The Word Becomes Art

This is an interesting assignment in that, as I understand it, we’re not being asked to create any finished pieces. It’s a task about composition and relationships. In the first part we source black and white photos of a tree, a child walking or running, and a building, each of which we are to reproduce in different sizes. The task is then to arrange these elements in different ways and in different sizes in about five different ways, and then answer a series of questions about them.  Having chosen images that appealed to me via Google image searches, I cropped them closely but I didn’t cut around the shapes - this would have been very complex in the case of the tree, for example. I did white out the corners of the hut image because they seemed more problematic in that they got in the way of the images more than I felt the backgrounds of the other images did. I don’t think the exercise required more than that level of editing in order to see the effects.  Here are my compositi...

  This exercise was fun. We were asked to create a mood-board on one of a choice of four themes  I chose the theme of Nature   As with each of the themes, Nature is huge, with millions of possibilities for creative work  I decided to narrow things down by taking one of my photos of my local park as a starting point. I gathered some papers and fabrics in greens and browns, choosing some which reminded me of the texture of bark  I also printed an image of bark that I liked, as well as some leaf shapes and a sketch of a tree in pencil  I drew some rather flamboyant grass and was interested to see how different it looks vertically, the only space I could find for it! While there weren’t any flowers in my photo, I thought that they could have made an interesting focal point, so I included some flowery and some yellow fabric too. It was strange to create a mood-board with no purpose in mind. It’s hard to know how useful this gathering has been when I don’t know w...

The feedback from my tutor was mostly good. I did at least remember that I had learning objectives this time! The main criticism really was that my finished pieces were not much like posters. As the assignment was to create three posters, this seems to be quite a fundamental flaw! My tutor said that my first poster would make a good editorial illustration, and we agreed that my second poster was more like a book spread. The final poster was quite poster-ish, but could also be simplified. She asked me to imagine each poster juxtaposed with other posters on other themes, and how well they would communicate. The main point really is to simplify.  I think my tutor is too nice to me. She seemed reluctant to offer criticism and my feedback form was really positive. I needed to prod her a bit to get to the nub of the poster issue. It’s good to get balanced feedback and I appreciate the encouragement, but I do also want to learn and improve.  I’ve never really dealt much with posters....

For this exercise we were asked to create a spider diagram for each of the following words: travel, childhood, angry, underground and community. As part of our diagrams we were invited to look at definitions, synonyms and images. I incorporated definitions and synonyms into my spider diagrams but kept a record of relevant images by screenshot as there didn’t seem to be a satisfactory way to incorporate more than a handful of images into the spider diagrams themselves. For the diagrams I used the SimpleMindPro app.  Travel A   A For this and subsequent themes I used the Google image search terms firstly of just the word, then of the word plus illustration. Childhood Angry Underground Community Reflection We were asked if anything surprised us. I was surprised that I managed to remain engaged with this process through all five mind maps. It was tedious having to keep repeating the same process. I was, however, re-engaged by each new word. Something that wasn’t really surprising ...

 For this exercise we are encouraged to look at the world around us and begin a collection of ephemera and other people’s work in order to be culturally aware and find sources of inspiration.  I decided to create an album in my photos app where I could gather and scroll through such images, being able to find, refer to, follow up and organise things more easily than flipping through a physical scrapbook. I use photos in this way a lot so it feels like a good way of interacting with and storing images.  I began with searches on 2022 trends for graphic design and illustration and meandered around the internet, taking screenshots of things that interested me. I’ve also begun to add in some ephemera in the form of photos of some Christmas cards I’ve held onto because I’m interested in them, for example, two cards in different formats with different backgrounds featuring the same illustration and used by two different charities.  Here are screenshots of images I’ve gather...

I don’t know why, but for some reason we were asked to do this exercise on loose sheets of paper. I have no system for storing loose paper so it’s a bit annoying, however I suppose I can just recycle them once I’ve uploaded the pages here. It was also a slightly annoying exercise, given that we’ve now been working in sketchbooks for two projects already, and that I’ve been choosing and buying sketchbook for decades. Anyway, here are my answers for what it’s worth.

  I looked with some measure of horrified recognition at this photo in the course notes. In a place I used to live my table looked very much like this. I had a spare room that I used as an art room and I could close the door on it and walk away without first having tidied up. In theory I could have made quite large scale art in there, but I always found myself working in a few square inches amid the chaos of art materials from several pieces of work. Either that, or, more often than not, I would shove a load of stuff into a carrier bag and take it to make art in bed. Things are quite different now, although I do still make art in bed at times, particularly when I’m unwell and in pain. Frida Khalo painted in bed so I’m following in a good tradition.  Frida Kahlo working in bed, 1952. Photo by Juan Guzman. Here is my bed. One of the reasons I don’t work in the same place all the time and leave things out is Martha, pictured here. The other is Zoe. They both have very curious paw...

  This is the finished Visual Poster, using some of the visual elements that distinguish my work already as well as some new ones which I hope to use more.  I enjoyed making this, and it’s good to see again something that looks like it was me who made it. I’m pleased with how it’s turned out, with the one exception that I don’t think the brush pen was the right choice of medium for the border as it has come out a bit streaky. I should have taken the bull by the horns and got out the acrylics and the dreaded paint brush! The reason I didn’t break out the acrylics is shown here. I wanted to incorporate influences from Art Nouveau and so I had to get out the ruler, set square and pair of compasses! I’m sure that all this measuring and precision is not good for my soul! By the time I had drawn it all out and rubbed out the marks and mistakes, I didn’t want to spoil it and have to do all that measuring again! As I’m not very confident with the paintbrush I went for the safer option...

 When I first read the brief for this poster I needed to read it through a few times to make sure I understood it. The underlining of key words and phrases really helped with this. Briefly, my understanding is that the aim is to explore and then put into the poster the visual elements, styles, movements, etc, that we’re interested in and that influence - or that we would like to influence - our creative style.  Again, I worked this through predominantly in my sketchbook, having looked at some of my books and researched further online. It may be my age, but I find that I can think things through and combine words and images more easily in my sketchbook rather than ‘thinking aloud’ online. For me, a blog is more to bring finished work rather than a space to collect ideas. Therefore what follows is photos of my sketchbook without further comment, except to say that these photos of my sketchbook are continually below the standard of photography that I expect of myself and I need t...