.com/sketchbook/page/4/

Educational

Kena Reval

Mark Watkinson

Commercial

http://www.pokedstudio.com/advert-illustration-playstation.html

http://www.hireanillustrator.com/i/25905/illustrations-for-handmade-soap-companys-advertisement-campaign/

http://www.pokedstudio.com/doritos-advert-illustration.html

http://neilduerden.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/british-gas-campaign-adverts-your-home.html

http://www.illios.co.uk/portfolio/ciroc-vodka-advert-illustration/

OUIL402 - Study Task 2 - What is illustration?

Propaganda

Propaganda is imagery which is used to persuade or instil a certain view point on something into an audience by appealing to different emotions e.g. empathy, guilt etc. 

Detail

Horror Vacui is the fear of empty space and filling it with immense detail.

Richard Dadd

Gerry Bannan

Adolf Wolfli

Frans Floris

Albrecht Altdorfer

Colour

Jenmann.tumblr.com

Using different tones and shades of one colour to create depth and a sense of warmth in an image.

Peony Yip

Sticking to one or two colours, for example black and one different colour in order to create a focal point.

Daniel Stolle

Christina Tsevis

Naftali Beder

Using very muted and similar colours to create a certain mood.

Choice of media

Jonklassen2.tumblr.com

Using certain types of media to create different textures and tones.

Ed Fairburn

Mixing media, such as the media you draw onto, to influence and change the drawings you create.

Aron Wiesenfeld

Using media (charcoal) to convey the message and context of the image.

Erik Svetoft

Using different media to achieve different line qualities wether it is smooth/fluid/rough etc.

Jon Shaw

Using media that behaves in different ways to create contrasting textures.

Development

David Fullarton

Alena Lavdovskaya

Anna Rusakova

Ignacio Veiga

Katia Petrunina

OUIL402 Study Task 1 - Why am I here? What do I want to learn?

Why you chose to study on this program:

• One of the main reasons I chose to study on this course was because of how much I loved the foundation course here, once we were split into our specialisms I really enjoyed the way the course was run and how we got chance to work at our own pace on the briefs we got set.
• The third year of this course was what initially made me interested in this course. As I am quite keen in starting my own business after the course, not many other illustration courses focussed on the business side of things.
• I stayed at LCA because I just love Leeds as a city, after spending more time in the actual centre during foundation I decided I wanted to stay.
• After looking at a lot of other illustration/graphic design courses, I decided that this one would be most suited to me and the way I work.
• I was drawn to this course because it is a brand new course, so all the content and work would be new and I would be part of the first year that would help shape the course.

What I want to learn during my time on the programme:

• I want to learn how to manage my time properly when illustrating and getting a good balance of drawing and writing time, as on the foundation course I found I struggled with the analysis side of illustration
• I want to learn how to see and treat illustration as a job rather than just a hobby, and force myself to draw continuously, even when Im not in the mood to.
• I want to learn as large a variety of new skills and techniques as possible, and to develop the ones I already know.
• Communication is key in illustration, so I need to learn how to best communicate a message through an illustration, by putting across a point in the most simple and straight to the point way.

Skills that I think are my strengths:

• I think that because I haven't developed a specific style yet, my ability to adapt how and what I draw depending on the brief is one of my main strengths, as I am not held back by my own style.
• Once I get started I think I am quite good at brainstorming ideas that are still of a good quality, although I don't particularly like working that way, I can produce quite a lot of ideas quite quickly.
• I tend to draw quite a bit at inconvenient times, like when I'm at work on the till roll. I think this is a strength because I get quite interesting results with the pens that I have to use and the things I can draw.
• I really enjoy trying new ways of working and new tools, so I think this is quite a strength of mine, that I don't just stick to using one tool and am not afraid to experiment with things.
• Finally I also really enjoy looking at other peoples work, I am addicted to Tumblr and follow a lot of illustrators from there and I tend to take inspiration from their work and let them influence the way I work.

Things I want to improve:

• I want to stop procrastinating as much when it comes to writing things, I find that once I get into it I can get it done, but I find it hard to start
• I want to improve my research skills, for example, by collecting more primary research when I am out and about by taking photos and quick sketches.
• I want to improve my technical skill, because I think I'm quite good at drawing simple and cartoony things, however I want to be able to be able to draw more realistic looking things, in particular, people.
• I want to draw more, no matter where I am and what I'm doing, I think it will benefit me a lot if I start drawing as much as possible throughout the day.

How I will evaluate my progress:

• I will evaluate my progress by looking through my blog periodically, and comparing my work as I go along.
• By evaluating my work as I go along I can pick out things that I think I can improve on and work on them each time I start a new brief. 
• Asking for feedback from my peers will be one of my main sources of evaluation, I think that getting more than one persons opinion on your work helps you to improve, sometimes other people can see strengths or weaknesses in your work that you can't see yourself.
• I have started keeping all the little feedback cards we get when we show our work at the end of the week, I think this will help me to evaluate my progress by taking in peoples feedback

OUIL402 - Studio Brief 1 - Revolutionary Road

I recently watched Revolutionary Road, a film set in 1950s suburban America which focus's on a couples struggles living the "idealistic" life and longing to recapture their freedom whilst living in such a conformist society. I think this film interested me so much, because of the approach it takes towards societies belief that it is a woman's role in life to settle down with a husband and have children. Obviously back then it was seen as controversial if a woman didn't do this, so a lot of women will have felt pressured into having children, even if they didn't want them. Although I would not call myself a feminist, I am very passionate about a woman's freedom to not have children, or to not act in the way that society wants them to act. This is a message I would like to try and incorporate into some of my work, and it kind of ties in with a lot of my beliefs, that people should not act a certain way just because our society sees it as the norm, people should do things and act in a way that makes them happy.

OUIL402 - Studio Brief 1 - Photoshop

During the Photoshop workshop we learnt how to use the different tools to create a clean and usable image from a scan. We scanned some of our own images from the Visual Narrative brief and cleaned them up using the healing brush tool. To get the final image as crisp as possible I played around with the levels in order to get the black as dark as possible.

At first I was going to use the first scanned image shown below, however after I had cleaned it up I found it was still too busy and not simple enough for our next workshop, as we would be adding textures and playing around with the tools to create a more complex image.

We also used some other images which were distorted by the angle the photo had been taken at, we used the perspective tool to manipulate it so that it was as straight as possible.