BATSFORD ROUGHS

The image below is the first rough I came up with for the batsford brief; I knew I wanted to produce a screen print in response to this brief but I had to first come up with a design. I wanted to create something with a lot of energy, but keep the image fairly simple so there would be a stronger focus on the colours. I used the same idea I had for my square boys print, where I was drawing within a shape. 

This is what I came up with first and after some consideration I decided against going with this; I felt it was a bit too boring and lacked character:

I then came up with this design which I immediately liked more. I still followed the same rule of drawing within the squares but I changed the shapes up a bit and made them different sizes to make for a more interesting image. I think it's quite playful and works well compositionally.

I messed about with a few colour schemes as this was the most important part of the image; I wanted something quite bright and vibrant but not too over-powering like some of these below. I think less is definitely more in terms of these colour combinations as the ones with a range of colours and tones look far too busy. 

After a lot of changing around and swapping colours, I came up with these two colour palettes below. I wasn't initially intending to produce two screen prints but I do think it'll make for a stronger submission. Both of these include three of the same colours and two colours which differ from each other, I think this makes them feel more part of a set. I hope they translate well once they are printed. I'm almost hoping it dulls the colours down a bit as I think they look a bit too bright digitally. 

Banger Magazine Issue 1

Here is my illustration in the magazine! Even though it's only little it's exciting to see as this is kind of my first real commission! I got a copy of the magazine too which is nice, and it's nice to see my work alongside other illustrators and graphic designers work. I especially love the colours chosen for this particular page, and I love the bold black type. 

It was also really nice to see them post my work on Instagram, as I have only recently started posting work on my illustration account I want to try and get my work out there somehow and other people posting it really helps. I'd definitely like to do more commissions of this nature, and would love to work with this particular magazine again!

RENEWI finals

the roman conquest:

present day:

statement of intent:

My first image depicts the roman conquest, so I wanted to tie in the colour scheme with the colours I associated with typical roman clothing. I liked the idea of incorporating roman tiles and linked this to the idea of building things. I also wanted to keep the imagery quite obvious which is why I included the traditional roman clothing. 

With my second image depicting the present day, I decided to use brighter colours and I think this feels more modern. I wanted to get across the idea of 'fast fashion' in quite a literal sense, and have also included the use of technology. The image shows someone throwing away a plain t-shirt after seeing lots of new patterned ones in shop windows. 

Both of the images use quite a simple colour scheme, and I think my character design is quite fun and playful which means it would be enticing to children. I wanted to keep both of the concepts quite simple as well and tried to make the time periods obvious. 

RENEWI: colour

While deciding on a colour scheme for my images, I knew I wanted to keep them fairly simple as I didn't want them to look too busy. Also, I thought about how it would look in the form of a mural and thought bold is best.

I love these colours! for me I associate these kind of colours with the time period, and after a quick search looking for inspiration for traditional roman clothing these were the colours that stood out to me. I also think they look lovely against each other in this tile pattern. I think I am going to colour pick the colours for the rest of the imagery out of these ones, and then think about using a pale blue for the background. 

for the present day image I decided on using the three primary colours, and then maybe a colour more shades of each. For me these are the colours that feel most contemporary so I thought they'd be the most suitable for this particular time period. They also feel more fun and a bit more playful which means they tie in well with the character design. 

CRITICAL REFLECTION 2

REFLECTION:

Looking back at my current work I'm fairly happy with the way things are going, although I am struggling to get properly stuck in to 603 at the moment because of how much time I am dedicating to COP; I'm finding it hard to find a balance which is something I definitely need to work on. Something I am really enjoying at the moment is screen printing; I love exploring shape and colour within my prints, and I am really surprised at how confident I feel with the process now, considering that last year I was reluctant to give it another go after some unsuccessful attempts. I feel like my screen prints have developed from my coloured pencil drawings I was doing at the beginning of the year; I really like the hand-made aesthetic these two process give, and think it adds character to my work. I also got a lot of really positive feedback on my prints in our latest mega crit; similarly people seemed to really like the pencil drawings so maybe this is something I need to bring back into my practise a bit more! 

As well as screen printing, I have also been working on a couple of smaller briefs; one of them being an illustration for a music listings magazine called Banger. I have really enjoyed this brief, there was a lot of creative freedom and I strangely quite enjoyed working to the tight deadline; I feel like it made me more efficient with decision making. Another smaller brief I have completed is a collaboration I took part in with a graphic designer to re-deisgn a logo for a coffee shop; although my part in this brief wasn't huge it's been good to get some experience corresponding with another designer; there has also been talk about some other potential briefs coming up for the same cafe so I hope I am considered for that. As well as these, I have just started on a competition brief to create designs for some murals; I'm not really sure how I'm currently feeling about this brief so we'll see. 

GOING FORWARD:
Something I'll definitely be carrying on with is screen printing; I'd like to make some larger scale prints as currently I've only worked on A4 prints, so this is something to think about. I'd also like to use screen printing in response to competition brief as I feel like this is my strongest process. I'm considering The Batsford Prize as this years theme is 'craving colour' which is perfect as I have really been considering my colour palettes recently. I also got a few comments on my crit sheet about how I could possibly add some narrative to my character design, and someone even mentioned making an alphabet out of them which could be fun. All I really want to do is to keep producing work; like I said I feel like i've put it on a bit of a back-burner recently so I just want to get stuck back in and see where it takes me. I'd also love to get involved with issue 2 of Banger Magazine as I really enjoyed working on this brief.