Letterpress

A few weeks ago we went to the letterpress studio in Old street and spent the day there. It was such a good day, and despite picking a really long complicated piece as always, I was really pleased with the result I came up with. We were given a list of opening sentences from famous literature and we had to create it with letterpress. I was really interesting as I've never done anything like that before and haven't worked with typography in such an intense way but I really enjoyed myself! My piece was based on the opening lines of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

New illustration!

This is a new illustration to go towards my christmas project. I think it would look great on a bag?

Iconic photo

Original

Me!

So here it is, my iconic portrait photo of myself as Muriel Finley! I'm quite pleased with it, just annoyed that my hair wasn't really good enough! But apart from that, I think I managed to pull off quite a similar photograph!

Double page spread

This is the double page spread that Phoebe, April and myself came up with. We were keen to play with size and make one of us a lot bigger than the other two.

Christmas Project

"I want to ride my bicycle" 

I've set myself a Christmas project to help me work on my illustrations. I created this line drawing of a bicycle and I've got some more modes of transport to work on. I also quite enjoy animal illustration so I'm going to work on some owls and tigers etc too. My plan is to use iron on heat transfer paper to transfer my designs to tote bags and t-shirts etc. I think they will make good christmas presents and if they go down well I may even consider selling them.

Manifesto

This is my final manifesto that is A2 size. We had a group crit today which I think on the whole was really impressive. I'm quite proud of my piece considering that I've never used InDesign before! I think I achieved the Bauhaus look quite well.

Spilt Norman

We've been experimenting with different wine spills and positions, from the feedback we received yesterday we are going to concentrate on a longer spill with a tilted glass and just keep trying for the perfect spill!

Cowboy story

This is my 'rant' postcard that we were briefed on last week, I sent it in the post this morning.

Dingbat and Norman

This morning I photographed my dingbat out in the world. I didn't want to stick with the obvious idea of finding a piece of text or graffiti and sticking the piece onto it so I decided to create something myself that the pen could have drawn. I went to an alley way near to brick lane which has a lovely wall of graffiti and created a long chalk line along the floor to photograph my dingbat with, I'm really please with the results I think the photos look great!

Also, me and Lara have been working hard on our shrine project and we've decided to go in the direction of a spilled glass of wine with a hedgehog shape. Next we are going to experiment with different spills and glasses to work towards creating a really nice image for our final piece

Kitchen Warriors

Illustration for zine idea

Special Collections

Today we had an induction to the special collections area of the library, which is basically a room full of rare objects and artist books to look at. We were also given a brief, to find an artists book, and create a rant on a postcard in biro form. We have to send the postcard to the library through the post. The book I chose is called Cowboy Story, it is by a collection of artists and involves illustration, poem and music (unfortunately I haven't yet been able to listen to the disk that comes with it but I hope to soon.). I chose the book because I really loved the illustrations and I think that cowboys are quite cool. I've given the postcard a go, it's no where near finished, not a rant at all, but I thought I would upload an image because I quite like my illustration...

Devine Daughters

So me and my flatmate Jess, who is studying Graphic design at LCC, have decided to work together in some self motivated projects. We're both really interested in zines, illustrations and printing methods so yesterday we took a trip to the South East London Zine fair.

Me at the zine fair

It's always great to look around at other peoples work and I may have found a few items that i wanted to buy! 

A brilliant screen print I brought, definitely
have a thing for animal illustrations!

We found the fair helpful to come up with ideas for possible zines that we could create together such as an illustrative series on student life. We found the makers of a zine called cut me up particularly inspiring, take a look at their blog...

Lara and I had our tutorial on Thursday discussing our ideas for the shrine project. Nigel and Paul thought that the best ideas revolved around the alcohol, so we're scrapping the crisp sandwiches and family guy which is a good step forward. They particularly like this image of Norman and a spilled wine glass. Lara managed to create a hedgehog shape at the end of the wine and we thought that this would be great to explore and work on for the rest of the project. Similar to the Jesus in toast idea!

CRY over spilled wine

I spent friday morning in the library researching Bauhaus typography, Moholy Nagy, and modernism. I found the research really helpful in the beginning of writing my manifesto and am already up to 438 words, seeing a possible struggle to keep it to 700! 

Today's shenanigans

Working out colours

Progression

So I made Norman out of bread! I think it went well, the final thing looked good and my flat mates could tell that it was a hedgehog which is always a good sign. I also did some experimenting with illustration and looked at making a drunken hedgehog family guy character. Lara's also been hard at work today creating a miniature scene with Norman, it looks really good! We should have a lot to talk about in our tutorial tomorrow with Nigel and Paul.

Current logo that I'm planning on handing in tomorrow

Norman

Yesterday I met up with Lara and Norman to discuss some ideas for the shrine project. We thought of many ideas but struggled to come up with one that encompassed all aspects of my presentation. So we are hoping to link one aspect with Norman, such as crisp sandwiches or alcohol. Our favourite idea revolved around creating some kind of sculpture of Norman from objects related to my drunken ritual. This afternoon I'm going to experiment with different shades of bread in order to create an illustrative flat sculpture and see what happens!

Ian Wright badge sculpture

Toast Illustration

 

Shrine

So a shrine, a holy or sacred place of religious devotion. Items such as tombs, relics and statues are a good example.

Tomb of the Kings, Paphos

The Tomb of the Kings is a great example, although not as glamourous as ancient Egyptian tombs it carries a powerful sense of calm and importance in Paphos. I thought I would include this as an example because of my personal connection to Cyprus.

Baths of Aphrodite, Paphos

The baths of Aphrodite are another example I could use in Cyprus, according to legend the Greek goddess of love used to bathe there. Aphrodite is a great example of a legend or subject that is worshiped. The goddess is paid homage to all across Cyprus, statues are scattered all over the island and her image is used in all the post cards.

Welcome Norman and more...

On Thursday we gave our presentations, mine went down well i think, despite the soggy crisp sandwiches...

So for the next part of this project we have been put into pairs to come up with a 'shrine' for the subjects of both our presentations combined. Welcome Lara and Norman...

Me and Norman

So Lara did her presentation on her lovely pet hedgehog Norman, and I am very excited to be working with them both. I was thinking while on the bus home today, about how a lovely little hedgehog and a drunken ritual could be joined together...
Thoughts I had involved a characterisation of Norman into family guy (part of the drunken ritual), presenting Norman as a drunk (poor thing) and creating a large sculpture of Norman from drink related objects like bottle caps (very stalkery and shrine-ish!)

I'm meeting with my new partners tomorrow to discuss our initial ideas.

Also, despite having the brief for a few weeks, I have started to get to work on the 700 word manifesto to which we are to write. The work has to be revolved around Modernism and Modernity, but apart from that we can take it in any direction. Today I decided that I'm going to concentrate my piece on the bauhaus, specifically typography (although referencing the rest of the Modernist groups and ideas throughout.). I find the Bauhaus really interesting after studying it during foundation and would really like to explore their typography more. A trip to the library is in order.

(From Dave Martin's lectures) Characteristics of Modernism: 

• Decompartmentalisation
• Social Morality
• Truth
• The total work of art
• Technology
• Function
• Process
• Anti-historicism
• Abstraction
• Internationalism
• Transformation of consciousness
• Theology

The manifesto will be displayed on an A2 broadsheet, that will be designed on Indesign. I'm rather excited about this, as I've never used Indesign before and the introduction that we had today was really interesting. With Nigel, we discussed the ways in which things should be laid out in different material and looked at examples of layout, printing, paper, and ink. I found it really helpful as I've never really discussed that area of Graphic design in such detail, and I think it could really be a possible career path for me.

Logos are to be resubmitted on Thursday.

Dingbats have undergone their first coat of white paint and are currently drying. Have been thinking about how I would like to photograph them as I would rather do something less predictable than finding a piece of typography and sticking them next to it. Perhaps the idea of using chalk to create a message or mark on the world that the symbol could interact with?

Photography went really well on Friday. Despite my nakedness... I think the photos came out really well, and I managed to get all the props without spending any money (actually thats a lie, I spend £1 on safety pins...). Unfortunately the photos are to remain top secret for a few weeks so that we can have a grand unveiling at the end of term, so sorry you'll have to wait!