Final Image

Here is my final piece for the Extended Major Project unit. It took so long to create but I feel was worth it. I  had to cut everything on the image out with a craft knife. and everything has been drawn as well. A hard bit was attaching everything to the board. I decided to use double sided sticky tape as well as pritt stick to make it extra secure. I'm really pleased with the composition and where everything has been placed as I feel there's lots going on and lots of little detail but its not too crowded. I'm also pleased with my crowd as they are facing the stage and then there are also lots of people engaging in lots of different things such as eating at the food stools and enjoying the fancy dress competition. I'm happy with the fancy dress element of the picture as I feel it makes all the characters more intriguing and quirky to the viewer.

People

I've decided for my people I am going to find characters for my scene from photographs and edit them slightly on photoshop to give them a slightly distorted look. I will then print everyone out and draw round them in fineliner to give them a Pop-Art style effect and cut round them with a craft knife to add into my scene. Will post a pic up when its done!

Here's a layout of my objects on the board;

Drawing Time

I'm currently in the process of drawing all my items to go on my scene. I'm finding it a very painstaking process as once draw each tiny thing has to be coloured in (I've been using a mixed media of, pencil, felt-tip, a collage of different papers, glitter, fineliner, and metallic pen), then cut out with a craft knife to get a good finish. Here's some snapshots; 

My flags!

The Main Stage,

The Magic Wishing Tree etc..

L.S.Lowrey

I've been looking at some Lowrey paintings to try and get some ideas of how the perspective is going to work in my picture. I've even found some of a fairground/kinda festival scene which is good. I've noticed in some works he has his nearer characters larger and smaller characters furthur away and in other works everything in a painting is of similar size near and far.

In the Making

After deciding what's actually going to be in my picture, the starting point for my work was going to be the background. I wanted the work to be on a large board of fairly thick MDF. So I went to B&Q and bought a huge 4.3ft x 2.6 board. I then decided to wallpaper the board with textured wallpaper and painted in with acrylic paints to create the backdrop.

The next step was to plan out my shapes of the main stage, tents and other objects. I made them roughly with plain white paper to just get the sizing correct and then blu-tacked them on to check it all looked in proportion.

I decided these items are far too small for the board and won't look right at this size so I've made them again, but bigger!

B(f)estival

After having a big think, I've come up with the idea of doing a large festival themed mural based on my time at Bestival 2010. I had a really good time with the girls I went with, and there's lots of good memories. I'm going to have a look of some photos from the festival to gain inspiration of scenes, situations and people for my work. I'm undecided as of yet of how to create my final piece but I feel it will capture some unusual characters as well as the atmosphere of a festival experience. If it's a large piece of work, I want it to have a kind of where's wally-esque feel to it like theres lots of little things to notice!

Silke Werzinger

I've recently come across the work of Berlin-based illustrater Silke Werzinger. After looking through her website I was really impressed with her work-and the vast quantity of it. Her portraits in biro are really well done and in such a unique style, I also love her use of different media in illustrations. You can check out her website here;

http://www.silkewerzinger.de/

Being Critical

After my crit and chatting to my tutors I have decided that my 12 characters from my work are of good quality but I don't want them to be just standing in portrait fashion. It would be good if they were instead engaging in different activities and maybe interacting with each other. I'm now going to think of a new idea to get unusual characters together in a large space and have lots of things going on to make a busier picture with lots to look at. My next task is to think of where I could envision this and start working towards a more final idea. 

Eccentric

Here are my people!! - I took a photo! I'm pleased with the outcome of the line quality..I used ink and a quill to draw them, I think this gives the line quality a slightly non-perfect look which I prefer!

Snog.Marry.Avoid?

While I was watching T.V tonight I had an idea to get my unusual people to draw from Snog Marry Avoid. I want to pick a few favourite characters and do detailed line drawings of their crazy outfits, horrible make up and interesting hair. Will post up when there done!

Stuck...

Finding it hard to think of where I could find some unusual or eccentric people!!

When in Leeds

So here are my photos of my weekend, trying to capture the atmosphere, I think the photos do that, but everyone in them just looks not quirky enough to draw!

Extended Major Project Ideas!

I've decided for my Extended Major Project I am going to focus on University culture and the interesting characters you see when out and about. I want to try and capture unusually dressed, unique and edgy people to draw, if I manage to get some photos of funny situations aswell then even better! I'm going to Leeds this weekend for a rave so hopefully this will be a good opportunity to capture some photos so I'll have my disposable camera at the ready!

Uni Life

After thinking about university culture and the nights out, I wanted to create some collages which captured a sense of this, and the people involved. So I took some photos and got busy in my sketchbook. 

After finishing, I realise the brown paper isn't the best, and they would look better with a sugar paper background of maybe colours or just plain white.

Some Previous Work

Here is some previous collage work, I am really satisfied with the outcome.

It's A Ritual

After watching Planet Earth, I've found myself interested in Tribesmen and the rituals they all follow, I find it interesting to think that, even across two different cultures, on completely two different sides of the world and them being considerably more primitive compared to us, we both set out to do the same thing, impress everyone around us in social situations, by interacting in different ways. Tribesmen are known to dance in a circle competing with each other to impress female members of the tribe, by painting their faces and bodies in a special pattern and way. Whilst dancing for as long as they can stand, they show all their teeth with a big grin and made their eyes as wide as possible to make them more attractive to the opposite sex. This reminds me of something; the rituals of the west where we all get dressed up as best as we can, and go out to club to dance and sometimes try and impress members of the opposite sex. The same situation - just different ways of how this is done. Which led me on to thinking about university culture and all of our social interaction. Here's a little sketch from my book;