Amy presentation board complete

Alex Patrick Extended Practice 603 27 Club Competition

The Brief I found the brief for this competition very interesting and from the off I knew it was something I wanted to take part in. We were supplied with a list of musicians and interesting famous people who all passed away at the age of 27 and asked to illustrate whoever we wanted in any way we wanted, it just had to be full colour and fit the dimensions 27cm X 27cm, to keep in with the theme. I had a flick through the list and was familiar with most of the names but one in particular caught me. Amy Winehouse. When I was younger I loved Amy and always admired her unique style and strong personality and I was very sad when she died. So out of the list I obviously had to choose Amy, as she was a very colourful character and I knew I could have a lot of fun illustrating her.

My Research In terms of research, I didn’t do a great deal, but I didn’t really have to since I have been a fan of Amy since my early teens, I know a lot about her and her music so instead of doing lots of extensive unnecessary research, I put her music on Spotify and got to work making a Pinterest board of all things Amy Winehouse. It took quite a while to find a picture that was ‘draw-able’ for me as most were edited to black and white for some reason and her features weren’t very visible because of her heavy makeup and the filter. I had fun making the board and adding pictures of her outfits and the colours and fabrics that she wore. I got into Pinterest in January and I absolutely love it. I’d never used it before and didn’t really know what it was before hand but now I think i’d be lost without it. It’s a great way to collect images and have them in one place and a really helpful thing to use when creating work.

My Development My development…or lack thereof. I ended up neglecting my 603 work due to my dissertation being so time consuming and I eft this brief a bit too close to the last minute and ended up rushing my illustration to the point where I was so unhappy with it. To begin with, I really, really struggled to draw Amy’s face. I think the angle of the image I chose to use and the shadows and Amy’s heavy eyeliner made the drawing quite hard, as it was impossible to see the shape of her eyes properly. Her mouth was also a massive challenge as it was open and I don’t tend to draw people’s mouths open as I find teeth a struggle. After I had finished my pretty poor attempt at drawing her, I had little time left to work on it digitally as the deadline was the next day. As this was only my third digital piece and my third time using my Wacom and Photoshop, I sort of copied what I had done for my So Young entry a few days prior. Not copied, but I drew similar plants and used similar colours. As I worked on this, I knew I was rushing and I knew I wasn’t going to feel good about the finished piece.

Final Outcomes

After Thoughts After rushing about and hating my illustration well and truly, I couldn’t bring myself to enter it into the competition. I felt horrible with how it looked and felt it didn’t do Amy any justice whatsoever and I didn’t want anyone to see it really. If I had not have started it literally 2 days before the deadline, I think I could have made a really great piece of illustration based on Amy and her music. Having said this, doing this taught me that a rushed piece of work will never be my best, and I don’t make very good artwork when under pressure and a very limited amount of time. Since doing this, I have made sure to give myself the best amount of time for myself to make something good, as well as making more roughs and sketchbook work before hand, as I went into this project a bit blind, with very little development work. I have definitely learnt from my mistakes and in a way, I think I needed to make this rushed, awful piece of work in order to learn.