One Week Book - Research

Examples of sketchbook work - observation drawing of people in Greggs and other cafes. 

Conversation and things overheard:

Greggs sales assistant: "Ooh are you feeling festive?"

Man's phone conversation: "Yeah?...Greggs...Town...Opposite River Island." He then got up and left.

Conversation with owner of 'The Smoothie Company: 

"I bought it in the recession, if you want to be stable go into the food business."

(When asked about large chains such as Greggs) "Luckily, we're okay but its getting more of a problem."

"It kills you when someone comes into your shop with a Costa Coffee."

"Gail's the lady who cooks all the brownies."

(When asked about his weirdest customer experience) A man ran into the shop and desperately asked "You sell cake!?"

Online research:

Quotes from an article about Greggs in The Telegraph

Drawing from my photographs:

I feel these results are better than my drawings done whilst out and about - I found it difficult to find a comfortable place to sit or stand and draw. I was disappointed I couldn't find somewhere I could sit for a while and focus solely on drawing because I usually enjoy drawing people going about their day to day business. 

When we got back to the studio, we collectively looked at everyones research from the day and decided which quotes, images and experiences we were going to take forward and put into our final book. I made a small mock-up of a hotdog book so we could see what the layout of the A3 sheet would need to look like. Someone suggested drawing a map of our journey and as this idea started to develop, we thought that this would make an interesting front and back cover - the same image folded over both sides would be an effective way of tying the images in the middle together. We realised that we had four images relating to Greggs and only two relating to independent shops but we realised this fits in with the fact that Greggs are so much more common - it gives the impression that they are taking over to book as well as taking over the city of Leeds. 

The image I need to work on is of a lady called Gail who works at 'The Smoothie Bar' who we found out makes all the brownies in the shop when we were talking to the shop owner. She seemed like a a friendly and happy lady so I want to portray this in the image I produce.

Summary - what we found out today