Assignment !0: Self-Directed Project: In the Kitchen - Synonyms and spiders

After my initial look around, I decided to look more into the feel of the illustrations that are being requested. I picked out the adjectives from the brief and looked at their synonyms. This is often part of my process, but it seems particularly important here because I’m being asked to create something which is simultaneously both relaxed and dynamic. These two words seem to pull in opposite directions in terms of energy, so do they share any characteristics that I can illustrate? The words are: creative, relaxed, dynamic, fresh and inventive. I circled the synonyms that seemed most relevant  

 

I took all these words and inputted them into www.word art.com. I wanted to be able to visualise these words together, and the software allowed me to choose colours and shapes, so that it became a bit like a verbal moodboard. Interestingly, the colours I chose unintentionally reflected the thesaurus screenshots and my green circles, which was simply the colour I had last been using in Photoshop.

This was a helpful exercise because actually typing the words helped me to make connections in a way that just reading them hadn’t. The food-related ‘mint’, ‘crisp’, ‘raw’ and ‘green(s)’ were all synonyms for ‘fresh’. ‘Original’ occurred in two sets of synonyms. I found some resolution of the tensions between ‘relaxed’ and ‘dynamic’ in the word ‘lively’.

I then did some brainstorming. I made a spider diagram with thoughts clustered under the subheadings of: stages of process, media, theme, style and thoughts on some of the synonyms.

Again, simply by using the default settings of the software, my spider diagram shared the same colour palette as the rest of these visual musings!

After this I did some photography and had a bit of a break from the project. When I returned a week or so later, the idea that had stuck was ‘begin with an onion’ - by which I mean an illustrated article on world recipes that each begin with an onion, seeing as virtually everything I cook starts with chopping an onion. Also the words around ‘fresh’ above, because while I was away I was re-introduced to Hildegard of Bingen’s concept of ‘veriditas’ or ‘greening’ of vigorous new life and transformation.it occurred to me that green, in many of its shades, is a colour which is both relaxing and dynamic.

However, before that gem materialised I spent a rare bright November morning, the day before going away, taking photos of veg and spices. Here are the contact sheets.

Somehow the order of the photos got jumbled up when I uploaded them from the camera, which was the first of many of my frustrations with them, as I had taken the photos quite systematically on purpose so that I could group particular specimens or arrangements. Secondly, the light, though bright in a passage of days of flat grey gloom, wasn’t great as it overemphasised contrasts and saturations in a way I didn’t like. I have done nothing with these photos beyond a light touch edit of some of them. I could pick out a handful that I like but most of them I could delete with no sense of loss. This rather ground me to a halt, especially as I’ve been ill at the same time. 

Having revisited my research in order to blog it, I have dragged myself out of the gloomy place sufficiently to feel re-engaged with the project as a whole, and some of the ideas I’ve revisited in order to blog them. Here is a list of what I’ve gleaned from this process:

• Rough edges not squared frames
• Experiment with different media and surfaces, particularly drawing and collage
• Don’t be too figurative but don’t lose sight of the illustrating role
• The repeated presentation to me of a colour scheme of greens, yellows, oranges, reds
• Fresh and lively, veriditas, not autumn
• Original came up twice. Be original.
• Try cutting up the fruit and veg.
• Possibly recipes using onion
• Lighten up and find my sense of humour. I don’t have to match the sky
• Pull out those few decent photos and just forget the rest with no regrets.