First image: Leaving for war

I decided to use basic line work for the outline and I didn't include too much detail as the images target audience is children. I then decided to use flat subdued colours as I felt it complemented the line work best. The colours, I feel, represent how it might have been on the actual day that the soldiers left. This is the image that I have came up with, there are some finishing touches that need to be done, but it is almost complete. 

Soldiers leaving for war

As I have to draw the soldiers leaving for war I decided to do some research into images that were taken in world war one of the soldiers on the trains leaving to give me an idea of what everything looked like. Here are some images that I found on the internet. 

image taken from:  http://www.iwmprints.org.uk/image/743748/
lewis-g-p-soldiers-onboard-a-leave-train-heading-
out-from-victoria-station-london-during-the-first-world-war

Image taken from: http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/evocative-images-of-lost-toronto.11018/

To create my image I will think about all of the different elements of these scenes and put them together to create an image that really tells a story of what is happening. 

Street party at the end of world war one

Here are a few images that I found on the internet of street parties that happened at the end of World War One. Hopefully this will give me some ideas for my illustration of the street party.

Image taken from http://gn.northumbria.ac.uk/gn/exhibitions/engage/

Image taken from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
news/uknews/royal-wedding/royal-wedding-pictures
/8411756/Street-parties-through-the-ages.html

Image taken from: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/10456#.VX2v-FxViko

Summer Project: Heugh Battery Illustrations

I have left university for the summer but I am going to keep using this blog to keep track of research and bits and pieces that I am doing for projects that I am doing. Its just easier for me to have a place to refer back to where everything is kept together rather than seeing something then not being able to find it again. I will also keep track of all my thoughts and ideas so I know whats what. The project that I have going on at the moment to create 6 illustrations for a World War One illustration exhibition at a museum in the Headlands. My friend has a placement at the museum and she has decided to ask me to create some illustrations for an exhibition. I have had 6 basic outlines given to me for the illustrations this is the information that I have been given so far:

• The first one is at the beginning of the war when it was declared everyone had a street party to celebrate so some sort of celebration in the street.
• The second one is when men leave for war on a train.
• Third one is women had to go to work in garages and there was a royal women's Air Force so I was thinking maybe a women stood in front of an old style plane.
• The fourth one is lights out at dark like no street lights or car lights so the bombers can't see the towns or cities.
• Fifth one is of people sitting in an air raid Shelter.
• The last one is the war is declared over so a load of people stood round celebrating again with maybes a person speaking at the front haha. 

The exhibition is aimed at children and I have all creative freedom over the style and way that I approach this project. My next step is to research for all of the imagery and  create thumbnails. Then I will just go on from there. 

Evaluation

Evaluation

I began this project with the idea of creating a fun, contemporary book about artists from throughout history, for the ages of 9 and up. I wanted to create this product because when I was younger I had no books based on art that interested me at a young age and the only things that I learnt about art were from art lessons at school. I decided to stick with the average children’s book size of 32 pages so that it would fit in alongside other books on the market.

I decided that so this book would sell, I would have to make it appeal to the adult market as well as they would be the ones buying it for their child.  For this reason I decided to go with a contemporary style that would draw a modern parent to it as well as a younger child. The colours played a large part in making the book appeal to both audiences, I chose a colour bright enough that a child would want to pick up but muted enough that it fits in with the latest colour trends, the colour that I decided to go with in the end was a slightly pastel version of bright yellow. I feel as though this worked well as it fit in with the black line drawings used throughout the book.

I wanted to stick with slightly simplistic drawing style that would appeal to a younger audience, I didn’t want to have the drawings too simplistic though because I feel as though that would bring the target audience age down to a much younger age. For the profile drawings I decided to keep them fully coloured so the reader could get a true sense of what the artist looked like. I kept the rest of the drawings in black and white because I was inspired with the old horrible history books as they had a similar style of book to mine and they worked really well.

       

For the typography I wanted to keep it very miss matched but still stuck to a format to keep it looking professional. The reason that I wanted to keep the text styles mixed is because that seems to be a current trend within the illustration market and I feel as though this would appeal to a modern parent. I combined my own hand drawn typography with digital because I felt like too many hand drawn styles would just end up looking messy. In my learning agreement I stated that I wanted to improve my hand written typography skills and I feel like this project has really helped me with that, as I am now much more confident with drawing letters than I was before.  

Although the layouts were quite informal I kept them very similar for every page, as I wanted to keep a professional feel throughout. I also added a banner to the top of the page sticking with the muted yellow colour that I decided on with the name of the book and the page number on. I did this because I noticed that it was a common thing throughout books on the current market and I found that it really finished off the pages and brought them all together as one finished book.

For my last profile I decided that instead of choosing an artist to write about, that I would leave the profile, information and activity page for the reader to fill in so they could feel more inspired about art seeing their own pages amongst other great artists. I feel like getting them involved will make the book a lot more interesting for them.  

When I had completed all of the book I decided to add an extra bit to my book to make it feel a bit more special so I decided to add a sticker page to the back of my book. I feel like this adds a bit of extra fun for the young person reading it. For the stickers I decided to use the profile pictures of the artist as I felt it would be nice to have them all together in one place, I also thought that the shape of them was very fun and a bit quirky for a sticker and this fit right in with the overall style of the book.

Overall I am really happy with how the final product has turned out. I feel as though I have fulfilled my original intention and it looks exactly how I had planned in the beginning. I think that my ability to reach a professional looking standard has improved vastly from previous projects and this is something that I originally really struggled with. I think the strongest aspect of this project has been the strong use of hand drawn typography and the design of the front cover. If I was to re do this project I think that as well as submitting digitally I would attempt to make the final product into a proper book rather than just presenting a mock up. One last thing that I would improve if I was to re do this module is the back cover as I don’t think the design was as strong as it could have been.

Final Product

As I have completed my front cover design and finished my page layouts I decided to make some mock ups of how the final book would look if it was professionally printed. Here are my mock ups I used photoshop to apply my images to some blank templates. I am very happy with how they look and seeing how they would look if they were printed properly has made me realise that my book would not look out of place on a book shop shelf. My goal for this year has been to progress with my professional finish and i think by looking at these finished products that I have became much closer to achieving that goal.  

Final pages: something a bit different

As this book is aimed at a younger audience I decided that instead of having one more artist the last 3 pages could be for the reader to complete their own profile as if they themselves are an artist in the book. I thought this would be a good way to get the reader involved and excited about art.

I will include a little frame where the reader can draw a mini portrait of themselves, and a space for them to write their name. I will also include some sun headings below the name such as date of birth, where you live and hobbies that you have. Below the profile I will have a drawing of the gallery guide and a blank section for the reader to write a bit about themselves.  The next page will be for the reader to write some facts about themselves and draw some doodles to match the facts. The last page will be an activity page, this is going to be where the reader can create their own piece of art.

I think this idea will be successful amongst the target audience as it is a fun little activity for them to get involved in at the end. Its a bit like a little added surprise for them at the end of the book. I also feel like this might inspire the reader a bit more as they will feel like they are in the book alongside some of the most famous artists from history.

Front cover

For my front cover I didn't want to give away too much of what is inside of the book so that people would be interested to open it. I still wanted the cover to communicate what the subject of the book is so I decided to have a paint palette as the main image. I used water colour paint for the image then scanned it in, I decided to have the palette yellow as this colour continues through the book and I think this ties everything together nicely. I thought with the palette in the centre it gave the cover a nice composition and made it look striking. I also decided that I wanted to include big bold lettering for the title so it would be visible from far away, for this I used a hand drawn lettering style. I then added a little tag line at the top of the page to balance out the composition and finally added my name in a little black oval, I placed the name off centre to add a bit of movement throughout the image as this will guide the viewers eye around the page. When I had completed the image I still felt as though it needed something so I added a very faint texture in the background and this finished off the cover nicely. Overall I am happy with how the front cover came out because I think it looks very interesting and on trend.

End Pages

For the end pages i wanted to use a repeat pattern as thats what most end pages have on them. I wanted to make my pattern look really contemporary to fit in with the rest of the book so i opted for a simplistic pattern using long horizontal shapes. Another thing that I wanted to do was keep the same yellow that was used on the page headers, to keep the book looking uniform and professional. I think this worked out well in the end as the pattern looks stylish and contemporary, and the colour choice really ties the end pages in with the rest of the book. 

Fact Pages

I decided to keep all of the fact pages black and white so the book looks like if follows the same format throughout.  I also decided to have a mixture of hand made and digital typography to keep the pages looking professional. 

Profile Pages

Here are all of the profile pages for the artists that i have created so far. I kept the profile pictures in colour to give the reader a better idea of what the artist looked like. I kept all of the other drawings in black and white because I wanted the book to have a uniform look. I think this worked out well because i think if the whole book was it colour it might have looked a bit too much. 

Activity pages

I created activity pages that are related to all of the artists in the book. These pages will go in after the fact pages. 

Andy Warhol Research

I wanted to include a diverse group of artists in my book so I thought it would be good to put Andy Warhol in as he created pop art which is very different to all of the other art styles in the book. He also is known for drawing products rather than images that tell a story so I thought that would be interesting too. 

Born: August 6, 1928
Died: February 22, 1987
Movement: Pop Art

• Andy Warhol got banned from art club when he was in secondary school because he was better than all of the other students.
• Theres a 5 minute video of him eating hamburger on youtube.
• As well as creating art Andy Warhol owned a nightclub, produced music and had a TV show for MTV called Andy Warhol's 15 minutes. 
• Andy Warhol drew products rather than people so he had a lot of commercial jobs working for big companies. 
• His most famous and most recognisable piece of art work is probably the Campbell's Soup tin painting. 
• Andy Warhol's name was originally Andy Warhola but he dropped the 'A' when he became famous. 
• He was one of the leading pioneers in the pop art movement.
• He had a  nose job because he hated the way his nose looked. 
• Andy Warhol wore grey/silver wigs and eventually he died his hair the colour of his wigs. 
• he once got told he had a lazy eye so he decided to start wearing blacked out glasses with a pin hole in them to hide his eyes. 

Layout research

The second book that I looked at for some help with layouts was a book about printing called 'Print workshop.' I initially was drawn to it because the drawing style is very similar to mine. This book has very nice simplistic layouts and lovely illustrations. I liked on page in particular because it used the edge of the page really well. I thought I would keep this page in mind when planning my layouts. Here is the book cover and the page that I thought worked well. 

Layout Research

I wanted to get some inspiration for what my book should look like and how to lay it out well. I headed down to the library and picked out some books that looked really nice and fit in with the style that I wanted my book to be like.  The first book that I picked out is called 'My even more wonderful world of fashion.' It fit in perfectly with the style of my book and it really helped get ideas for my layouts. The bold black lines and use of space worked really well. I also really liked the style of typography and the different fonts that are used together. Here are a few pages that helped me out a lot. 

Beatrix Potter Drawing

This is my Beatrix Potter line drawing and colouring process. I used the same technique as I did for all of my other drawings by layering up the colours on photoshop. As there was no real full colour photos I had to do a little bit of guess work with some of the colours. I think that the image worked well considering I had to guess which colours to go with.