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Fundamentals - Museum visits

As part of my class research, I took a trip to Cardiff museum in my spare time. I have included some photographs of my trip that I used for inspiration. I love visiting the museum for colour palette inspiration, and to find new and old artists for my research. These photographs are from my most recent visit, and I was lucky enough to see the photography gallery from the Swaps exhibition. Cardiff museum is such an exciting, creative place, with the exhibitions and galleries changing monthly. I find this very beneficial as an illustration student.

One of my favourite things about living in the centre of Cardiff, is the access to galleries and exhibitions right at my doorstep. When I feel the need to be inspired I can visit places such as Cardiff museum, and this is how I like to spend my spare time. We also take advantage of this a class, taking group trips around the centre and to numerous galleries weekly.

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Fundamentals - Monster challenge

One of our tasks on a certain week was to collaboratively create monster illustrations. For this we wrote down 4 different words/objects on a piece of paper, and illustrated each word, one at a time. For example of the words, we had rainbow, dog, coffee, beautiful and sun. After completing one word, we folded the paper and passed the pages on. After each word had been illustrated, we unfolded the paper to reveal a monster character.

I found this task very creative, and fun. Together we created 4/5 monsters per table. I have included a photograph of one monster character created by our table. It was interesting to see how different people perceived each word in the big reveal of our monsters. As a class, we did this task for about an hour. I mainly used marker pens, and coloured pencils for the task, occasionally finishing with fine liners. This task was successful in developing our creative skills, and working as a group.

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Fundamentals - Collaborative class zine

Here is a slide to show my piece for our class zine. Collaboratively, we each chose a lyric from Richard Dawson’s The Vile Stuff. Our task was to go away and create an illustration based off the lyric. I decided to illustrate, "My neighbour Andrew lost two fingers to a Staffie-cross, whilst jogging over Cow Hill with a peperami in his bumbag.”

For my illustration, I used a mix of watercolour, ink and markers.

I really enjoyed analysing the lyrics of the song, and found this task particularly interesting. I decided to go with my chosen lyric, as I saw a lot of illustrative potential there. Whilst creating my design, I listened to the song on repeat for inspiration. As a class, we came together once finishing the designs. We each submitted our illustrations to compose a collaborative zine. Once finished, we had illustrated the entire song and full lyrics collaboratively. I personally found this project really interesting, and would love to do something similar again in class.

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Fundamentals - Zine pages

Here are the pages from my zine, displayed separately. Although I enjoyed learning and researching the zine making process, I feel I could have created a much better finishing project. I would love to take the making process I learned whilst doing this, to create my own zines outside of university in my own time. This way I feel I could improve, and create a zine I was fully happy with in the end. This would also develop my skills, both traditionally and digitally.

Looking back, I think I panicked slightly in the printing process of the zine project. However, I have learned now how to print the zines properly, and can take that skill with me in the future. I would love to create many different zines for my own pleasure, hopefully in the New Year. I think this may have been my favourite class assignment, as it interested me the most.

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Fundamentals - Zine

For my final zine project, I had lots of different initial ideas. I wanted to create a zine that included my love for music, in the form of doodles. I have included some photographs below of some practice pages I created. One of numerous versions of Ziggy Stardust, following my love for David Bowie. The other, made up of doodles I did in Costa. This sparked my idea for a zine of doodles, and observations of people in day to day life.

I thoroughly enjoyed the ideas aspect of the zine, however I would have liked to include more content that was music related in my final project. I would like to create a music themed zine in my own time, as I love the creating process.

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Week 3 - Fundamentals

We then were given the task of illustrating an idiom of our choice, to submit the following week. I chose a Welsh idiom, “Mae hi’n bwrw cyllell a ffyrc.” This literally translates to, “It’s raining knives and forks,” an expression used when it is raining heavily. I enjoyed this brief too, especially the freedom to choose and design our own idiom illustrations. I did some research before finally illustrating my chosen idiom, narrowing my options to 4 final idioms. In my sketchbook you will see my research of ideas.

After some time researching, I chose to use a Welsh language idiom as I find they are more interesting. Here are some idioms I considered using, before deciding on my final one. ”Mae h’n siarad fel melin wynt.” Literally translating to, she speaks like a windmill. This could be used to describe a person who talks non-stop. Rhoi’r ffidl yn y to.” Putting the fiddle in the roof. The explanation of this is to give up something. I decided to go with “Mae’n bwrw cyllell a ffyrc,” because I was intrigued by the design of the knives and forks falling towards the umbrella.

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Week 9/10/11 - Fundamentals

Our previous few weeks of zine research had been leading up to this final task. Our final submission task before the Christmas deadline was to create our very own zine. This was a chance for us individually to showcase to the class our interests, hobbies and preferred style of illustration. Our zine could be in any style, or of any theme we desired. To spark some inspiration, we were able to flick through a few copies of previous first year’s zines from this same task. 

As an illustrator, I have always felt more comfortable working traditionally rather than digitally. However, for this task I decided to go out of my comfort zone, and create a digitally drawn zine. My zine creation was based off doodles of people I saw from day to day, and imaginary people I created in my head. I named my work, “An observation of people- both real and imaginary.”

I really enjoyed the freedom given in this task, however I found the final printing/piecing together of zine quite difficult. Once finished, we submitted our zines, and got the chance to swap with other members of the class. It was very interesting to see how we had been given identical briefs, yet had produced such different final pieces.  

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Week 5 - Fundamentals

We created small magazine/zines during our class research in these weeks. Individually we chose from two lists of words, in order to create a title for these little books. For example on one list we had words such as giant, lonely, worried, and nauseous. On the second list some of our choices were volcano, building, ghost, and flea. I decided to illustrate the story of, “The life and death of the Lonely Letter.” As a class, we were only given a short amount of time to complete this task. I believe this helped improve our time keeping skills, and quick sketch. 

For my short narrative, I illustrated the story of a little characterised letter that falls from the post-box by mistake. Left alone on the ground, the letter starts to become sad and lonely. To finish my small narrative book, you see the letter dissolving sadly in a puddle of rain. It was interesting to see how each member of the class interpreted these lists of words in different ways, to produce such varied outcomes. 

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Week 6/7/8 - Fundamentals

In these few weeks, we began our study on zines. Our first collaborative class project, was to create and learn how to make zines together. To begin, we were given a briefing of the history, and structure of zines. This helped to gain a better group understanding of the expected outcome before we started our tasks. As small groups, we created PowerPoint presentations of our zine research, with each member of the group presenting a zine that interested them.

We were asked to go to the library, and borrow 3 books. One including black and white photographs, one of interesting text/words, and finally an illustrated book. Our tutor then collected our books, and gave us photocopies of random pages of these books. With each table in the class forming a group, we collaboratively created a small zine using photocopies of these books. I created a few blackout poems, using articles and text pieces from the photocopies. I thoroughly enjoyed this task, and feel it suited my interests well.  

The first two images are some cut out newspaper poems I made in class, followed by some images of our collaborative group zine.

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Week 4 - Fundamentals

We moved on in this week, to understand the relationship between illustration and narrative. From newspaper, and magazine cuttings, we were randomly assigned 2 images. These were used to serve as a beginning, and ending to a narrative. Our job as illustrators was to bridge the gap between these images. 

My assigned images were a monkey trapped by a chain, and a photograph of a gig/concert event. I began by working on ideas for my narrative, and figuring out my storyline. The work I submitted for this task was my first ever digital piece. I struggled slightly in learning how to illustrate digitally, and the work I produced wasn’t my favourite. However, I think this has helped me in improving my digital skills as I go forward. I have included the two images I was given for my narrative.

Overall I think this task was the one I found the hardest, as it was the least suited to my personal preferences. However, this helped me improve my weaker skills.

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Week 3 - Fundamentals

This week, our work was based around illustrating, and studying notable idioms. In class we were each assigned an idiom in which we had an hour to illustrate in the form of a collage. Using coloured paper, I created my idiom collage using 3 colours- pink, blue and yellow. The idiom I was assigned was, “Fit as a fiddle,” meaning in good physical health. 

I enjoyed this task, however I would have preferred to illustrate the idiom using markers and paints, rather than the collage method. After completing our idioms, as a class we came together and presented our work. In doing this, we got the chance to analyse each idiom and offer constructive criticism to each other. I was happy with my completed collage considering the short time slot given, however I feel I could have improved with the presentation aspect. Looking back on the task, next time I would spend less time planning, and focus more on the finishing piece.

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Week 2 - Fundamentals

Following our previous class alphabet task, and trip to the museum, we were given a follow up brief in the second week. Our first submission task was to create an illustration based on a letter of the alphabet given to us by our class tutor individually. I was given the letter S, so following my observational studies from the museum, I created an illustration of a Sailboat. The inspiration for this was taken from numerous paintings I saw in the galleries. As a class, we then submitted our illustrations and composed a full alphabet collaboratively. We were given the chance then to offer constructive criticism to each other, which I found helpful. 

In the brief given, we were limited to a maximum of 4 colours, and shown how to correctly lay out the image with the letter. I chose a variation of earthy colours- brown, greens and blues for my Sailboat. For this task, I used my preferred medium of watercolour paints, and black fine liner. I thoroughly enjoyed this task, and found it an improvement from week 1. 

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Week 1 - Fundamentals

Our first given task was based around each letter of this alphabet. Our class took a trip to Oxford to do this, however I was a late joiner to the class. Instead, I went to Cardiff museum in my own time to catch up. Our brief was to illustrate a quick sketch for something for each letter of the alphabet. I have included photographs in this post to show my submissions.

For example, I sketched an early purple orchid flower for the letter E. This was taken from inspiration from the nature section of Cardiff museum. For the letter F, I illustrated a character I saw on a vase by Grayson Perry. The name of the work was, “Flight from masculinity.”

I found this task very interesting, however I would have liked a longer time slot to illustrate each letter in more detail. I believe this task improved my quick sketch skills, and ability to move from task to task more efficiently.