Inside Illustration Competitions - Thomas James

I read a pdf of this short book by Thomas James. It gives a bit of an insight into illustration competitions, explains the general format and process although this does change between organisations. It also points out things to look out for and check before entering anything. 

Things to consider:

• How is the competition run?
• How is the judging panel chosen?
• What is the criteria they will be judging on?
• Is it worth my time and money?
• Is my work good enough to submit? Can I see it fitting in alongside past winner's work?

Illustrations are a good way of getting your work seen by people in high positions within the industry.  It allows you to access a wider and more relevant audience.

Things to look out for:

• Clear terms - rules, fees, judges...
• Rights - a fair competition ill give the artist ownership and rights throughout the duration of the contest, the company can only use the artwork in the ways stated in the terms and conditions.
• Award - if any rights to the image are handed over to the competition runner then there should be a fair exchange of an award. 
• Insurance - the artwork submitted to the competition should be protected and insured by the holder until returned, unless stated in terms and conditions. 

Lino / Mono Printing Tests

I found a book in the library called 'Wicked Plants' and it will be really helpful to me to learn about dangerous plants and plants that are used in poisons. I have done a few sketches of plants so far but need to produce a body of imagery around this theme so I have a lot to choose from when I am preparing my final designs for my prints. 

I wanted to see whether I could combine mono printing and linocut printing to create a more interesting outcome. This needs testing out so I cut out a small lino, around A6 size, I am concerned that this might be too small for a test because the level of detail in this linocut would differ greatly to a larger one. 

These are my firsts prints which I did with black block printing ink by just pressing down on them. I also did a couple with green acrylic but the quality was very poor. I used coloured pencil crayons over the black prints to see where I could apply ink through mono printing and I used the acrylic prints to see how I could apply a dark colour over light ink. 

I think the mono print idea could work really well, I like how the colour looks with the black and how certain aspects are highlighted and accentuated with the colour. I particularly think the unintentional textures which are left on the paper after a mono print will look really nice and give the flat quality of a linocut a bit more life and depth. 

These are a few of the lino prints I did in the print room with the proper inks and press. I have not considered colour properly for this project yet but I am thinking of working with green so I chose to work with this colour even though on reflection, this is probably not the kind of green I would use for my finals because the pale ones look too calming.

These are the results after mono printing onto of my lino prints.   

  

I think the most successful prints are the ones with the dark blue over the mid-tone green, especially the one on the first page of this publication, although they still don't have the impact I was hoping for. I think applying the dark blue to the very pale green drowns it out and the contrast is too high for the image to be easy to look at. I noticed that working on tracing paper (page 6) allowed me to add in loads more detail with less smudges appearing on the paper. This made me think about when a design like this is scaled up and the level of detail would be higher and more impressive to look at. 

Applying a light colour ink over a dark lino print didn't work out very well. The print on page number 7 smudged a lot and it looks like smoke rising from the objects. 

Page 10 onwards - these are mono prints I did and then printed my lino over the top of them, the opposite of the previous process. The lino has a lot higher impact so a lot of the mono printed parts were drowned out by it. An example of where this process has worked well is on the final page where I did a mono print of the bottle and then placed a stencil over this part when I lino printed so that it didn't get covered up with another layer of ink. I think this is something that could work but I would need to plan my linocut out with the intention of doing this, I wouldn't have to used a stencil, I could just cut the entire shape out of the lino so it didn't print. 

I noticed that the parts of the image with the strongest contrast attract the most attention so I would have to consider what colours to use and where to apply them to ensure the strongest contrasted areas are the ones that I want people to pay attention to. 

I am not feeling very confident about this process because there are only a few tests out of all of these which I think might have potential but none of them whatsoever have made me think that this is a really good idea and made me want to commit to this process. 

Next steps: 

- Decide on what scale I want to do my prints and print a small section (to scale) to get a proper idea of the level of detail I can include. 

- I need to check with the brief / tutors to see if all my prints would need to be identical if I continue with this process or whether I can mono print over each lino individually to make them all a little bit different but still have the same design. 

- Draw more plants from reference so I have more material to work with. 

- Establish a clear concept for each of my prints and start roughing. 

Project Proposal and Action Plan

In response to the overview of the project I did yesterday, I feel more confident in filling out my project proposal forms. 

Continuing on from this I produced an action plan which includes everything I will need to do (that I can think of at the moment) in order to complete this project. I feel like writing all of this down has given me a better idea of the timescale I am working to and how much I need to do each week to stay on track. There will probably be extra things that crop up along the way so I need to be prepared to do more work than is listed on here. 

Peer Feedback

I had a crit to talk about my project proposals, I felt like everyone in the group was pretty confident with their direction and it made me feel like I have made more decisions than I am actually aware of. I had been thinking that I was behind but actually I think I am in the right place for this point in the brief, I have a clear direction but still have some important decisions to make before reaching my final outcome idea. 

One thing I do feel behind on is the animation, ideas keep coming into my head but I'm not very good at writing them down and keeping all this information in one place. 

Advice on next steps:

Do some bigger roughs and get in more detail. 

Draw more plants, different media, different styles, find a process that will translate into print. 

Lino printing tests - more! and some to scale to give an idea of the detail to include. 

Monoprint over lino print to see whether it will work. 

Looking back at this feedback I realised I didn't really get anything back in regards to my sting. This is probably because I have been focusing more on my prints and this probably came across as the main thing I wanted to talk about. I am telling myself that I need to spend some time thinking about the sting and definitely need to start it before the Christmas break. 

Review so far...

Our next task is to fill in the project proposal forms for the prints and animation I am going to make for this project. To do this, I think I need to take a step back from my project and review what is happening with it. 

Main themes in my current work - the main themes I am working with at the moment are of death, lies, secrecy, betrayal, poison, jealousy, revenge and greed. These are all very harsh and negative themes which is making me produce some dark imagery. I feel that these themes could have been pushed a lot further to create some really evil, menacing pictures but I don't feel that this fits the overall tone of Agatha Christies writing. 

To me, this evil and wrongdoing is partially masked by the setting of quintessential villages in the English countryside, the large houses and gardens and the privileged lives of the wealthy. The fact that her books are so easy to read and the television adaptations of the stories are typical Sunday afternoon watching material makes me think that the dark themes should be kept as undertones to my work but the initial view should be appealing and decorative to look at. 

I think this idea also reflects Agatha Christie as a person because at a distance, she too appears like a stereotypical English lady of the countryside and coast but actually, she has the amazing intelligence and imagination to write these brilliant crime novels and has actually had an interesting life of travel and experiences. 

The imagery I am producing at the moment is dark but the dip pen drawing of the knight tangled up in vines and roses twigged an idea that I could use plants to show this more 'decorated' and typically English side to Christie. I could link this into the idea of an English country garden - this way, the plants would mask some of the evil going on in the picture but also still be relevant to the books. 

Continuing this idea, working with flowers and plants could link with Agatha Christie's great knowledge of poisons - this is something I would have to research. I think researching this and drawing from reference might help me to enjoy this brief again because at the moment I can feel myself slowing down. 

Overall, for this project, I really want to make some outcomes that I can put a lot of effort and time into and make something I am really proud of because this is something I haven't felt with my college work for a long time. I feel at this point in the course I should be making things I like and am proud of so I want to work really hard to mould this brief to fit around my own interests and what I like doing. Drawing natural forms such as plants is something I do enjoy so I think it would work well for me to combine this with the imagery of the chess pieces which I have so far. 

Monoprinting

Using the dip pen sketches I did the other day, I took the imagery from them, broke it up into smaller compositions and produced some mono prints. 

I don't think many of the compositions of these are particularly successful because the image was intended for a larger frame. However, there are a few which don't look awkwardly cropped such as the top left image of the vulture and the top image of the knight and rose. I think the one where the hand is stealing from the queen works well as a composition because it tells a story, however this doesn't solve the problem that it still looks like a cake. I think this idea could have worked well with more consideration of frame size, I think just showing a snippet of the image creates a sense of mystery because the viewer isn't being shown the full image. 

Responsive Lecture - Narratives

Winning designs have a clear embedded concept and not just be aesthetically pleasing. 
A clear concept can be told through narrative.
'If no one hates your work, then no one will love it' - Kessels. 
Strong campaign ideas work across a broad range of media.
Embedding a concept into a story makes it easily memorable. 
Ambiguity - hinting at something can be more powerful than outright telling. 
A story can make people want to be associated with a brand if you link the emotions to the meaning of it. 

The Storytelling Animal - Jonathan Gottschall. 

W. Herzog - Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Structure: protagonist faces antagonist, overcomes fears, born anew. 

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. 

Seven Story Archetypes

1. Overcoming the monster - a hero overcomes an obstacle with the help of a brand. An example being the Adidas advert featuring Mohammed Ali where he is the hero overcoming his own self doubt. 

2. Rags to riches - a brand elevating someone and transforming them or their lifestyle. 

3. Quest - a long hazardous journey where the hero travelling it channels the values of the brand. 

4. Voyage and return - travelling into the unknown and then returning home safe. 

5. Comedy - mistakes, misunderstandings, confusion, usually showing what could happen if you don't use the brand. For example, the 'should have gone to Specsavers' adverts. 

6. Tragedy - there is no happy ending, usually ends in loss or death. This tactic is most common in shock or charity advertising. 

7. Rebirth - a dark spell (the time spent away from the brand) and then breaking free. 

Why do we tell stories?

The Societal Reason - inbuilt survival instinct. 

The Rehearsal Reason - learning and practicing something through fiction to prepare you for real life. 

Information Retrieval - makes us remember something.

Psychological Reason - find balance, be healed, find sanity and harmony. 

TASK: Select a YCN or D&AD brief. 

Identify and apply an adjective relevant to the brand. 

What do the facts say about the brand?

Can you apply an emotion?

Communicate this as a story which highlights these points. 

D&AD Design Bridge Brief
Adjectives - confident, brave, equal, modern, powerful, forward-thinking, strong
Facts - must respond to issues such as gender stereotypes, body image, the environment and other beauty related themes. Forward thinking, inclusive of all. 
Emotion - liberated, free, acceptance, happiness, 
Story - Overcoming the monster, using the pressures of society and gender stereotypes as the monster that is stopping an individual from expressing themselves how they want. With the help of the brand, the individual can be strong by overcoming the ignorance of society and using the products to help them feel free and accepted in their own skin, ultimately leading to happiness. 

Critchen Feedback on Authors Brief

In this weeks crit session at home I just wanted some clarification of the ideas I had for my prints and some help with thinking about my animation. The feedback on the dip pen drawings I did was really positive. For me, this exercise was about staring to pull my ideas together and see how this could work and the positive feedback and the suggestion that I might just need to refine these ideas clarified in my mind that I am going in the right direction. One criticism I received was that the image with the hand stealing the pearl from the queen was the weakest of the four images, it was said that it looks a bit like a cupcake which I can totally see and understand. I do like the concept of this drawing though so I could maybe work on this to make the concept come across more clearly.

While discussing the ideas for my prints I thought that I could do three prints based on the designs discussed previously and then one larger print based on the image below which would tie these all together. This then progressed onto having the image below as the basis for my animation so that the animation showed more things happening whereas the prints were just focussing on one chess piece and the situation it is in. 

I think the main thing I need to think about now is which printing process / processes I want to use because this might affect the way I have to make my images.

I didn't have a lot to discuss this evening but I do feel more confident with the direction I am going in now I have received some positive feedback and some suggestions of how to progress.

Dip pen drawings

I needed a different media to work with to get my brain going again and I really wanted to draw something I would be proud of rather than scrappy little drawings everywhere. I felt like my thoughts were fizzling out for this project, but working with dip pens and ink have helped me to keep progressing with it. This was the first drawing I did, I roughed out the idea in my sketchbook and then started working with the ink onto a blank piece of paper. I want to just get my ideas out so I didn't sketch it beforehand. The outcome of this was different to all of my roughs but still had the visual elements I wanted to include. 

I like how this drawing looks incomplete but at the same time, it seems finished as a composition. I don't like the placement of the keyhole, I'm not sure if this piece even needs the keyhole because its themes are based more around evil, death and poison. 

As I was thinking of ideas for these pieces I was looking through my sketchbook to incorporate things from a while ago, I am trying to pull all my information together now and start to think about my final outcomes. This piece is based on the theft of the pearls in Death on the Nile but in general it is about wanting to take from the wealthy and superior because this is a common theme through a lot of Christie's work. I put the hand in gloves because it made it more clear that this act was a crime. The dome on the queen chess piece is in the shape of a shell to suggest secrecy and hiding things. 

I took inspiration from A Murder is Announced for this drawing. I thought about the torch beam which lit up parts of the room when the main event of the book takes place. The revolver was the weapon used in this attack so I have used the shape of this to show the cut into the top of the bishop piece. I don't think this is very clear in all honesty, it might work better with another theme and an object that is longer and thinner. I suppose the bishop in this is Mrs Blacklock because she is the one keeping the secret (hence the keyhole), I have used the idea of the torch beam to make a spotlight over her to show that she is at the centre of the events. This reminded me of the layout of a stage and curtains closing so I added the wilting violets (a subtle clue to the crime in the book) falling down around the chess piece and lying on the floor. I thought this mimics what happens at the end of a show where flowers get thrown - I thought this was a good way of showing how her actions are all a performance in the story and her life is just an act as she is pretending to be her sister who died. 

This drawing is based around the themes of love in Christie's stories. I was particularly thinking of the secret marriage of Ralph Paton and his step father's parlourmaid, Ursula, in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. The wedding ring is a key object in this story but I used it in the image combined with the rose vines to give a sense of entrapment. I added the keyhole to the eye to suggest that there is something to hide. 

I got really into the zone when I was working on these and it just showed that I needed a change to kickstart this project again. I am proud of what I have managed to achieve with these in such a short amount of time and I think I'm getting closer to the concepts for my final prints. I like how I can relate these to specific storylines but also, the themes of them are actually broad enough to cover the themes of Christie's writing and her life experiences as a whole. I want to scan these images into photoshop and see what they would be like in different colours. I also want to take sections of these images and mono print them to see what they would look like using a different process which is more relevant to the print requirement of the brief. 

Chess Image Research

I was feeling like I might be hitting a dead end with this brief and I was starting to question my decisions so far. Maybe this was because of my slightly disappointing screen print session or maybe just because I am starting to notice all the amazing work my peers are making. I need to snap out of comparing myself to others because it is not helpful! I researched how chess pieces have been used in imagery to get me thinking again but also so that I could recognise some clichés and try to avoid them in my own imagery. 

These bottom two images are more about how the image is made rather than the symbolism within it. It has made me think more about how I could construct the shapes instead of just drawing lines from reference. 

I didn't spend very long doing this and didn't go into much detail analysing them because my brain actually started working again and I wanted to get drawing. 

LCA Chsritmas Card Brief Submission

The brief requested an estimation of a timescale and costings because if I won, I would be responsible for getting the cards printed. This didn't take too long and it was a very rough estimate. In hindsight, I should have taken more time to research this and ask questions about how much of the materials would be my responsibility to buy (the envelopes for example). I identified this as a problem in my initial research for this brief but got carried away with designing and forgot to ask this question before it was too late. 

I am not entirely happy with my final design because I feel like I rushed it but it got to the point where I was deciding between submitting something which I might not have spent as much time on as I would have liked, or submitting nothing at all. I think I made the right decision to submit something rather than nothing. I think the reason I am questioning the success of my final design is because I am not used to working in this way without scanning in some of my drawings to work over. Because I am not familiar with working from start to finish on screen, I struggle to recognise the technical merit in anything I have done because I have a limited knowledge of layout and type and I find it hard to look past this when analysing my own work. 

The reasons why I like my design is because it is different to the analogue way I normally produce imagery and I have not over complicated the design. I often get carried away with fitting lots of different meanings into an image, especially with a brief like this where there were so many suggestions about what to include in it. In my sketchbook, I got  bit overwhelmed with trying to communicate all the different words from the brief and I noticed that the design was spiralling downwards so I left it, came back t it with fresh eyes and chose to simplify it right down. 

I feel I do work better under pressure and I did leave this brief to the last minute. When I say I work well under pressure, I probably mean that my work output is greater, however, I think my creativity suffers because of the pressure of finishing it before the deadline. 

LCA Christmas Card Development 2

Looking back at my sketchbook work from the other day with fresh eyes, I could see how I was overcomplicating this design too much. I think I am now thinking more realistically about the dimensions of the card because I realise that all the details I was hoping to include would be so small, they probably wouldn't be noticed anyway. 

I need to simplify it down because I don't have much time left now. I need to stick with the most important things I have so far - I think the light idea and using the college she is strong so I am going to go with that. I am thinking about this brief very differently to how I think about my module briefs, maybe this is because it is a short timescale or maybe its because I know my sketchbook and development work is not going to be marked so I am working much quicker and not recording every little detail of my thought process as I go. 

I have decided to take a risk with this brief and do something I normally hate doing. I am going to design the card entirely on screen which is taking me out of my comfort zone as I normally only use Photoshop to alter my hand drawn images. I am seeing this brief as a chance to do something different and see if it pays off. I think the digital look will also drive me away from the traditional and cliché Christmas card material that is programmed into my brain from years of hand making Christmas cards for family.  

I forgot to keep taking screen shots as I went but here are a couple from the process. 

This was close to the end of the designing process. I now need to think about layout and type which are things I don't have much confidence with. 

I am actually really impressed with myself that I have managed to make this image entirely on Photoshop. It might look like nothing to some people but I feel this is an achievement for me to show that I can do digital work directly onto a blank canvas. I can't say I enjoyed the process more than working in analogue - it can become very confusing having so many options and I found that Photoshop was sometimes dictating the direction of my design rather than the other way around. 

Responding to a Brief

Gather information about the problem - research!

Attack the problem. 

Drop the whole thing, do something else, let your subconscious work. 

Eureka!

Implement the idea. 

Consider the principles of a company. 

What are they trying to get out of it?

What do they stand for?

Branding - branding is about humanising and creating an emotional attachment between product and buyer.  (Dan Widen). 

What will my brand be? What am I about?

User experience - creating an experience across a range of media. Engage people through storytelling.

Ethics - don't be naïve! 

Consider location and target audience - a culture's influences affect the advertising method used to connect with them. 

The significance of the briefs I choose depends on my approach to them. How long will I spend on it?

What do your require from a brief from a friend or family member?

Technical spec, deadline, audience, budget, legality agreement, rights. 

By crit after Christmas... at least 1 brief needs to be finished, but not all briefs need to be finished. After then it is more based on collaboration. 

Brig some work to discuss to next session - 26th Nov. 

Things to look at 

Ad busters, YCN and D&AD, John Lewis briefs, Latino film festival, Infected by art, Quertee / Threadless

Screen Print Workshop

I prepared my screen printing positives last night so they were ready for today's workshop. This is what my design looked like on Photoshop. 

I then used the techniques learnt in the digital workshops with Mike Flower to separate the colours of my image and make sure they are printed in black toner on white paper. The one on the right will be the lighter colour which I will print first. The one on the left will be the second layer of colour, preferably black or a dark blue or green. I left my colour options quite open because I presumed we would be sharing screens and some I would have to share inks with someone else.

These were some of the outcomes from the workshop but all of them can be seen in my sketchbook. The printing of the first colour went really well but when I came to print my second colour, I notices some scratches on my screen where the light sensitive emulsion had been washed away where it shouldn't have. This created some streaks across the left hand side of my image which were printed in black.

The image on the left is probably my most successful print of the day because it is lined up well. I produced numerous others which were okay but the alignment was not spot on. You can clearly see the black marks on the left hand side where something happened to my screen. I am not sure how this actually happened because the printouts that I exposed were fine and I only noticed this when the screen was set up to actually begin printing. This was disappointing but it probably meant I was less precious about my outcomes and took more risks towards the end. 

I briefly tried printing on coloured paper. I actually really like how these have turned out. Because the brief states that it is two colours plus stock, I could have fun with adding another colour here through my stock. I like the aged look of the image on the left, it has made me start to think about old paper and consider textured surfaces to print onto. 

This was just some experimentation with creating confusion, printing the second layer upside down.

I was just playing around at the end with adding another colour into the printing ink.I tried to add a streak of pink into the black which you can see very faintly in the left image but didn't have the dramatic effect I was hoping for. The pink is stronger on the right but by this time I had run out of first layer prints to print on top of so this is just the top layer. By the end of the session my screen was clearly becoming clogged with printing ink and medium which meant the quality of my last few prints suffered a lot.

Overall, today's session has been enjoyable but I don't think that screen print is a process I want to continue with, especially not in this way. Although my design was hand drawn and then scanned in to photoshop, I think it lacks character so it might have been better to try this with hand drawn positives so it is a less digitised process. I haven't connected with this process as much as I have with linocut and mono print so I am most likely going to continue my experimentation with these. Since my experimentation with mono print I can see my work having a nice element of texture which I don't think could be replicated as I would like in screen print.