One Week Book - Development

As a group, we decided that blue and orange would be the most relevant colours to use for this two colour brief as they are the recognisable colours of Greggs. Although some of our images will be about independent shops, the colours will remain the same to show how dominant and overpowering Greggs are in the food industry and how smaller companies are affected by them.

I drew a couple of portraits of Gail in my sketchbook to get myself used to the structure of her far and features. The pencil drawing above was my most successful as I achieved a better likeness so I used this as the basis for the development of this image. 

I decided wanted the image of Gail to be simple because I didn't want to overcomplicate the picture when I am using a process I am not familiar with. I thought about drawing her holding a baking tray of brownies. However, the point I wanted to get across with this image was that from our research yesterday, the independent shop we went to had a lot friendlier staff and focussed more on people. I wanted to strip the image of its association to moneymaking and commerce which is why, later on, I replaced the company logo on her apron with a name badge - I feel this further emphasises the personal touch of independent shops by recognising Gail as an individual. 

Using newsprint and felt tip pens, I experimented with blocking in different areas of colour. 

1.

• Too much solid colour - overpowering - doesn't fit in with the friendly and approachable impression I got of her character. 
• More white space needed for a more delicate image. 
• Colour on cheeks is too drastic.
• Where will the text go?
• The way I have drawn the hair isn't effective in showing her hairstyle.

2.

• The hair and shoulders look a bit lost.
• Added a name badge.
• I think the blue needs to span the whole image to keep the image tied together.
• The hatching on the face is too similar to the way they hair has been drawn - misleading. 
• Maybe have a stronger variation in weight of line and add a finer outline around the shoulders. 

3.

• The hair looks better here, the orange patches show darker areas and shadow. 
• An outline around the shoulders is still definitely needed. 
• I think I need to add some more detail to her face, particularly the creases in her skin. I don't want them to be too obvious and harsh so I will add these to the orange layer so they are more subtle than blue. Talking to the rest of my group, we realised that making the orange a but paler would benefit quite a few of our drawings but we will have to work on this during our session in the print facility. 

These are my two layers I need to trace onto the (photo emulsion?) paper in preparation for screen printing on Thursday. Layering these accurately to keep them in line was quite difficult so I added some registration marks which made this a bit easier. I had to adjust the positioning of some parts like the name badge to correct a few initial slip ups. 

Images layered up

The image looks simple which meets my initial proposal for how I wanted it to look. I hope this will work well as a screen print, I have realised that when the colours overlap, I may get a brown colour in some areas but I think this will make the image appear less flat and also give it a less 'digital' and perfected appearance. 

Experimentation with pattern and markmaking for background. 

I like the simplicity of the image but I think there might be a lot of white space in this book as a whole, and after feedback from Matt, I started to play around with the idea of a background. These small experiments made me realise I didn't want anything too heavy as this could detract from the image. I think the dots or dashes would be best. When reproduced the dashed marks using less pressure with the pen, it produced more delicate and playful marks which I felt were appropriate to the image. I plan to add these to the orange layer and I will avoid the area where the text is to create a vague white text box. 

I measured and drew out the two A3 rectangles, split them into eight boxes and drew the registration marks onto our group's (photo emulsion?) paper. 

My final drawings ready to take to screen print

Evaluation so far...

I feel I could have been more exhaustive with my ideas during the stage of experimentation with felt tip pens but I knew I needed to have the image completed by the end of the day so I needed to work effectively and make quick decisions to keep myself on track. I am pleased with the simple layout of my image but I could have made roughs of some more potential layouts to make sure that I wasn't missing something more interesting or appropriate. I think I have done well to get my head around the idea of screen printing today and how the images need to be prepared because this is a new concept to me.