Stage Two - Visual Communication - Why Collect Dolls? Editorial

For Stage Two of the Visual Communication module I chose to illustrate the article about Sophie Ellis-Bector and Doll collecting :  http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/07/why-collect-dolls-grew-out-stamps-sophie-ellis-bextor                                                                                                                                                                                                                               This is my finished piece alongside the edited article layout. The piece was made completely on Photoshop with scanned images from my sketchbook.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Andy's Workshop - Katagelophobe Outcome

When I had my final idea, I then wanted to make it digital to be able to copy and paste my image as I had the idea to call my collective noun a "Mimic" of Katagelophobes. After all, a mimic being a copy of something, it made sense to have the final piece be a copy of the same image to go with the title. 

This was my finished piece with just the one person being Ridiculed. I went for something simple as for the most part of this project I was quite stuck for ideas and with simple expressions, I think it ended up being more obvious as to what the phobia could be compared to if it was more detailed. I also added a small outer shadow to the figures to make the colours pop more.                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Then I copy and pasted the image and moved it around to create my final image. The frame around it, I felt, closed it in more and looked much better than just being left without.

~       A mimic of Katagelophobes     ~

Ben's Workshop - Digital Vignette

For the Digital Vignette, I decided to use my other piece for the Obsession project, as I really wanted to use this piece for something other than just an example of what ideas I had for a final piece.

It was quite difficult to work with this piece I found, but I did enjoy learning about the Drop Shadow effect in photoshop to create depth. Also, adding in dull opacity layers of colour between each layer was really interesting to use, seeing how each layer gets darker with every new layer added.

I choose to use blue as the colours in-between to go with the blue dots of watercolour from the original piece. I think it also complimented the red/pink of the lips as well. 

I would really like to use this style and these technqiues again, maybe when I have characters to use, as that would make for a much more interesting outcome. Also, characters would probably have a less busy look. However I do like the outcome from this piece too. I think it worked best on the bubbles in the corners and the black splashes with "Eyes shout what the lips fear to say". 

A total of  layers were used to create the image :

- Bubbles in the corner
- Lips and quotation in the splashes
- The eye-like pattern with repeated text
- Boarders hovering above the eye-like patterns
- The film reel-like pieces with the text and lip drawings 

Ben's Workshop - Obsessive Personalities

This was my outcome with playing around on photoshop using Ben's online tutorials. All images are from google and taken from the section for fair use. To find them I googled simple things such as "eyes", "victorian" and "dogs".

The pink of the girls dress was changed using the screen layer technique, which is really useful to know. I can definitely see myself screen layers in future pieces. The eye-mask thing over the dog and the patterns in the paracol were used by using the clipping mask technique, which I found to be quite time consuming but fun to know how to do, as you could make so many weird pieces with the clipping masks.

I think I am happy with the outcome, as I wasn't 100% sure what to do with my images once I had found them. Either way, it was a interesting task and at least I learnt some more photoshop techniques that were completely new to me. 




These are the images I found and used to edit : 

Obsession - Final Piece

 For the start of the Obsession final piece, I originally wanted to do the piece on canvas and make the most of painting. However when I started, I realised I hadn't primed the canvas and effects I had tried out in my sketchbook didn't work as well on the canvas either. So I opted to use paper instead, as I had a rougher type of paper from a sketchbook that picked up much better than the canvas.

So starting slowly with just a large eye in the centre, I used acrylic paints to outline it for a block colour finish. I then used the dried out brush a few minutes later to drag around the eye to create a messy web-like effect that I had tried in my sketchbook that I thought looked really effective. Then I  dragged a green pencil over it a few times for colour and texture before working on the 'colourful' corner of the piece.

This corner was started with a yellow highlighter, Gold acrylic paint and a fine liner.


 When completely filled, Copic Markers were also used and a few watercolours within the larger eyes. I also started using a silver paint marker too for outlines and boarders within the patterns. 

 Then I started on the 'Alan Doyle'/Eyes Shout What The Lips Fear To Say section. Asides from the watercolour on the lips and the brown copic marker in the middle, the rest of materials used was the black fineliner, Grey Copic Marker and the silver paint marker. This took much longer than you would think and was actually a good few hours work here. (It seemed to take forever as well!) 

I also added the different languages "Eyes" part around the middle eye here as a frame for it.

After filling in the black around the different languages, It still felt quick plain to me so I used the silver and gold paint markers to add a boarder. I liked that it didn't circle around the whole of the eye either, as I like the crazy ways the layers are now starting to end and begin. 
From here I started my Madoka Kinshita inspired eye at the top left corner with acrylic paints and watercolours.

Beside the Madoka styled eye, I felt it would be best to put the Occult inspired piece next to it as this corner would now become a spiritual/night themed corner. Watercolours, Acyrlics and the fineliner were used to create the yellow (sun) and blue (moon) eyes piece.

I also thought from here it would be quite cool to mirror the sort of wheel of different coloured eyes on the left bottom corner too. 

More black and white pieces added as well as the "Stars in my eyes" quote for the Madoka eye because I felt it the style matched that quote well with the dotting effects.


All things added from here were drawn with the fineliner, Grey copic marker and silver paint marker again. 

I wasn't 100% sure how to finish up the piece so I added much more black and white pieces as I didn't feel more colour would be the way to go. So many more busy yet small 'Alan Doyle' like sections where added. All with the fineliner this time as it was the only tool I had that could get such small areas done smoothly. 






After filling in the last few tiny sections, I was finally done! Really happy with the outcome of this piece as well! 

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This was a small piece I did before getting the final brief. As a tester for a Alan Doyle inspiration piece but using the quote "Eyes shout what the lips fear to say". The materials used were watercolour paints, fineliners and black poster paint. This small piece definitely helped me with my final idea and I felt i should add it at the end of the write up to show were a large part of my idea came from. Using the fineliner to create small, detailed patterns was time consuming put effective and I knew I wanted to add this in my final piece somehow. 

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Write up final evaluation : 

For my final piece, I knew I wanted to have a heavy influence of outsider art. After studying outsider artists and watching documentaries, I really enjoyed seeing how art can be so inspiring for people and a way to truly express themselves. I wanted to have an outsider-y feel as I think it matches well with obsession in a way too. Watching ‘Outsiders’ draw showed them truly lost in what they were doing and obsessing over making sure each line was as they wanted it, even if it wasn’t perfect. So I wanted to try something similar.

I started by drawing a large eye in the centre of the page and from there, I would draw anything that came to my mind or inspired me at that moment. I also had my sketchbook open to flick though every now and then for extra inspiration. Asides from that, I wanted to be quite free with whatever I would draw next. Seeing  as many outside artists don’t have a set ‘plan’ or ‘sketch’ to ink, that is what I wanted to do by only having eyes as my focus and  limiting myself to using only a few watercolours and Acrylics, Copic Markers, a fineliner and a silver paint marker.

I really liked what I saw of artist Alan Doyle and made most sections of my piece much like his style with use of black and white with sections of text here and there.  The sections of writing are either quotes I wanted to add relating to eyes or random thoughts that came to my mind when thinking of eyes or opening eyes. I really enjoyed working with limited colours as well, as it’s not really something I’ve done before. Simple mark-making and patterns with black, white and grey looked so busy but I liked having an at first busy and messy style but when you look, there is much more detail than first thought.

The splashes of colour were mostly influenced by another Outsider Artist, Angela Rogers. I found her style really unique and loved that most of her works were flooded with colours. To add a bit of life to the piece, I dedicated a corner to colour to break up much of the black and white. Other influences were from quotes such as “Stars in your eyes” and “Eyes shout what the lips fear to say” as when researching, I found these to be two of the most interesting quotes about eyes. Adding in quotes also gave me more ideas for things to draw within the piece. For instance the lips parting to show an eye or using a Madoka Kinoshita style eye to go with a starry eyed theme. The other influence then came from an occult meaning of eyes I found really fascinating. The left eye is often associated with Lunar traits and Northern direction and the right eye with Solar traits and Southern direction.  The image of eyes with day and night themes instantly came to mind and I wanted to add that in too. A final idea that came to me was to add in the word “eyes” in different languages as reading a person expression through their eyes is a universal language that we can all understand.

I enjoyed doing this piece as it was something very different to what I would normally do, the outsider art style was a refreshing change that will probably influence or feature in other works I might do in the future. However, If I were to do this piece again, I think the only thing I would change would be adding more symmetry, however I am still happy with the overall outcome.

Song to the Siren - Progress and the final piece

 When I had finished my research and sketching (See Workshop book) I then went about drawing my Sailor for the final illustration. Adding in the fish as well so that I could later change the colours or details later in photoshop if I felt the need to. This was the progress of the drawing through to being finished and inked. 

With the scanned image I firstly removed all the white background pieces with the magic wand tool and some manual eraser work for hard to get places such as the beard/hair and tattoos.

I also played around with a few effects and colours to see what might happen and if anything could be used as part of the final outcome.

When I was starting to cut things into layers (e.c - Sailors hair, tattoos, fish) I copied an extra layer of fish to see what colours might look best and hid the original layer from view. When I re selected the layer I really liked the overlaying of the fish and decided to keep it. As I went on I also decided to do another ring of fish, changing the colour and shape as it looked much more dramatic and really framed the piece.

Seeing as this project was limited to colour use, as well as not being able to use solid black, I changed the outlines to a dull blue and hair outlines to dark brown. I also wondered at first about giving the Sailor blue-ish skin to have a drowned, underwater effect, but each shade I tried didn't look right.

 When I had gotten the right skin tone I was after and finished changing the outlines colours, I tried playing with backgrounds. I knew I wanted something simple and changing from dark blues to light to get a deep sea effect/look. This was a test with the Liquidify tool, but it looked far too rough for what I had in mind. 

 Adding a grain effect and slight glow for a test, also changing the brightness/saturation. Really didn't like the grain effect so that wouldn't be added, but the glow effects would be played around with some more. The lighter and third layer of fish was added also. 

 The background was put through a blur filter to mix the colours together in a much smoother outcome. The glow effect around the sailor was brightened and stretched outwards too. 

Back to testing out colours with the sailor, I felt that his skin tones needed darkening a bit so more playing around with colours, saturation and brightness. 

 The last things added were more glow effects near the top to create the real underwater look and a bed of deep sea coral too. After creating rough, rock-like shapes I then carefully painted coral shapes and copy-pasted them into different areas. A second layer was added for more depth, which looked much more impressive. The layer at front was darkened and finished with a 'outer shadow' filter to enhance the depth further. 


When I thought I was finished though, I realised I didn't like the very middle piece of the coral bed. it was far too plank so I added in more coral shapes and changed the colours around just a bit more for extra framing. More shading effects were added too.

 When looking around for the shadow effect, I also found a lens flare effect. I added it for testing and realised that it added just what I was looking for to fill the empty, boring part in the middle of the sea bed. 

I decided to keep the lens flare because it also looked much more underwater with it added. It reminded me of the photographs people take when the camera is just below the surface and catches the light of the sun of the surface of the water.

I also added a smaller flare to the top of the piece to give the effect of seeing the sun through the water. I wasn't sure if it would work, but when added I really liked it and wanted to keep it. With that, I was happy with the final piece and added the lyrics in the Photoshop template. 


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