Assignment 4. Final Composition

This is my finished poster for this assignment. Following the sketches I recorded last time, I had a bit of a practice drawing blackbirds. 

It was a challenging shape to describe, but once I’d had a few goes I was ready to start my drawing.Here is the finished drawing, based on my years of observing blackbirds and my study of blackbird photos such as those on my moodboard. 

It was helpful to have identified the key colours before beginning the drawing. While I layered up many more colours of coloured pencil, my aim was to combine them in such a way as to convey the initial colour palette. For example, there was no deep blue or ultramarine in my colour selection, but both feature on the base layer of the blackbird and just peep through the grey, brown and black layered over them.

Next I took the drawing into Photoshop to make the rest of the poster. As planned, I tried both black and dark green, but neither of them looked right with the drawing. The colours below were the most successful. I chose the mid green as it picked up on the colour of the leaves, as well as following my original intention to use green based on the nature of the event and the demographic.

Next I added some text. I invented most of this - there is no such walk planned, or, as far as I know, an owner of this email address. I simply made up details that I would expect to see on this sort of poster.

I tried a number of fonts and colours for the text. I liked the yellow, but felt that it didn’t come to the fore enough, and, while it picked up on a colour from the drawing, it wasn’t prominent enough. It made me wonder whether I had made the image too big in relation to the information area. I decided to try different colours before making changes to the structure I’d chosen from my thumbnails. This worked a bit too well. I tried white and it looked too bright and prominent. I therefore chose a cream colour somewhere between the two, and this seems to work well. As for the font, I didn’t want anything too complex, but I did like the ‘W’s in Hoeffer, so I chose it.

During this whole process I was bearing in mind what I learned from my feedback on Assignment 2: that a poster needs to be simple, to be eye-catching among a number of other posters on a wall, and that it needs to convey information both clearly and in a way that will be attractive to its audience. Looking at this poster, I could have made the image simpler, for example by using a line drawing. However, I do like the way that it captures the sky at dawn, and people in walking groups, at whom such a poster would be aimed, would, I think, appreciate the colours and style. The image is simple in that it shows one bird and a few less prominent background elements. I was thinking about the visual hierarchies, and the bird, but also the sky, were important to the drawing. The information seems to work well on its plain background, in contrast with the more complex drawing.  I like the composition of the title being at the bottom in large letters. It says what it is, then the details, while smaller, are accessible and sit between the ‘first impression’ elements of image and title.

Overall I’m happy with how this went. On reflection, I would have done better to develop a few other approaches to the drawing style; however, I think that if I had done that, I may well have chosen to draw this way anyway, as it’s how I usually draw and, while I want to develop my style, such developments can only really grow out of where I am now.