Line of sight: Practical Task

Aims

My aim for this task was to do something a little different. There are multiple ways of applying line of sight to an image, wether it be a really simple yet strong line of sight leading the audiences eye in one straight direction landing on the central focus point, or a really complex line of sight which causes your eyes to dance across the image in all directions taking in multiple focal points and also helping to tell a story.

I want to challenge myself with this task and attempt to create a zigzag line of sight similar to my illustration example by Anastasia Bulgakova previously. I want to try to cause the audiences eye to jump back and forth across the image before landing on the central main element.

After being asked to focus on the theme of transport and produce an image centred around the principles we had been taught on line of sight, I noticed most people in the class were choosing very generic forms of transport to illustrate. I did look at reference material for cars, trains, trams, bikes etc etc but nothing jumped out at me as something I really wanted to draw in a composition with interesting line of sight values. It wasn't until I had a Skype call with my boyfriend to his parents in Qatar that I had a lightbulb moment and came up with an interesting take on transport and landscape.

What is your chosen mode of transport?
Camel

In what environment/ landscape would we expect to see it?
Desert regions, middle eastern countries, bedouin country etc etc.

How can you employ interesting line of sight?

Sand dunes themselves have a lot of interesting flowing lines and curves which could be used as a direction tool to help guide the eye of the audience to a central focal point.

What story are you telling with the image?

I want to tell the story of distance and travel through a vast and unforgiving landscape. Natives in middle eastern countries who do venture out into the desert are gone for weeks at a time and without the help, strength and stamina of camels, people would not survive.

Does it involve people, characters, animals?
You would rarely see a camel without its owner (unless it has escaped/bolted) so I expect my image to have a bedouin native leading their camel through the desert.

What atmosphere are you generating?

Deserts are extremely sparse and lonely and also forever changing which I hope will lend itself to the portrayal of distance and journey I hope to achieve in my image.

Roughs

I really struggled to generate helpful roughs once I realised camels are really difficult to draw from memory. I decided to use reference material to get the gist of a camel form and once I had become a bit better at that, I was able to work on how to employ line of sight into my images. Physically drawing arrows of where I expect the audience eye to lead across my image was really helpful when positioning the compositional elements.

Final inked image:

Once in photoshop, I cleaned up the image using the patch healing tool to remove any unwanted marks/dots.

Colour

I then began to play with colour, deciding upon orange to compliment the sand/desert element and played with the positioning of the colour in the image:

I like the separation of colour elements in this image
however I feel that the stippling effect is quite
lost in the block coloured sand 

I feel this image lacks contrast as a lot of the
detail is lost and drowned out by
the merging vast area of colour.

Invert:

This was a simple yet happy accident and I really like the results as an
interesting/striking image. All the key elements of the stippling are made
extremely vibrant and I love how the inverted orange turns blue and pops in
contrast against the black.

 Final chosen digital image:

After having a play with the colour, I decided upon this layout for the final image. As much as I liked the inverted colours in the previous image, the positioning of the orange in the final helps lead the eye compositionally and obviously the orange naturally relates more to the elements of sand/desert in the image. I varied the opacity of the orange throughout the details to help add interest, contrast and depth.

Strengths / Weaknesses

My aim with this image was to create a "zig-zag" line of sight, starting at the bottom of the image and working up through the middle towards the mountains at the top. The line was to be created by the zig-zag tops of the sand dunes and the first centre of interest being the camel/bedouin and the final centre of interest being the mountains - giving the impression of scale, distance and emphasising the long journey in which the travellers have made.

As much as I thought this idea would create an interesting line of sight (instead of the simple straight line 'point-to-point'), I'm not sure that the resulting image is successful in creating this. I feel a large majority of the "strength" in the line of sight elements is lost by the use of stippling - the line is not clear/strong enough. Because of this, the sand dunes also lack scale and the mountains are too centred/positioned/regular - they could span across the whole top of the image to create a stronger focal point.

Other than these (ahem...major) failings in the task, I am pleased with the overall composition and level of craft. I still feel it is a strong image and I am glad that I gave this task a go, as even through failing I feel I have learnt more about how line of sight works and why to use it. - It's really difficult and I need some practise!

Studio Brief 2: 'Greetings From...' - Contextual Research

Pinterest to the RESCUE!

I am completely new to illustrator and a little daunted by the prospect of creating artwork using a program I know nothing about for this new brief. So to help overcome my fear and to get an idea of what level of artwork can be achieved using Adobe Illustrator and vectors, I thought it would be really helpful to set up a Pinterest board where I can keep anything that catches my eye. This of course spiralled out of control and it is now easily one of the largest boards I have on Pinterest. There are so many designs and vibrant illustrations created using this form of digital media, and maybe it is the clean lines from the vectors or crazy works with geometric shape and texture, either way I am really inspired by these works and cant wait to have a go at my own.

Whilst adding to my Pinterest board, there were specific illustrators who caught my eye:

Jing Zhang
Jing Zhang is a Chinese illustrator based in London and works primarily in advertising. What strikes me about her vector based illustrations are how informative they are. With the flattened infographic style, her personal works into cities really stand out to me. Every aspect of the illustration is clear and clean, yet beautiful and each piece of work is really brilliant example of how simple shape can be successful at conveying key information. I am also a big fan of the limited colour pallette, reflective of the specific city being depicted. This is something I would like to attempt in my own work - as I tend to exagerate and overuse colour - when in fact less can be more.

The use of key landmarks is a good way to start this brief when looking into specific cities to take further with my ideas. I would also like to explore the "map" idea, as i think it is a nice way to represent a city and incorporate all of the key elements to help make it recognisable.

Monsieur Z
Another illustrator whose work stood out to me was that of Monsieur Z. Based in France, Mr Z's vector based illustrations are globally renowned and mainly feature for top fashion organisations. However, it is his scenery work and use of colour that has caught my eye. Each piece of work manages to depict an idillic location, somewhere where anyone would love to visit. 

 

What strikes me the most when looking at these travel posters is the use of colour. I wouldn't say that each illustration has a limited colour palette necessarily, but even though the variety of colour used is wide and extremely bright - the illustrations are not overpowering. The colour has been used so effectively - enhancing these locations and making them seem better than ever. I also like how these posters are managing to advertise a location, without being too obvious about its scenery or familiar landmarks. I would like to be able to achieve this with my own postcards and I would like someone to want to visit the locations I choose, as a result of seeing my artwork, without being too obvious - as Mr Z has done here with his.

MUTI
Lastly I stumbled across the work of Cape Town illustration and design collective MUTI. 
Again i think the work appeals to me as it has that very clear "infographic" style about it, which I think would really help to covey my chosen cities well if I was to choose this style. The use of simple shapes and bright colour is again apparent in this work, which helps to make the work stand out in aesthetic.

I absolutely love their work and their website. Check it out here 

Thoughts
From this work I have been able to see the importance of creating work using shape. Block colour, slight texture and considered colour, all work well with the clean lines of vector based illustration and help to covey the message clearly. I want my postcard to be striking in appearance, but to also be representative of the cities I have chosen. Maybe explore the map/infographic style further.

In Studio - Notes, Handout & Task: Line of Sight

Highlighted handout:

In studio notes/questions:

What is line of sight?

The direction in which our eye moves across an image, settling on the main point of focus.

What does line of sight do for your composition?

Strengthens composition and draws attention to the main points of focus within an image.

How does movement relate to line of sight?

Movement of the viewers eye across the image, within the image borders/frame. Can be smooth/rhythmical when moving the viewers eye from point of interest to point of interest - or very abrupt creating a dramatic atmosphere/effect.

How does the handout recommend you use line to its full advantage?

- study direction of lines when planning an image
- ask the following questions:

******************

Additional task:

Painting, Photographs, Illustrations that display a strong/interesting/dynamic "line of sight".

Anastasia Bulgakova

The image above is by digital concept illustrator Anastasia Bulgakova and I love how key elements within the image point to other key elements - sending your eyes "ping-ponging" up through the frame helping to give a sense of hight, scale and setting. Centre of interest being the battle occurring between the 2 ships overhead.

Leszek Paradowski

This photograph above is by Leszek Paradowski and it is clear that all elements are guiding our eyes to one centre of interest - the very tall top of the tree. This photograph has a strong and very definite line of sight. This helps to give the audience the sense of enormity and hight of the subject matter, whilst also making the audience feel extremely small.

Studio Brief 1: 'I See Faces' - Final GIFs and Self Evaluation

Final Animated GIFs

After much work and many many hours sat struggling on photoshop, I have to say I am pretty pleased with the outcome and fruits of my labour. I have always tended to put the idea of moving image in the 'Animation' box, so to see how illustration can also enter this word of motion has been extremely inspiring.

GIF 1: Hot Air Balloon

Self Evaluation

This GIF was a COMPLETE nightmare to create. When I first came up with the idea, I thought having the separate moving elements (foreground, mid-ground and background) made physically out of paper and card would actually help me in the process, however it just turned out to be a lot more complicated than I had imagined - as with everything I seem to attempt. Also converting a photoshop motion file to GIF format in the final stages of this process, seems to just not like scanned in flat colour. A lot of pixelation, scratching and noise appears in my final result because of my choice to use flat coloured cut paper and I spent so much of my time researching into how to overcome this issue - but to no avail. It seems to be a common thing to have a GIF lose its quality considerably when converting to GIF and reducing the file size, but even so - it sucked to see this work deteriorate before my eyes as I feel the pixelation takes away from the overall quality of the animation. Due to these issues, I spent a lot longer on this GIF than I had wanted too, being one of the main reasons I only produced 2 final GIFs instead of the 3 requested in the brief.

Despite all the problems, I think I achieved a lot with this work that I had set out to do. I wanted to convey a big interest of mine - travel, and wanted my GIF to have a lot going on by way of movement and colour. Having separate moving elements across the foreground, mid-ground and background meant that I could edit these elements separately once scanned in which helped to strengthen the idea of depth. In most cases, I managed to overcome the issues I had with movement and timing and actually produced something quite complicated, ambitious and way out of my comfort zone considering I have never created anything remotely like this before. There are a few things wrong with the overall GIF, a few frames out of place thanks to unfathomable mathematics, but they aren't as noticeable to other people which is the main thing.

GIF 2: Rolling Cat

Self Evaluation

After all the complication of my first GIF, I wanted to strip things back a little with my second and have a little more fun. Despite being quite a simple concept, I put a lot of work into the physical artwork, with each individual frame having its own hand drawn illustration, which again took a lot of time. To help with this, I was able to use a light box which aided the positioning and repetition of key elements and I think this paid off over all. If I could re-do this GIF, I would like the eye elements of the cat to remain analogue, in keeping with the rest of the illustration. Although creating the eyes in photoshop did help with the process, I think these Digital elements pop and stand out a little too much and that hand drawn eyes moving throughout the GIF would have been more appropriate to the overall aesthetic. In my haste when completing this GIF, I had not paid much attention to the white space around the cat. I do like the rough and ready feel of the paper and its creases/shadows - however I would have liked this to be completely white and clean.

My main accomplishment with this GIF was generating smooth continuous animation. I anticipated that to achieve what I wanted - I would have to have a lot of hand drawn frames to minimise the jump between each movement. Originally this GIF had in excess of 40 frames and although the transition between movements was really smooth, the overall spinning of the cat was way too slow. With each frame at a timing of 0 secs, the movement was still too slow and I couldn't make the timing any less than 0 seconds (obviously) so the only other option was to remove frames. Removing frames did mean their is a bigger jump between steps (and some of the artwork was now no longer featuring in the piece), but this did speed up the motion overall, with the transition still being pretty smooth (and quite hypnotic if you stare at it too long).

Strengths

I was extremely nervous when showing my GIFs to everyone on hand in day. A lot of people had previous experience of making GIFs unlike me and had some great ideas in terms of character design and personality. I got great feedback from my peers for this brief, everyone I spoke too seemed to recognise the work I had put into each which was great.

Overall, I found this brief to be really beneficial to my practice. I enjoyed learning a new process of generating an animated GIF and would like to create more now that I know how. A still illustration has its benefits and qualities, but being able to make an illustration move turns it it to something completely different and in a lot of cases more striking and relatable. I managed to achieve something I would have thought quite impossible in the time given - like making a GIF from moving paper and I was also able to achieve smooth motion which was my main aim from this overall task. Trying new things and facing problems along the way pays off.

Monoprint Workshop

Mono-printing!

I am a bit of a sucker when it comes to printmaking, especially because it has been a long time since doing it properly throughout my foundation course years ago and I miss it greatly. Having not mono-printed in some time meant I was a little rusty throughout this workshop and I wasn't particularly pleased with any of the prints enough to call then final pieces.

However look at the lovely textures!!! I am looking forward to using these as backgrounds for future artwork, or as texture fills in different digital programs.