olio-unpaxed

[olio-unpaxed]

3 0 . 0 4 . 2 1 // 3am Thoughts cover.

Initially there was little focus into creating a cover design as I was in the process of making the first plush for my final major project. I did, however, promise myself to work on a cover as soon as I found inspiration or an idea. Whilst scrolling through Instagram, an album cover illustration popped up by @mayleemouse (see below) and I immediately saw a way to use it as reference for my own design. True to my own character, I decided to go down the moon and space theme ... with a slight hint of having your head in the clouds. I thought it suited the theme well, hopefully in the less obvious way but I added a little UFO for some whimsy.

To omit the block colour issue from the inside illustration, I did the colour work in various textured brushes such as stucco and tarraleah. It works well in it’s original format but I don’t have much experience with digital and risograph so I can’t say what the printed outcome will be for sure. I’m excited to see and fairly confident in what I created.

Final layers:

[olio-unpaxed]

1 9 . 0 4 . 2 1 // Final 3am Thought.

After the group tutorial, I was able to share what I had done for feedback but also get to see some of my peer’s work. I noticed how they had managed to add some finer details and some achieved via grayscale - an effect I had forgotten about risograph printing. I decided to add these to add more depth to the image as it was beginning to look more block colour and flat. It seems pretty successful on the digital format so I’m interested to see the final printed outcome.

[olio-unpaxed]

1 9 . 0 4 . 2 1 // Olio+ type.

The comic had an awful lot of detail so I dialled it back a fair bit when it came to the type. I just used my regular handwriting, layering it up with the colour to give it more emphasis and dimension. I did, however, decide to include the little sandwich man to tie the two pieces together visually and create a bit of a humour moment. I doodled him losing his lettuce towel and incorporated him into the colour layers. I’m hoping that it will blend well when the two pieces are together in the zine.

Layers:

Final “3am Thoughts” spread:

[olio-unpaxed]

1 9 . 0 4 . 2 1 // Olio+ final image.

With the preparations made, it was rather straightforward to do the digital version. I still struggle to draw on an iPad as I find it rather constricting and it makes it much harder to “make marks” - a technique I’ve used to help me with my illustration process. This is because I would often end up erasing more than I draw. To help with this I imported some of my reference photos to trace the lose shapes and layout before adding my own design touches. For the different layers, I did each in the chosen colours, using the original sketch as a guide. This helped me get a better idea of what each layer would look like and how it would build up the image. Doing this digitally made it much easier to play with this and possible textures I could add with the brushes so there were less flat.

It may not look like how I prefer to draw or how I normally want my illustrations to turn out but I think it matches the brief well and is obviously true to my own style range. It’s especially not bad for only my 2nd risograph design and I’m interested to see how it prints - maybe if it goes well I’ll think about using this print process more often.

Layers:

[olio-unpaxed]

2 6 . 0 3 . 2 1 // Olio+ sketches.

As a class we went for Teigan’s “3am Thoughts” idea for our Olio+ theme. It will be a zine in yellow, pink and black with one image and accompanying typography. I felt pretty confident with this brief as I have a project similar that I’ve been building up called “Chatting Sh*t”; this is a bunch of quotes collected from my day to day life that I want to illustrate and turn into a mini book. I scrolled through the list of quotes and decided on “toasties are just cooked sandwiches”. However, I struggled to think of how to portray this, coming up with either a torture machine or a tanning bed approach. I designed the character keeping both in mind but found that my ideas weren’t fully understood by my peers and this is when the quote was altered. Megan suggested that if I went with the tanning bed route it would make more sense to have “is a toastie maker just a tanning bed for sandwiches?” as the 3am thought. I agreed that it worked better this way.

Due to my lack of practice with risograph printing, I wanted to draw out the scene and test the colours using watercolour as this would give me an idea of how the colours could mix and how to lay them out better for definition. The scene itself is based on my own kitchen as I find it easier to work from reference when drawing scenery and our kitchen has some quite photogenic areas. See below:

For the actual put together image, I knew I had 3 main points that I thought needed to be included as it would show the transition from sandwich to toastie: sandwich, cooking, toastie. In my thumbnails sketches, I tried 2 comic layouts, one in typical strips and another with boxes overlapping the main and final step. I also had a look at doing it in a single image but felt that this didn’t display the type as well. I decided on my initial idea in the end - having the comic over a main image - as it was less rigid, showed the process and included more scenery. With all these decisions made it was time to move on to Procreate to do the final image; this is because, as much as I much prefer tradition, it was easier to separate into layers and edit if need be.

[olio-unpaxed]

1 0 . 0 4 . 2 1 // bee with tea portrait.

I still didn’t feel overly happy with the self portraits I had done. This is because I have become very unused to drawing humans but also because I didn’t think the style or medium was true to my current illustration work. It wasn’t until I did some work on an old character - one that helped me pick up illustration - for a business card that I found this better option that demonstrated not only who I am but who I am as an artist. It’s in my preferred medium - traditional art using watercolour, pencil and biro - and portrays the majority of my interests: plants, books, sewing, drawing, baking and bee-ing cosy. Even though I’m still trying to learn how to scan in my traditional works without diminishing too much quality, I am extremely happy with this drawing and have decided to keep it as my main image for icons, portraits or my business card.

[olio-unpaxed]

0 8 . 0 3 . 2 1  //  Olio+ Pitch

For the second part to the Olio module, we were tasked with coming up with our own ideas for a collaborative risograph project to do as a class. These were then to voted on to dicate which idea we went with. It was difficult for me to come up with ideas that were either group or risograph or both as, in illustration at least, I don’t have the most experience and sometimes worry about how the different art styles will flow together. To begin with I focussed on what could be a fun and artistic group project - this was by researching pre-existing collaborations or exercises used in various art classes. These were surprisingly hard to come by and many of the art class ideas either didn’t suit risograph or were very much for children. However, this did inspire me to think about what I have experienced in the past, usually used as ice breakers, to bring out some of those memories and some childish fun as it would encourage more interest and positivity around the project instead of viewing it purely as work.

I came up with 3 main ideas in the end: an illustrated response to a story generator task (as this was a regular part of our first year experience), house fairies/goblins (in which each person designs their own and a fairy door in which they would reside) or the “class pet” (inspired by primary schools where you would look after a plush for a week and then write about its adventures). I didn’t decide which one of these routes I would pursue until after our tutorials as I wanted to gage reactions to each idea. The class pet idea seemed to be most popular and it was suggested that the character I would design would be given through a written description. This meant that everyone could interpret it differently to give them stylistic freedom while still having some cohesion across the risograph images through the recurring character.

Moving forward, I looked into the Sad Ghost Club - as they had this similar recurring character that varied across styles - and memorable things from our classes’ personal university experience that I could base the character off. This meant that it could act as a memento of our time after the project is complete. I remembered how many plants that resided in our studio space - one of the many things I loved about it - but mostly remembered Hannah’s Kenneth and, as he was already named, I ran with it. I looked into how different artists had created plant-based characters to get an idea of possible body shapes and features. I played with a few to help me get a better visual idea of the character before writing the description and this certainly helped me flesh it out better in the time frame we had but it still allows some gaps for each person to add snippets of personality to little Kenneth. See sketchbook work below.

Overall, I’m pleasantly surpirsed with this idea and, even if it isn’t picked, it encouraged me to pick up my pencil and paintbrush to create a character after a short time not doing so.

[olio-unpaxed]

1 8 . 0 2 . 2 1 // Final self portrait.

Admittedly, I did use the research image as a guide for the sketch to assist me in body positioning and proportions but I then added to this base sketch to build my own artistic style into the portrait. I feel that this portrait shows me off more as an illustrator and as a person than the original as I was able to encorporate more details into the image.

I decided to keep the growing plant as it represented my interest in nature but also on this aspect of forever growing and improving. I had it curved around my illustrated self to fit the circular frame outlined in the brief as well as demonstrate the comforting aura. The ginger cat made a recurring appearance between the pieces as this is one of the things that drew me to the inspired image. This is because I have always owned ginger cats and am rather attached to them in that sense but the colour cohesion of the cat and the hair deepened this idea of a connection to nature. The bees and the mug of tea allude to more of my personal obsessions but also my illustration background. Even before I began drawing in my foundation degree, I would always doodle a rather sad looking bee having a cuppa as a way to communicate my thoughts and feelings; he has been a regular character throughout my works and I’m glad I could include him in my portrait.

Although perhaps the drawing technique still has a long way to go in terms of reaching a consistent style I am content with, I believe this self portrait to have been a challenge with an outcome I can be semi-proud of. I’m interested to see how any self portraits or portraits in general develop from here.

[olio-unpaxed]

1 5 . 0 2 . 2 1 // Self portrait research.

Initially throughout the research, I mainly investigated potraits with simple or encorporated backgrounds within their designs - like the ones below. A few of these included effects using long hair, something that would not be in my own portrait. However, I stumbled upon these illustrations by @chantelhoreis (left) and @ali.illustrations (right) on Instagram; I instantly loved the styles, interesting compositions and how they had managed to add other things like the animals, plants and belongings to enhance the character even in a somewhat simple illustration. This answered concerns I had at the beginning about having multiple parts of my messy personality into one concise image.

Although I adore th adventurous aura of @ali.illustrations, I was not confident enough to draw a full body portrait and thought - to keep as much of the portrait within the circular frame and still clear even as a small icon - it better to follow the composition idea of the first illustration.

Additional research images:

[olio-unpaxed]

1 1 . 0 2 . 2 1 // Self portrait development.

Instead of adding colour in solid and building the texture on top, I coloured using textured brushes straight away - this way it was easier to see the effect of the brush and wouldn’t alter the colours to much from to many layers. It would also relate to how I would normally develop my more traditional illustrations in watercolour and pencil. Following this similar practice, it would close this divide I personally feel when working in the different mediums as well as create a better final finish.

Although I still have reservations about the way I currently draw human characters and want to improve it further - especially when it comes to a tidied final image, not a sketch - I’m still rather happy with how the portrait turned out. This is because it is already a stark improvement compared to past digital works based around the human figure. What I am disappointed in was the difficulty had with the background; leaving it bare or just one colour made the whole image seem either unfinished or uninspired. This is why I thought to play with background objects like clouds and playing around with the textured brushes a little more but it still didn’t seem to fully connect with the main image and, in peer feedback, it was stated that the actual portrait lacked boldness when pressed against a backdrop.

This got me to reconsider the design and do some extra research for improvement ideas.

[olio-unpaxed]

0 8 . 0 2 . 2 1 // Digital self portrait sketch.

Despite being more of a traditional artist, I continued working digitally for the final images as I meant it would not lose quality during a paper to screen transfer. This did worry me as I tend to struggle more when doing human characters this way but I have been practicing mark making both digitally and by hand, just getting something down to build on and I applied it here to scribble down a base then build on. It actually helped me to slow down and take more care in the detail, meaning I ended up with a decent sketch to guide the final. It’s more the final I’m scared of, as I often like the personality and freedom of my sketches and find they tend to go downhill (in my eyes) when I try to give them a finished look.

Although I did wind up going for more of a typical self portrait, I still tried to include some of the other interested aspects like botany and maybe a lil magic.

[olio-unpaxed]

0 4 . 0 2 . 2 1 // Self portrait sketches.

While working on the cover, I began brainstorming ideas for my self portrait - mostly to decide whether I wanted it to be whimsical or a bit more straightforward. Although I knew from the get go that I wanted to include something magical or natural as these tend to relate my artistic styles and myself as a person. This meant things like the crescent moon or growing plants, and frogs, I suppose.

The first few sketches follow more of a “classic” self portrait, in the sense that it has more focus on an actual human characteristics that match my own. I hadn’t drawn a humanoid character since my anthology project last year so was excited to come back and see how the style had developed while I had been improving in other areas. It was pleasantly surprising despite some issues still with body proportion and positioning.

These basic self portraits motivated me to maybe try something a tad different, even if just to experiment. I wanted to keep the somewhat humanoid figure as it meant I could keep in things like clothing to make it clear that the portrait could still be of myself without being explicit - this mainly meant I’d be playing with the head area. I’d seen quite a few people do characters with plant-based heads, creating a aesthetically matching outfit to accompany - I decided to attempt it instead of just admire. I found it rather difficult as I was unsure how to make the two separates connect. In the end it didn’t seem to work for the brief but it is still perhaps something to revisit.

I then moved onto an old character or reference photos of myself to brainstorm further. The television character is based off one I used to draw to the darker mental health comics I made that didn’t suit the more positive outlook of the bee with tea comics. I knew I didn’t want to keep this as a final idea as it has more negative connotations and less connection to my personality or interests but I drew it anyway as it related to a personal side project and I wanted to just play with any character to practice drawing humanoid or bizarre figures. This is why I also drew myself with a frog for a head, but it is also based on a picture from a life drawing class in first year and remains one of my favourite pictures of myself (see below). I thought this showed off more of my whimsical side but less of my actual self. The sketches themselves, however, let me explore different areas of my art and personality but I think I’ll still find it difficult to condense it into just one effective portrait.

[olio-unpaxed]

0 2 . 0 2 . 2 1 // Final cover.

Despite feeling really disheartened about the front cover to begin with, I’m actually really happy with the outcome! Although it may not personally look what I would have expected to be chosen when given the brief, I have grown a lot on confidence in both the design and my own artwork while putting in the time and detail.

[olio-unpaxed]

0 2 . 0 2 . 2 1 // Finalising the cover.

Whilst going over any overlaying sections to tidy up the cover, I noticed this little guy without a job on his construction site. I did consider leaving it but I thought it would add more character to the cover if I had him doing something but different to the others ... so I drew him with a coffee and a donut. He’s on a break. And, ironically, this is what made me really happy that I went with this design.

[olio-unpaxed]

0 1 . 0 2 . 2 1 // Cover development.

After our group tutorials to discuss our front cover designs, my under construction sun showed the most promise and feedback, convincing me to put sole focus into this design. This would give me opportunity to keep playing with it and pay attention to finer details I could include in the image to add more personality.

I slowly layered over different sketches of the construction workers to play with the composition and character, eventually decided on this. This then turned to painting different shades in each piece so it would have texture and be less flat on the page. I then added some outlining using the ink bleed pen to help the action stand out from the background. Initially I did leave in the text that I based the wording on in the image (as seen below) but have decided to leave it out unless requested as I just believe it to work better without.

[olio-unpaxed]

2 5 . 0 1 . 2 1 // Digital sketch no. 2

I wanted to try the print style of the sun used in one of my research images as it filled the page more and could perhaps be more catching to the eye yet the white spaces give potential to add smaller detail or an area to encorporate more of the text.

[olio-unpaxed]

2 1 . 0 1 . 2 1 // Digital sketch no. 1.

Quick digital sketches of the first design, using basic colour to play with the scheme that could potentially be included. Still deciding on a background to fill negative space and add more detail - normally I would include plants but his we were warned against and it could then make the design too similar to the references.