Week 4 Tutorial and timetabling

I had a really productive tutorial with Neil about my ideas and how to take them forward. We talked about the ideas that I thought I could expand and explore and which ones would suit me best. I explained about my previous blog post and the idea of joining the two projects together. We discussed how this could be a good possibility but I should treat the idea as two separate projects and just keep the idea that they could naturally merge and over lap - and if this did happen it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but it's not something that I should force either. As well as this I developed a schedule, one that could be adapted and changed, but would show what I wanted to achieve and a rough idea of how week by week so I had a program to stick to. Below is my two project titles and discriptions as well as my schedule (Hey you might be interested - you never know!)

Final Major Project(s)

After a tutorial with Neil in week four we came to a conclusion as to the two main concepts from my brain storms of what would be the most promising and practical ideas for me to explore for Final Major Project. The two ideas are as follows:

The Joy Of Words

-Exploring the concept of beauty and vanity through language and words such as quotes, poems and lyrics and using these pieces of literature to reflect on the practise of modern day tattooing and how tattooing and body modification relates to beauty and the way people perceive it.

Lady Ink

-          A portraiture concept looking at female characters I personally find interesting and the tattoos they have chosen to have – using this as a basis to reflect on how their tattoos relate to their character and personality as well as their normal everyday lives – What do these women have to say about themselves and their tattoos?

Rough schedule

Week 4 (now) – Research and planning – exploring how I will direct these projects in regards to subject matter. Finding inspiration, ideas and concepts to explore in relation to the project and developing a strong basis to develop from.

Week 5 (Formative Assessment) – Research and identify key aspects to develop for both projects. Identify forms and quotes (etc.) on beauty and vanity and relate them to tattoos. Explore how motives and emotions form opinions on both concepts of beauty and feelings towards tattoos. Brain storm ideas of what comes to mind from these ideas and what ideas develop for possible illustration ideas. Also identifying women with tattoos and approaching them and exploring/interviewing the women. Talking to the women about their tattoos and their personality and their opinions and how this relates to illustration and my project. Looking at what could develop from this portraiture inspired project and how it could develop.

Week 6 -Research and experimenting – Continuing research and development of ideas and concepts. Making mock ups, sketches, and observations and trying out ideas for viability and practicality.  Starting experimenting with certain medias to find methods that will work in harmony with the projects and create thoughtful and well-presented thumbnails and mock ups of different experiments, evaluating what was successful and how ideas and experiments could be improved and developed. Practical research of relevant artists, pieces of work and exhibitions as well as creating images, typography samples and miniature portraits to help identify  and define style and possible creative processes to develop.

Week 7 – Refining experiments and concepts. Using research and previous experiments to confidently identify what could look best and be the best to use. Re developing successful ideas and refining experiments that I would like to further develop into successful methods to display the subject matter for both projects successfully.

Week 8 Personally evaluating and reflecting on work so far. Record any weaknesses/areas to be improved and explore how to develop and strengthen them. Preparation for looking at possibilities for finished products and the form(s) they will take and analysis how successful they will be as pieces of work and answers to the project(s).

Week 9 Engage in developing ideas for final pieces. Exploring ideas relating to layout, focal points, typography and media. Evaluate how practical these ideas are and how well they can be developed as final pieces. Think about size, definition and detail within the images and how they will be presented.

Week 10 Define and prepare final ideas. Double check the viability and scope of the pieces – define how they will be successful and why. Start creating defined line drawings, colour concepts and typography concepts – mind boards for every image in both projects.

Week 11 Sucessfully finish confident and defined mock ups for one image in each project with mini mock ups done for any other images. Focus on consistency throughout the images for each project and strength of both projects individually.

Week 12  Create Final Images & how they will be presented

Week 13 Create Final Images & how they will be presented

Week 14 Evaluate final images and the project as a whole. Reflect on what was most successful, what could have been improved and any scope for the future. Final vlog overviewing the project as a whole and reflecting on the process.

Brave New World Development.

With Brave New World I really struggled gaining inspiration for the illustrations. With the aid of a study guide (as well as reading the book through) I picked out key aspects of the book that stood out to me and began some research to give me some inspiration and ideas. The main aspects of the story that particularly stood out to me were: 

-The children with the flowers and then being shocked

-The Savages and their care for their children

-The lighthouse

The Images below are some of the key bits of inspiration that I found that influenced me and gave me ideas to develop. These images are NOT mine.

Examples taken from the Folio Society to help me with the cover ideas. This part still hasn't yet been completed as I'm still struggling with the layout, though I do have ideas for it...

The lighthouses were for inspirations for the lighthouse at the end of the book. I chose to look at old school tattoo styles ones as it's a style I enjoy doing and thought that it would help create the clear images and lines I wanted in my work.

I really liked the idea of making the mother savage and her child religious in their pose. I thought this would be interesting as religions like Christianity no longer existed in the world and I thought this reflection of religious influence in the piece would work with the theme. 

I chose to have the savages faces similar to that of the New Zealand traditional tattoos as it mean I could show they were "savages" thought the use of traditional tribal tattoos without hiding their faces under big masks as described in the books.

The style of the below image really inspired me, especially with the pen tones as I love working in pen. I also liked the use of the roses as I wanted to use them in my work because they represent what is no longer in the world and is encouraged as bad to the children, as the rest of nature.

The below image inspired me as I liked the used of watercolour in the background and how the different tones blend with a "natural" feel to them. I really liked this as it's a similar effect of what I wanted to acheive in my pieces, especially around the sea on the lighthouse illustration.

The above ideas are things that caught my eye, be it style, tone, layout, colour and so on.

Finally, after a few too many cigarettes I jotted some ideas down for multiple ideas and I  started moving!