Project proposal

OUIL505 aims and objectives.

From OUIL504 I am going to carry on the process of using photoshop to compose the separate Lino prints and the screen print the final thing. But I need to push the boundaries with this one and there are tow key things that I want to challenge. The first being colour. I have really struggled with colour in the past and have been hesitant to use it and I have found that products that contain colour tend to be more appealing. Also colour gives the work other meaning to and I really think that colour could really elevate my work but also challenge it. The second is being more versatile with the type of work I make. I still want to keep pushing for my work to have a lighter touch. It can still be slightly dark but I want to illustrate a subject that has a lighter tone.

My aim by May to have cracked colour in my images and have an understanding of how it impacts on the image and the other meanings it can bring to it.  I also hope that by this point to have made my work more versitile in the subjects I address.

The area I chose was Adult Publishing. I chose this because I can see a lot of potential to not just make book jackets but also displaces and merchandise that go with it. This would be interesting to investigate and is a spring board for other ideas.

Carnovsky

Carnovsky are a duo based in Milan. and produce a mixture of works from wallpaper, fabrics and prints. Colour is a really key feature with in there images following a RGB format and experiment a lot with this to ensure that when printed the colours fit with the material they are on.  But there prints ranged from large screen prints to tapestry The images used within the work are taken from reference but are reproduction of original engravings. But these engravings mixed with bright colours make the work contemporary and when printed creates more colours then where put through the screen.

I really like how colourful these works are and how the tones vary throughout. Even though it all looks hectic and mad it gives the viewer plenty to look at and decode , and the colour mixed with the varied lines creates pattens and shapes that in themselves as have strong visual aesthetic. This technique of printing with lighter colours and overlaying them with darker colours is something that I need to try and work with as I think that it could work with how detailed my work is and just give it that extra level of good visual aesthetic.

Tugboat Printshop.

 There work is extremely well crafted , detailed , refined and aesthetically stunning.  These are wood cuts that are hand carved in order to retain the intricate and varying patterns. Also they have used a two colour printing process that consists of creating two blocks and one of them having the background colour on with small amount of detail( yellow) then the other with the rest of the detail on (black) , the lighter colour is then printed first and the darker then second over the top. This also creates the appears of a three colour print.
I feel really inspired by how detailed and how this process which is very similar to Lino printing can produce amazing results. Even though it would be very time consuming I really want to aim to produce a piece of work to this standard as this will help my print based practise and improve technique.

Action Plan re think.

In cold blood - done ( more or less)

Harper Lee - need to start ASAP., look back at old ideas for editorial and see which where most successful and develop thoughts further.

Roald Dahl  - started , reading Witches and James and the giant peach. Need to re read through brief and work out specifically what they are asking us to do.


Batsford prize- started but need to find a good message / statement that I want to make about the work and I need to go and get printing !!!!!

Maybe if have time look at secret 12 or find another independent brief.


Plan-

Week end-
Read james and the giant peach and witches. Start sketching and roughing.

Play around with ideas for batford prize too.

Monday-
505 starts, cop,  but stay late to develop ideas further for Dahl.

Tuesday-
continue.

Wednesaday -

continue....

Eye amendments.

The eye is too light in the middle of the image and needs to be made darker but only slightly I still need it to stand out. Another problem looking at the final cover is that the gun marker or sight still need to be clear so I am going to extend the sight line and see how this fits into the composition and if it makes the image any clearer. But my favourite eye colours in this set of experiments are 2,3 and 6. I like the half and half element and number 3 the eye is a good bright red and so still stands out from the rest of the image.

Nearly finished book .

I really think the colour scheme works better than the blue it has more relevance to what the book is about.  and having the circle in the centre keeps the imagery in the cover simple and having the small detail like the tally sybolising the 4 victims and also a reference to prison as you sometimes see in films prisoners sometimes keep tally in there walls. I think I could do more with the type though, even when looking at the book as a whole and seeing that the vast majority of it is type I can do more to make the type my own.

The textured background with red in works as it says in the blurb that there is blood splattered all over the wall and the back background has a red tinge to it.  The eye in the centre of the gun marker or sight need darkening though it looks out of contrast and flat.

Experiments on Photoshop and Illustrator.

Trying to work out the best composition for the cover. I think that the blood drop idea is good but has been done way to often with this book and a new idea would be refreshing and different. So just having the circle on its own as a single motif works well as it dons't over embellish the cover with imagery as it is suppose to be a type heavy cover. It keep things fairly simple an will hopefully allow me to play around with type more, maybe mono type ? I think my favourite out of the colour experiments is the tuquose blue one with the black lines going through it. The colour blue gives a new meaning to the work cold and the lines really help the composition of the type, gives is a structure and neatness. Playing around on photoshop with the gun marker symbol was a great idea because I found that as I played around more and then added the horizontal likes it overlaid with the circle to form and interesting image. But I need to be carful , I need to make it clear what the circle is and I think in some of there it isn't clear. 

In cold blood development.

 I created this Lino based on the murders of the clutters. I created a gun target with and eye in the middle as it is described in the book that Mrs Clutters died with her eyes wide open. so it reflects the books dark subject.

 Whilst waiting to get into the print room I thought it would be worth using illustrator to create basic shapes then transfer them onto photoshop and adding texture to them to see how it would work. and surprisingly I found it worked well.  So I spent the rest of today developing and playing around with these shapes and I later overlaid the shapes with the print. The shapes really help add colour to the cover and texture. I also found that playing around with the blending options changes the colours.

Photography Lighting induction.

There are a range of lighting techniques within which you can you can photograph different objects, for example if you want to photograph 3D objects you can use spot lights and place different shades around them for example bell head and gobos to change the way the light falls on the objects. But to photograph 2D objects , it is better to use two lights with soft lighting, and you need to make sure that your camera settings , the F stop matches the lights. This prevents discolouring the image and I you angel the lights at a 35 degree angle they meet and bounce off each other and create a more even spread of light. You can also use grey cards to help decide weather the light is showing the colour correctly.  Light sensors too help to make sure that the connection between the camera setting and the lights is as close as possible.
These are the camera settings :
SHUTTER SPEED, ISO, F STOP AND APITURE.

The light is well balanced , colours correct and what is good about photography instead of scanning it is that you can tell it is on fabric as some of the creases and textures and I think that this gives the work more value.

I can now see the advantages to photographing my work especially 3D objects like books, it really helps the work to look at its best. Shows the colours, and shapes to be clear and crisp.

Mono print experiments for in cold blood

End of Module Evaluation.

Sketchbook- ISSU presentation.

30 second sting.

Link to final sting- https://vimeo.com/user61404488

I am really happy with this final outcome. I feel like I have really hit the nail on the head with this one and I am communicating moods/emotions strongly and I feel that it rounds the whole module off really nicely. 

Strengths:

- Timing of the appearing and disappearing of the different elements of the sting. The ending in particular I think is strong with timing especially when Martin Luther kings speech mentioned rise and the shoots rise. Also when it disappears right at the very end and the screen is just filled with the type and mono print bird taken from the very beginning of the project, I think that is is impactful.

-The art work. Really like the panther and how the lines with in it cross over when it is moving. The trees in the background as well adds a good depth to the frames and work effectively as a scrolling background. Even though I have used a mixture of print and paper cut it all blends together well and no elements look out of place. Type has been a problem for me in the past but I think I have got it right this time. The font fits with the art work and the general mood of the sting. It is evenly spaced and easy to read, however I'm not sure but I think it dose look slightly off centre.

-Soundtrack- Works with the movements of the panther and the words really help bring emphasis on the movements and imagery being shown. And enhances the overall meaning of what Harper Lee states that 'all men are created equal'. 

-Flickering screen- Helps to link all of the imagery together and sets an impression of what time period it is set in.

- Fairly simple movements and the overlapping helps to communicate well. .....

Weaknesses- 

-There are a few faint lines in the corners of the screen from the layering of the different textures , I have tried to get rid of them but it sends the rest of the textres off place and it didn't look correct.  

- Ending is a bit rushed , feels to end very abruptly, but it is already slightly over the 30 second time limit so it needs to end quickly. 

- Gaps in the movements of the panther. Legs could use with filling in , although I like the imperfections of it and the unrealistic aspect, I think it makes the movements more interesting to watch. 

-I could have added more smaller details but I'm not sure weather this would have over complicated.  

Moving image project propsal.

In Cold Blood cover analysis - Penguin Modern classics.

• Simple elements used that do create quite a complex cover. 
• I think that all of the covers involved in this vast series that penguin has created work cohesively together . But they are slightly boring I think. The type and black and white images over the covers dose get repetitive. And even though most book in the market don't really have the composition of photomontage of the real life individuals involved in the story, it dose give the cover quite a sinister tone. 
• Not to sure about the type however , it is quite hard to read against the already black and white background. It seems to get a but lot.
• I think colour will be key in the cover I am going to make as it could help communicate the mood I am trying to get across. And i think that cover lacks that value. 
•  This cover dose communicate no fiction however. using real imagery definitely suggests that there is a real story behind it. And once you have read the book you really start to understand what the images are of and it is sinister because you have images of the family and the crime scene. and you also get a small grasp of who Capote is from the images too. 

5 prints

Deciding to deckle the edges of the final prints , backing them on mount board and covering them with plastic sleeves gives them a professional finish. Also by cutting them down to the same format helps give them more unity and ties the set together. I did make 6 prints but decided to cut the weakest one out in order to meet with the brief requirements. 

Overall I think that my prints did meet the specification I put to myself in the project proposal. However it took me so long to find a focus point as I was tackeling a massive subject, and i'm still not sure that I found one as some of the prints have different meaning where as some feature a symbol like the panther heavly. So I think that this could be an imporvement, to just decided on a focus point and stick to it. 

Although I am very happy with the aesthetic and the detail within the prints and I have suprised my self in that I didn't think I could make work with that amount of detail and control to the technique.

printed pictres project proposal

Editoral images

Feedback for crit:
Effectiveness of the concepts/message:


Very Chilling imagery, dark and spooky.

• Very mysterious dark.
• Games.
• Haunting , speaks of dark topics.

 People who have left comments have not said what they think the concept is much, they have just commented on the emotion they feel about the image. This could be because the image don't communicate very clearly , and I think that this could be true with some of them as it is not clear who the author is from these. But it would have been good if people had put that because i'm not sure weather that is a problem or not.

• Moody, sinister atmosphere.
• imagery is great- love how you've linked it through all three, Interested who the author is though? are these strong links to there work?  

I think that there is a strong link to Lee's work during the time she grew up there was the civil rights movement and in her book black people and under class white are described through the metaphor of a Mocking bird , this is why I have made the bird Motif and played around with that, creating it into a symbol.

Visual quality and craft:

• Traditional aesthetic yet well composed .
• Textures really compliment the style.  

• Lovely Patterns e.g. landscape.
• Dark tone helps to drive the concept. 
• A lot of white space for the landscape.

I agree with that final point but I think having a similar textured background as the portrait one would have been too much with the pattern and the birds would have been lost. 

Zine

Over all it was very positive feed back about the Zine: The main feature that people liked the most was the circle frame hiding the face on the next page. Also the darkness of the book, how the dark colours matched the heavy stock that I used. The only criticism that I reserved was that the font could have been developed more to fit in with the mood of the book, and I agree. I could of made the lettering more scratchy and jagged , would have also added to the overall mood of the zine. Over all I am happy with the zine too and as a final experiment I decided to stitch into it a bit and I wish I had more time as I think that this technique really works with the images especially with the more patterned and textured backgrounds. I found it hard to respond so quickly to a brief but it is good as you learn skills and methods in which best to tackle quick briefs such as this one.

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote.

It is hard to distnguish this novel as non fiction firstly because of the situations that occurs is shocking an unbelievable but really happened as Capote collected most of his material though police reports , interviews, first hand accounts and visits to the town. And also the way he has written the book , he has made it sound like a piece of fiction, and it is well written in that you are constantly here things from different peoples perspectives and you almost getting a running commentary between the investigation and what the killers(Dick and Perry) where doing during this time. It is a very interesting angle to come from and given when the book was published very contemporary approach too.The book also has quite a dark humour towards both investigators and murders. And the language used is very visual as he describes the people through key characteristics they had especially Perry and Dick,'while he had fewer tattos ... they where even more elaborate-... orange eyed , red fanged , a tiger snarled upon his left biceps; a spitting snake, coiled around a dagger....' (Capote,page30,1965.)

Key notes:

• 4 members of the Clutter family where killed on the 15th November 1959 by Perry Smith and Richard(Dick) Hickock.
• The Family was popular in there local and unknow town Holcomb ,until there murders. Owned River Valley Farm.
•  After the murder took place Perry and Dick fleed to Mexico and after some time there they ran out of money and returned to the states.
• From there they hitchhiked around the American Desert but this was when the man hunt started after them. they tried to steal a car failed first time but succeeded the second. 
• Then they ended up in LA where a policewomen recognised the car numberplate and arrested them. After questioning Dick confessed to murder and Perry flowed. 
• Both out on trial and found guilty of murder and jailed on death row awaiting exhicution.
• During this time Perry tried to stave him self and Dick wrote letters of appeal.
• They where both hung.  

image below:

       Richard Hickock.                           Perry Smith.

Action Plan for Resopnsive.

Breifs I want to do:
- Harper Lee, Penguin.
- In cold blood, Penguin.
- Roald Dahl literty estate.
- The Batford prize.

Time to complete some tasks:
2 Weeks.

 Basic Plan ...
Week one: want to try and run these simutainiously for time keeping and I plan to use similar process for both.
Harper Lee-
 need to start sketching and roughing.
Monday- rough
Tuesday- Hand in 504, rough
Wednesday- start making.
Thursday- photo workshop,  Start making
Friday- print.
Saturday- finalise.
Sunday- finalise.

HAND IN PRESENTATION FOR COLLABORATION THURSDAY!!

Cold blood-
Need to read book-
-Sunday- Read , get main themes , ideas, fully understand breif.
- Monday- rough
-Tuesday- Rough
-Wednesday- get making
-thursday - Make
-Friday- print.
Weekend finalise.

Week two
Roald Dahl-
- roughing
- Playing
-experimenting.
-PRINT ROOM!!

Final 5 prints.

Deciding to deckle the edges of the final prints , backing them on mount board and covering them with plastic sleeves gives them a professional finish. Also by cutting them down to the same format helps give them more unity and ties the set together. I did make 6 prints but decided to cut the weakest one out in order to meet with the brief requirements. 

Overall I think that my prints did meet the specification I put to myself in the project proposal. However it took me so long to find a focus point as I was tackeling a massive subject, and i'm still not sure that I found one as some of the prints have different meaning where as some feature a symbol like the panther heavly. So I think that this could be an imporvement, to just decided on a focus point and stick to it. 

Although I am very happy with the aesthetic and the detail within the prints and I have suprised my self in that I didn't think I could make work with that amount of detail and control to the technique.

Final Crit and Peer review. Feed back.

Overall the feed back was very positive. People commented on the aesthetic of the prints and even though I was using different print techniques my tone of voice is still coming through. Another part of development that people gave positive feedback on,  which I was surprised at, was the stitching into fabric with the printed lino. Using the thread to add the second colour in different ways, for example the way I created patterens out of the stitching and the extra texture this brought into the image. The presentation of the prints was also noted, that they looked professional and this was enhanced by covering them in film and creating the black book for them to sit in. Keeping all presentation books black was a good note that someone gave me. By doing this it would keep it all unified and neat. Recommendations for my future work where to definitely do more lino, sell some of the prints that I have created for this brief. To carry on mixing lino with screen and adding a new element of then stitch into that and creating products out of that for example T shirts. The sting went down well to people commenting that it had a note of difference to the others that they where humorous  and lighthearted but mine had a more serious and thoughtful tone and atmosphere. But from seeing other peoples I really wish that I had spent more time developing the movements of the panther, they could have been better, it did seem static. But the sound track really complimented the whole sting well.
In the peer review similar comments where said about the work as a whole that there was a lot of it and talked more about presentation ideas. So my next step is to get presentation down and sorted. I am going to create some folders to place all my development work in to make it look neater as at the moment it is just a lot of sheet of varying size clipped together.

Final sting

Link to final sting- https://vimeo.com/user61404488

I am really happy with this final outcome. I feel like I have really hit the nail on the head with this one and I am communicating moods/emotions strongly and I feel that it rounds the whole module off really nicely. 

Strengths:

- Timing of the appearing and disappearing of the different elements of the sting. The ending in particular I think is strong with timing especially when Martin Luther kings speech mentioned rise and the shoots rise. Also when it disappears right at the very end and the screen is just filled with the type and mono print bird taken from the very beginning of the project, I think that is is impactful.

-The art work. Really like the panther and how the lines with in it cross over when it is moving. The trees in the background as well adds a good depth to the frames and work effectively as a scrolling background. Even though I have used a mixture of print and paper cut it all blends together well and no elements look out of place. Type has been a problem for me in the past but I think I have got it right this time. The font fits with the art work and the general mood of the sting. It is evenly spaced and easy to read, however I'm not sure but I think it dose look slightly off centre.

-Soundtrack- Works with the movements of the panther and the words really help bring emphasis on the movements and imagery being shown. And enhances the overall meaning of what Harper Lee states that 'all men are created equal'. 

-Flickering screen- Helps to link all of the imagery together and sets an impression of what time period it is set in.

- Fairly simple movements and the overlapping helps to communicate well. .....

Weaknesses- 

-There are a few faint lines in the corners of the screen from the layering of the different textures , I have tried to get rid of them but it sends the rest of the textres off place and it didn't look correct.  

- Ending is a bit rushed , feels to end very abruptly, but it is already slightly over the 30 second time limit so it needs to end quickly. 

- Gaps in the movements of the panther. Legs could use with filling in , although I like the imperfections of it and the unrealistic aspect, I think it makes the movements more interesting to watch. 

-I could have added more smaller details but I'm not sure weather this would have over complicated.  

Nearly finihsed animation

The music dose include the elements I was after which was a gentler and more thoughtful atmosphere and the beats match that of the legs of the panther moving. It is slightly repetitive could be over repetitive but it is overlaid half ay though with the voice of Martin Luther King. I wanted to add his voice in there because mainly to math with the focus I have put on the civil rights movement throughout the projects  but also because of what he is stating that we are all equal and was a firm belief of Harper Lee's that she expresses through her characters. It also sets the serious tone and gives the viewer a sense of what her work is about and the society she was brought up and lived in. The effectiveness of these to piece of audio put together really works but it is a bit patchy at the start and the end of the speech so I need to place some key frames in there to make the transition smoother between the two tracks.

RE Print of 4th print.

I decided to re print this print because I was not happy with how bright the orange lungs look in the middle, the looked out of place as where the colour was block it didn't really match with the other more textured and contrasting colour areas. So I expanded the texture that was already on there and to create more white areas eliminating the block colour.  It looks like a far more cohesive print now and keep the balance of contrasting textures and colours.

New Print .









Old print.

Paper cuts and final frame decided.

- long repeating shoots.

 Creating paper cuts and experimenting with inverting and changing the colours round on photoshop is very effecting. I love how the colours tones create a background and a foreground. And I am really happy with the composition of this final frame. It's good if the sting ends or a delicate and clamer note as Harper Lee was a delicate writer and I want the final image to be still but striking as this would create a great contrast to the fast paced frames before hand. However if I have a few spear seconds in the animation I may add some smaller movements into it four foreground shoots.

-Inverted paper cut.

sound experiments.

Playing around with soundtracks I can see now the impact that music can have on the animation. This track that I found gives the sting a very dark and scary atmosphere , which is not what I'm after . I am after a slightly gentler and more thoughtful feel, so softer music would be a better option rather then the harsher sound in this clip. But I really like the impact the voice has on the imagery and I think that because the animation is simple it allows for the focus to be balanced between listening to the words and watching that movements. This is a really important balance to strike especially if the words link to the movements as this will create an impact and help to communicate messages clearly. By also having the frames matching the music it means that the animation works better as a whole, every element links so it flows well and enhances the narrative. I really want to get this into my sting as I think it is a effective and impactful technique and if used well it could hopefully make it more thoughtful and gentler but still needs to have a serious note to it.

Lotte Reiniger.

Lotte Reiniger is a animator who uses cut paper to create stop frame animation. She has a very distinct visual signitre and her animations have traditional feel to them. Most of them are black and white without much colour and the camera in which they where filmed on looks to be an old film camera as the screen clackers throughout the recordings. It has a good aesthetic. However given that the animation is stop motion , means that each individual frame had to be taken and everything adjusted so it would link to the previous frame. This would have been a time consuming process but the result is really nice as you have these slightly jittery and on occasions non realistic movements but I think that this adds to the imagination of it all. Her story telling and narrative in her films is brilliant, the stories flow with out any text or speech , just a soundtrack that fits well to the atmosphere of the piece. It has an elegant and sweet feel to them and at the same time it could be seen as quite dark and sinister due to the colours and the fact that you can never see any of the characters faces/ expressions. I would really like to use a small element of stop motion in my animation and going back to a techniques I know well which is  creating my own black paper cut outs to animate with is an effective idea as it really highlights the detail and at the same time the moment. Could work as a really nice ending to the animation as well as enabling different animation techniques to be incorporated into the final sting.

Mono over Lino print experiments for rock.

I have just done a small bit of further development but the mixture of mono print mixed with Lino works well. printing the Lino in a lighter colour then drawing into it with a darker ink using mono print not only gives a different texture but enhances the hand made approach to the work.

It gives the image a very playful feel and I find the process really fun and interesting to do as you can get a wide verity of results form using mono print and various tools to draw with. A further idea could be that I keep repeating this on one piece of work and build up layers, this then could create some interesting images the could appear complex.