FMP reflection

My last year of University has definitely been my most successful. I really feel that I have been able to concentrate on the areas of illustration that interest me the most, predominantly being collage. After making my large scale collages for negotiated study, I really felt as if I had finally grasped the direction that I wanted to take. Creating images for existing text and literature is something that I have thoroughly enjoyed and has allowed me to create a body of work that i find encouraging and this has worked out well for me. Since exploring children's literature, I intended to create collages that would aim to interest children in a visual way, and therefore inspire them to read the book. From taking traditional stories such as The Wizard of Oz etc, I have been able to recreate these well known stories in a new way. I feel that my collages have been successful in this, from my use of bright colours, textures and characters it has given it my own personal style. Through research I discovered that some of the books that I have chosen to create images for do not have many pre existing art works for them. I found this exciting as it gave me the opportunity to create something new. Keeping all of this in mind, I still felt that it was important that I would create collages solely from the text, and not be influenced by film adaptations and so on. This was important to me, because after reading the books, it was often quite apparent how different the films were to the original text. I discovered many things in the text that I wasn't previously aware of from seeing some of the films. For example, one of my biggest shocks was the fact that Dorothy's slippers in the book weren't actually read, they were silver. Overall, I feel as if my collages are recognisable to the stories, as well as offering a contemporary perspective on the story and its characters. I have really enjoyed this project especially the element of independence and self direction it has only added to my enthusiasm about later projects I can embark on. Given the time I had to complete my FMP I feel I have truly made the most of it, although in situation where there is no time constrictions I could later have considered turning my collages into material objects, that could be to exhibit or sell. This has been a great end to my time at University, I have learnt so much over the past three years, the tutors have always been understanding, helpful, critical and positive. I am glad that I am finishing my time at University and going out into the big bad world feeling more positive and confident with myself and my work.

What Next?

Thinking ahead to the future after University is a very daunting thought. When I finish University I will be moving back home to get a job and save up to go travelling. Creating art journals whilst travelling is something that has always appealed to me so being able to achieve this is a very exciting thought! Travelling is something that I have always wanted to do, and now is the best time I believe. Whilst saving I aim to keep pen to paper, and to try and get small commissions here and there to keep the artistic flow going. After travelling I hope to become a freelance illustrator, and hopefully move to a new and exciting city.

Being in a creative collective would be very fun and is something I hope to be involved with. Back where I live I know a few people that have also studied illustration/art/are very talented, so being involved in a creative collective is definitely something I could discuss with people and make happen. Also, my friend from home is thinking of starting up her own gallery and screen printing business, so being involved in a new project like that and being able to exhibit in the new space will be an exciting new opportunity, and hopefully will help me create some new connections and meet new like minded people and employers.

After my FMP my main aim is to create my own website so that my online presence is more accessible. I have never been into blogging, but since having this presentation document for my FMP I have come to realise that it is actually quite fun, and also that it is very important for people to be able to have easy access to my work and know what I have been up to and how I am progressing. Having an online presence can also help you meet new people and create new contacts, so having a website and maybe even an online shop is something that is important to me, and is something that I wish to achieve over summer. 

Studying Illustration at Southampton Solent University has been stressful, rewarding and fun. I wish to continue learning and utilise the skills that I have learnt over the last three years, and eventually make Illustration my full time career.

Three Remaining Weeks

For the three remaining weeks I am going to work as hard as I have ever worked. My original aim was to create 10 collages, but i'm really determined to create 12, so that I have a good selection to be marked and a good selection to chose to exhibit. I have a tutorial with Jonny on the 16th, so I want to have at least 10 collages finished by then so that he can help me chose which ones to get printed. I aim to drop off my memory stick at reprographics no later than the 22nd, as that gives me 8 days to have them printed and mounted. However I most definitely want to try and get them in before that time, and I am confident that if I put my mind to it I could try and make a collage every two days, maybe even less. I am hoping that I will be able to do my reading and research in that time as well. I have a few books in mind that I want to do next; The Little Mermaid, A Childs Garden of Verses (poetry), Pippi Longstocking, Pinocchio, Mary Poppins and a few fairytales. 

Logo design for publishing company

As part of this project my course leader wanted me to create my own publishing company/branding to make sure that my posters had a purpose and a tying link. As you will have seen previously, I have been doing a bit of research into popular and well known publishing companies to get an idea of what sort of branding they use on their publications. 

Above are a few quick logos I made on photoshop. I wanted to keep them simple and bold. Graphic design isn't one of my strong points what so ever so I found this quite hard and my outcomes aren't too great, but in my tutorial today Louise said it would be nice to include one of my characters or items from my collages, so I went ahead with this idea. (She suggested the bear, and the watermelon is something I've always re used for things to do with self promotion). 

Below are three different collages with three different examples of logos.

Although the idea of branding is exciting and inventive, I am not sure that I will be using any form of logo on my final prints, especially not on the ones that I will be exhibiting. To me they disrupt my artwork, I think I would like to have my final images as stand alone pieces that are my representation of the books. Also I like to hope that the reoccurring style of the images means that they look like a collection without having the logo to link them.  

Tutorial with Louise

Today I had a tutorial with Louise. I showed her my final collages on my blog and my sketchbook work. Louise said she liked the collages, but wasn't keen on the bright white background, so said to maybe consider having them an off-white or a buff colour (I had to google what a buff colour was when I got home) so that it is a bit softer on the eye. She also said to me that I should try doing more book work for my remaining collages, which I do agree with. I'm one of those people who does their research then likes to get stuck straight in with the making, but I will definitely be aware of the advice and put it in to action from now on.

Above is a photo of my A3 display folder for my hand-made objects that I have scanned in for my collages. I plan on printing out all my collages (on the normal printers just for the sake of this folder) and putting them along side their sheets of objects. I thought that this would be the best way to display the original pieces of art work, and putting them alongside the finished artwork will show them in context.

Also, my friend for his FMP has created a publication targeted towards employers and creative industries recruitment agencies. He asked me if I could submit a few pieces of work for the illustration section. Below is a photo of my double page spread in the magazine, as well as the link to his online magazine.

http://issuu.com/charlieleedouglas/docs/final_glvnz_issuu_smallpdf.com_

"Hullaballoo" end of year catalogue/newspaper

Instead of having an end of year catalogue this year, we have decided to try and break the cliché and make a newspaper instead. The title of our newspaper is "Hullaballoo". After doing a bit of research, it came to my attention that the term hullaballoo is normally used in quite a negative manner..

- Great noise or excitement; uproar.

- loud confused noise, esp of protest; commotion

- a clamorous noise or disturbance; uproar. 

This threw me off a bit, as I thought the word was used to describe a celebration. So for my page in the newspaper I thought that I would compile items from my collages to create a sort of 'commotion' on the page. I wanted to use items together that didn't really make sense, to make the image look quite chaotic. I'm not sure how well it is going to print in CMYK on newsprint, but fingers crossed it will look ok.

Creative CV

We are required to make a creative CV before we leave university. Below is mine, I have never made a creative CV before so wasn't quite certain what to include, so it will be tweaked before I actually send it to possible employers. 

Pick Me up - Somerset House

Last week there was a university trip to the Pick Me up graphics/illustration fair in London's Somerset House. I had never been to the event, and I must say it wasn't what I was expecting at all. It was good, but in my head I was expecting there to be a lot more than what there was. However, the artists work that I did see was amazing, and the whole experience was very inspiring, especially seeing the collectives. I didn't take many photos, as I thought it seemed a bit rude taking photos then not actually buying anything.

Whilst browsing the book shop in Pick Me Up I came across two books by Dahlov Ipcar, called "I LIKE ANIMALS" and "THE WONDERFUL EGG". The illustrations were absolutely beautiful, I love the animals and colours. The book was published by Flying Eye Books, so had that horrible yet kind of nice smell to them. I think they'll be on my to buy list. Below are a few examples of the two books.

Influences/Inspiration - Eric Carle and Henri Mattise

Eric Carle's book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" was one of my favourite books as a child, and his artwork recently came back to my attention when researching collaging and children's illustration. I love his work and his use of collage, he is very successful at characterisation and his colours are attractive. His style has been very inspiring to me, especially when I have had to create characters. Below are a few examples of his work that I have came across whilst researching.  

Henri Matisse

Henry Matisse's paper cut outs are beautiful, and the shapes of leaves and plants inspired some of the shapes I made for my jungle collages. There is currently an exhibition on at the Tate modern, but the ticket prices were slightly too pricey for my budget for the trip to London.

COLLAGES SO FAR/EXHIBITION IDEAS

 

Here you can see all my collages as a collection. So far, just from looking at them, I think I'd like to see the bottom three as well as Alice In Wonderland all printed out together as a set of four, or, the top three and the jungle printed out as a four. 

For my exhibition, I aim to select 6 collages from a collection of 10 (maybe 12, thats my confident aim) and have them printed professionally on to art paper, then mount them on mount board, and attach them to the wall with velcro. I will display them in two rows of 3 (as seen above) all A3 size (depending on exhibition space). I want to keep the layout simple and orderly. I could maybe even do 3 rows of 3 collages if 9 of them work well together. I am having a tutorial with Jonny next week so I will discuss and finalise this idea with him then, and then I can get straight to reprographics to get them printed ready to mount! 

Branding/Logos Research

 

Above are a few publishing companies logos I have been looking at for inspiration. Creating a logo that is simple yet iconic is quite hard in my opinion, as graphic design isn't exactly my forte. I want to create a logo that is simple and small, and wont distract attention away from my busy collages; it will need to be an appropriate size and shape to slot in a corner. Subtle advertising is something I have always personally preferred when looking at artwork that accompanies text, such as posters, book covers etc, as the artists work should be given a chance to do the eye catching. Below are a few very quick/messy ink drawings, brainstorming how I might want the logo to look. I decided to use my surname as it made the most sense to choose, seeing as its my artwork.

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum

For my next book I decided to chose "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. Like many of the other books, as a child I had seen the film many times, but had never actually read the book. This is one of the books that I actually properly read start to finish, as I actually quite enjoyed the story. I haven't seen the film in years, so couldn't remember anything that happened apart from the cyclone at the start, the main characters, and the horrific flying monkeys of course. The fact that Dorothy's shoes aren't actually red in the book was the biggest shock. As usual I read through the book and jotted down the imagery that most caught my attention. I'm actually really sorry about the ink drawing, but you get the idea (I hope). 

This is my final image for "The wonderful Wizard of Oz". This collage contains a lot of green, as some of my favourite parts were the descriptions of the Emerald City.

"Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson

So far most of my collages haven't been very 'boyish', so I decided to pick a book that offered imagery that would appeal to a male and female audience. "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson is never been a book that I've particularly been aware of, the only reason I recognised the name when researching was because of Muppet adaptation that I saw as a child. I will admit that I didn't read this book, as reading about pirates and treasure islands does not interest me in the slightest, however I did do a lot of reading on the internet to get a good idea of the book. With this book the imagery was always going to be the obvious pirate themed things as I expected. Below are some quick notes and ink drawings to get me started.

I like this collage as it is slightly different to the others. Although I have been using the same printed sheets of paper that I made at the start, the colour pallet for this collage does differ to the others. I feel like the use of reds and blues does give this collage a slightly more boyish theme. I want my work to appeal to a wide audience of all ages and genders.

"Alice In Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll

"Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll has always been a book that I've wanted to read. I read this book from start to finish as I enjoyed it as soon as I started reading it. Some parts were a bit boring but being a book based on a fantasy world I found that reading about the imagery was exciting and I could imagine how I wanted some of the objects/characters to look already. Below are a few quick sketches and the majority of the original collages before I compiled them.

Sorry about the quality of these, I screen shotted them a bit too small. So far this is probably my favourite collage. The colours, strange objects and characters make the collage look bit more chaotic compared to the Jungle book collage for example.