SQUARE BOYS PRINT

The whole printing process of these went smoothly. I knew from the last print I did it was worth taking more time over setting up the screen, making sure it was clean, mixing the colours and also making sure the registration was perfect for each print. It was fun to see it slowly build up each I completed each colours. As there was six colours and I wanted to produce at least about 20 prints, completing it patiently did take a few days; though I've learnt that screen printing is a time-consuming process & its worth the end result. 

• Above is the final print after I had scanned it in and cleaned it up a little in Photoshop.
• for this print I wanted to create something fun & playful, and I think i've succeeded. It does seem quite child-like which I like. A few people mentioned the figures looked kind of like letters of the alphabet, which is a nice idea. This could be something I could take further, maybe creating a full alphabet/kids book using my characters?
• I really love the colours I used. I probably could of done with making the yellow a bit deeper but other than that I think the colour mixing went well
• I like the composition/layout. I'm glad I used the square shapes.
• I think this would make a nice print to brighten up a room, I'll hopefully be selling them at a print fair next year at some point

SQUARE BOYS colour combos

Once I had got my pencil drawings scanned in and made them into block shapes it was easy for me to change up the colours to see which I liked best. At first I thought about trying to keep it very minimal by first experimenting with only three colours, and then five colours. I also used black within both of these as I just had it in my head that it was a colour I was going to use. 

I quickly realised that the more colours I used the better the image looked, and the better it would probably look as a screen print. I thought about going with the five colours but I thought it wouldn't be that much more difficult to do six colours. I got rid of the black completely as I felt it was over-powering the image too much, and swapped in a dark green and a dark blue. As soon as I saw the colour way below I knew that was the one I wanted to go for!

FINAL COLOUR WAY

SQUARE BOYS

• something i've been experimenting with recently is drawing my figures in the constraints of a shape. I started off using a triangle as my shape but quickly moved on to a square as I could come up with something a little more fun
• I wanted to try this as I was finding it difficult to just draw onto a black sheet of paper, this helped me have a few restrictions which actually made it easier 
• I tried my best to fill the entire shape with an image, which in turn made for slightly wackier illustrations which is what I love about these. I used line drawings to create them but I'm already seeing potential of turning them into block shapes using bright colours, and possibly even a screen print.

3 COLOUR SCREEN PRINT

FINAL SCREENPRINTS

• here's my final three colour screen prints ! i'm pretty chuffed. the whole process went much smoother than expected, and that I remembered. 
• the process itself was a bit stressful at first while I was getting into it, but I made sure to keep telling myself it was ok if something went wrong which helped 
• I also made sure not to rush it and took my time with things like mixing my inks and lining up each colour so they fit together perfectly; this did take a little longer but it was definitely worth it
• I printed on two different colour stocks to mix it up a bit

WHAT I LIKE:

• I really like the colours I went for. they are bright and compliment each other nicely
• I have really enjoyed seeing my illustration being translated into a screen print and actually liking it! it has made me feel a lot better and so much more confident about the whole process and excited about what I could do next
• I like the illustration itself, it's quite charming and works well as a print. I'm looking forward to giving a couple out to my family and friends as gifts. it will also be good to potentially sell at any future print fairs

FAILURES?

• something you can't really tell from the scans is that the edges of the people are very slightly pixellated. I think this is due to making my positives in Photoshop instead of illustrator, which meant that when I changed them to black the lines weren't clean. i need to get into using illustrator especially for things like this! i'm just so comfortable using Photoshop it's hard to make the switch
• I should have thought about blowing it up a bit. I think it would work well as a large print! but I guess I needed to start off small while I'm getting used to printing

Planning a screen print

I've decided to attempt my first screen print of the year! I feel like this is a risky move considering nearly every screen print i've done in the past something has gone wrong! It's something i'm determined to get good at as I love the aesthetic of it, and think it would really suit my work. So i'm testing the waters really, it might put me off for life but I'm hoping it will go smoothly and I can continue screen printing in the future!

I've gone with something pretty simple, I wanted to avoid overcomplicating it at all costs to keep it as stress-free as possible. I thought this would make quite a nice little three colour print. I made it about A5 size but I'm going to print it on A4 paper in the middle of the page, this means hopefully I can fit all three positives on one screen. 

I've done it almost jigsaw puzzle-like, though I am going to overlay a couple of bits on top of each other to make it a bit easier. I'm going to use blue, pale pink and red, and it'll hopefully turn out like my digital mock-up at the top.  I'm excited (& nervous) to see how it goes!

MAKING A GIF

Recently I thought i'd have a go at making a gif, as I remembered how much I enjoyed our gif making project in first year! I wanted to make something pretty simple as I didn't want it to become a huge project; I just wanted to make a quick experimentation. I obviously wanted to include a figure so I thought about what sort of movements it could make and decided on a simple leg swing and tapping hand. As my animation skills are pretty basic, I decided to draw out each frame individually and I wanted to keep the colour scheme simple as well so just used a blue colouring pencil. Once I had it scanned in though I did add a couple of sections of block colour. 

• I'm happy with my final gif even though it does look a bit make-shift
• I especially like the colouring pencil texture on her hair which changes throughout. This shows that each frame is hand-drawn which I like
• it does look a bit scrappy but i'm not sure if this kind of adds to it? I can't decide if it just looks a bit rubbish or whether that makes it more charming
• I don't really mind that this isn't an amazing piece of work as I did do it just for a little test. Maybe I can produce a more refined one in the future although I did find it very time-consuming

CRITICAL REFLECTION 1

REFLECTION:
At this point in the year I don't really feel as though I have much to reflect on; after a bit of a stressful start to the academic year I definitely haven't got properly stuck into my practise or making work yet and for some reason I feel slightly nervous to start. I think I ended last year on quite a practical note in terms of my practical work so I want to get that positive energy back and make that evident within my work. I have been experimenting with some coloured pencil drawings which I have been really enjoying; I love the handmade texture they give my images I think the vibrant colours make them quite striking. I have also been simply practising just getting back into drawing by filling sketchbook pages with new ideas for images I could create; I've learnt I don't have to love everything I draw first time, and it's about roughing and sketching exhaustively til I do find something I want to develop further. I need to remember this!

GOING FORWARD:
As I have outlines in my statement of intent I'd like to experiment with a variety of different processes this year, so I'd quite like the develop my colouring pencil drawings and possibly turn them into screen print; this is something I keep putting off but I just need to force myself to give it another go before it gets too late into the year! I also feel like I need to start trying to apply my illustrations to things, or try a few competition briefs to see how my work could fit into the 'real world'. I want to carry on exploring colour and composition in my work which is a couple of things i've been considering a bit more recently, I think these types of things can really change the dynamic of an image. I hope there are some colour related live briefs I can submit to.
I'd also like to think about making work which can be sold at a print fair or something similar. I took part in Print Stuff last year with a group of friends which I really enjoyed, so i'm hoping we get a table again this year. I need to think about the type of things people like to buy and producing work I'm happy enough with to sell. I found that one of my colouring pencil drawings made quite a nice card so I could think about producing a set of greetings cards to sell, or a set of postcards. I want to produce work i'm proud of.

A few more coloured pencil drawings

• been working on a few more drawings in coloured pencil. i'm enjoying trying out different colour schemes to see what works well & what doesn't and from this i've found a colour scheme I really like (top two images)
• it's also good for me to experiment with different figures and poses and actions while I get used to drawing again
• I could take these further by producing a set of postcards or greetings cards but to be honest I quite like them as just images. the texture of these is something you can't really duplicate digitally which is why I like them
• I guess there's not really much point to these which is what is putting me off a bit. I could think about them in more of an editorial sense and see how they'd be suitable for this

Couple in colouring pencil

• This was an illustration I created in coloured pencil from a pencil sketch in my sketchbook. The sketch started off as just a single figure but developed into the couple
• It actually took quite a while to get the figures how I wanted them to look so it was a case of a lot of rubbing out and trying again
• when I got to an image I was happy with because of the re-drawn lines it was difficult to trace over, so I scanned it into my laptop, reduced the opacity in Photoshop, printed it out and went over the lines in a darker colour so it was easier to trace

• this was my final illustration!
• I kind of love how cute and calm the image feels. I'm happy I went with quite a simplified illustration as I think this adds to it
• I've said this before, but i love the vibrancy of these colouring pencils! I think they make the image stand out a lot more where sometimes I think that using colouring pencils can make an image look a bit dull
• I actually decided to make a card out of this image as well as I wanted to use it for something other than just a print because I was pretty pleased with it
• I think it might be nice to develop this into possibly a screen print? Or i'm not sure it would be nice to keep it as colouring pencil, I don't want to over-use it
• I'll definitely be using these colours a lot more in the future though

STATEMENT OF INTENT

RATIONALE:

I really started to enjoy my practise and enjoy making work towards the end of last year when I decided to stop making work I thought other people would like and started making that I liked; it made me feel so much more confident with my practise which was evident in my outcomes. I do feel like last year I focused so much on one particular project I seemed to neglect other ones, so this year I want to make sure i'm more exhaustive with ideas and give myself tighter deadlines to work to to avoid dwelling over things.
Something I desperately want to get into is screen printing! I love the aesthetic it creates but currently I'm not confident with the process at all; I want to push myself to try it again to see if I can master it. I really want to make work which makes people feel happy and images that people can resonate with; I want to produce energetic and fun imagery.

THEMES/SUBJECTS:

• SHAPES
• COLOURS
• COMPOSITION 
• PLAYFUL
• FUN

PRODUCTS?:

• Hopefully a print or a set of prints I could potentially sell at a print fair
• I've always wanted to get into making wooden illustrations so maybe this is something I could have a go at this year
• I'd also like to have a go at producing a gif
• Illustrations for magazines

MEDIA?:

• I'd actually like to try out a whole range of different media and processes this year. I want to make the most of the resources I have access to while i'm hear
• I'd love to book a laser cutting induction and experiment with wood cut shapes
• I also want to experiment with analogue print methods, coloured pencil, paint and possibly cut paper

Recent sketchbook pages

Here are some scans of my recent sketchbook pages !

• I'm currently quite enjoying working in coloured pencil. I think it gives a really nice texture and hand-made aesthetic. It's not a medium I have really worked much in before but I think it suits my practise quite well
• I feel like i'm just properly getting back into my practise after quite a long and stressful summer. It's nice getting used to drawing again and I'm using these little drawings to ease me back in
• I love the pencils i'm using (prismacolor) they are so bold and vibrant and also buildable if you want a more textured look or a solid bit of colour. 
• The process of these is pretty simple. I'm drawing out my characters first and then I usually just scan them, print them out and trace round the edges before colouring them in
• I'm planning on carrying on with these pencil drawings but not sure where to take them next? They might be nice for editorials or possibly even some greetings cards so we'll see