Vectors

   Finished vector drawings! The colours on the file saved slightly off as a JPEG, but I like some of the colour combinations that ended up happening, like the bright turquoise against the yellow.
The second one is based on an observational drawing I did of me drawing, and the old man is a mash up between the man slumped in a chair at nero, and my fisherman character! I am a sucker for cute old men with majestic beards.
   As I did them I got a lot faster, because I started learning key shortcuts and how to move the mouse more accurately. I spoke to kerry about them, and we were concerned that they wont fit in with the rest of my exhibition, which will be mainly hand made prints. So, I will try to hand make these as well using water based media like watercolour and inks. Throughout this course I have worked hard to improve at these as they are what I enjoy working with the most, so it would be a good chance to put everything into practice. A big plus of this is that because it will be in traditional media I won't be restricted to block shapes, as I can add lines and patterns a lot more flowiness to the piece.

A3 prints finished!

   All four layers are finally done! I am so happy with how they turned out. I made 8 so there was room for changing colours and mistakes if some were misprinted, so I ended up making 3 that were a completely different colour palette, and honestly they were my favourite. The original colours were meant to be green, orange, pale yellow and dark brown, but I changed the dark brown to black, and then did some ones with prussian blue.

   The prussian blue ones are nicer because the lines are much less harsh than the black, and it gives a more subtle finish. Then I did a set with pale yellow, pastel pink, bright pink and prussian blue. This colour palette is a lot more lively and illustrative like an image from a book, and these prints were more aligned as well with no misprints. This is probably the one I will put in my exhibition. This is the most ambitious lino print I have done, and I think I pulled it off! 

First layer test print, with just the highlights.

3rd layer test print, adding details like wood grain and a picture frame.

Final prints! The blue shows up much better in person c:

Collograph printing

   I was inspired by a few artists, like Monster Riot, to try collagraph printing, where you build up layers to print rather than take them away like in lino printing. I wanted to print the fisherman from my paper cuts, but I wanted to be able to change the colour of each piece, so I made each part separately. I also printed over collaged grounds, which didn't go well because the print was already so complicated that adding a collaged BG was just overpowering. I think these prints could also be changed into vector drawings on illustrator.

   I'll probably but some of these in my final exhibition, as long as they fit. If I do this again I will need to paint the surface with thicker PVA and more layers, because after a couple of washes they started falling apart, so I was limited with changing colour.

Flowers make it extra aesthetic for instagram

Maria and the Fishermen

I have finished the first vector drawing! It took a while but i'm happy with how it came out. I chose the colours based on the outfit she was currently wearing, but ill probably mess around with the colours at some point later. The hands were the hardest part because they were so fiddly, but I saved them on a separate file so I can reuse them.

I also worked more on my paper cut drawing technique, and made some cute hipster fishermen characters. I used a combination of found papers and printed grounds to collage them, cutting out individual parts to build up the image. I think my problem before with papercut drawings is that I used the rush them, as I would get impatient, but today I took my time and made some decent paper cuts for the first time.

Lino prints

A small selection of 2 colour lino prints

   So far I have done two lino print designs from the A2 ink drawings I did. Getting the flowiness of the ink drawings to translate into lino is very difficult, and instead it gives a more structured, illustrative effect.
   By doing lots of prints I saw that just by changing the colour, the images can have complete opposite moods and interpretations. The orange girl for example looks more happy than the one in grey, which looks a lot more melancholic. Also, the green coffee mug reminds me of a science experiment, with bubbling chemicals, but the yellow one reminds me of sweet honey.

Starting Vector Drawing, and painting characters!

    I started a vector drawing today based on one of the lino prints and cafe drawings I did. I am new to the software so using illustrator is a learning curve, but it is coming along nicely. Hopefully the more I use it the faster I will get, because it is taking a while to complete this piece. The plan is that she will be holding a cup of tea, relating to the mindfulness research that I have done in my project previously, and she will look very relaxed. I want to do more of these, so that I can maybe have a set for my exhibition. The good think about vector drawings is that I can blow them up to any size, making using the digital printer a possibility. I could make them into posters and even frame them!

   Also today I finalised my character designs for my A3 print, so I can get printing that ASAP! It will be 4 colours; Orange, yellow, green and dark brown, inspired by the special ramen we had at Wagamamas! They should pay me for all of this advertisement, or at least give me free ramen...
   I ended up making the lady look more like the Yubaba lady that I drew at the bus stop, because the original just looked weird to me, and she looked kind of severe, like a harsh wife. I want her to be cute and relaxed looking! The end result looks much more like I planned; A nerdy hipster woman who probably has a million cats, and her husband just lets her because if it wasn't cats she was spending her money on, it would be expensive hand printed silk scarves...

composition tests

Today I worked on various compositions that I can use for my final A3 print. I used a lot of methods to do this so I could also experiment with techniques and materials. The first one was a monoprint with emulsion over the top.

  The emulsion kind of ruined it in my opinion, so I took these and photocopied them in black and white to collage them. I really love work that uses this technique but I am not very good at it, though I would like to be, so practice makes perfect!

After I collaged I overlaid the two using bypass printing. I really like how these came out because the overlapping materials created interesting patterns, but the drawings were still visible underneath, without the ugly emulsion smeared all over it. Tried sewing into one of them also, but getting straight lines is impossible! How do fashion students do it?!

   With some more photocopies I also put ink on them, then cut them out to make more collages, overlaying them with patterns made by printing with found packaging. I think the one where there is 4 sat around a desk looks very ominous, like a very serious meeting, or a group of cannibals at a dinner party.. I really like the composition of the other one though, how they aren't on the same level but still opposite. This is probably the one I will use for my A3 lino