My Narrative Final Outcome. Evaluation This is the final outcome of the narrative mistakenly named “tie” all throughout its process of creation. It was my first attempt and experimenting with this style of coloring in a piece - as well as toying with the concept of creating a narrative throughout the piece. I choose the “selfie” that I took when trying out a suit (just fyi, I did indeed buy the suit). I choose this picture because I felt that it was possible for it to be worked on and to create a weird disturbing circumstance just by adding a simple element to the composition a gas mask.The stance I was in to begin with worked well with the concept of nonchalance in a situation that seems instead of distress - as Gas Masks are worn in situations where it would be impossible or harmful for us to breathe without - a situation which I am trying to summon in the mind and imagination of the observer in a very minimalist way as I have given them the main subject and let them think and figure out as much of the rest of the situation as possible - which is what I think Narratives are supposed to suggest. And much of my work and painting style is inspired to the work of Matthew Hollings. Matthew Hollings work inspired me in the type of colouring and mark making to which I modelled my work after. Keeping this in mind, I preferred to add different tones of blue tones flat to the image without any blending or too many breaks of tones instead of using a more natural - realistic approach in order to catch the attention of the observer, and I believe I’ve been able to recreate the softness and reflecting look to the tissue of the suit with a sufficient deal of realism, and to create a well round 3D stand out feel to an instead doomed flat image. The mask instead has been painted more realistically – blending all the colours to create the plastic texture of the mask and to recreate as closely as possible its life like look. I wanted to keep the interest of the observer and their focus going back to the mask, even if the reason
as to which this happens is often unknown to an untrained eye as it is due to different painting styles being used as the mask is realistically painted.
After some experimentation with colours and painting styles, I was still undecided: either oil paint digital style or perhaps a realistic digital painting. In the end I decided to go with the real colour of the suit and the comic cover stylized colour-filling seemed the most appropriate colouring style, maybe because it is the one that feels very familiar to me, and therefore a very natural choice for a narrative that is in some way autobiographical. At the same time, I wanted to achieve a not-too-realistic effect, whilst still giving to the image some seriousness and I thought that a cartoon-like image was serving the scope very well. I left instead the mask to be as realistically painted because it is the element that I wanted to be the most real, as odd and unexpected as it is, just to symbolize that reality can (sometimes) be upsetting, or weird, or even creepy. I believe I have been able to represent as fully as I intended to, the sheer ambiguity of the character and to inspire in the observer the curiosity to try and discover what the masked character has done or is planning to do. I left the background white to say completely blank, because I did not want to give any additional input and leave the attention completely concentrated on the character. To give the best outlet to the dense and intricate narrative of the piece, I figured this to be the cover of an action book about the adventures of a character that is involved in an espionage activity. The colours paired out with the concept and idea of the combination including the gas mask are able in my opinion to intrigue a reader into what the book could be about and therefore purchase the product. In the very final version of this book cover I added fading smoke in the background thus to add a connection with the real world and events that are happening in the moment, to (visually) tell to the reader that he is about to be involved with an action story.
Exam final Piece evaluation.
This is the very final product I made, the one I want to propose as my final exam piece. It is what took me approximately 7 hours of work as the image of the tiger is full of details and I wanted to recreate them as closely as possible to keep intact the general complexity of the singular hair strands present on the muzzle. This idea was born in order to raise awareness and provide with funding and support to the WWF and their campaign to protect endangered species such as tigers and rhinos all over the world. I wanted to create a blending portrait of a man and a tiger, to suggest that all living beings are closely interconnected and the fate of the ones affects and alters the very existence of the others. I started off with overlapping two pictures taken for this very purpose; then, I proceeded into sketching the primary sketch. At this point I had some difficulties to match the human face and the animal face side by side in a portrait, because a tiger’s skull is much bigger than a human one. After attempting numerous times at getting the right size and proportions for both the portrait sketches without losing realism and credibility of the image, I put them side by side and after being satisfied enough with the proportions of everything, and having aligned the muzzle and eyes of the tiger and the man, I proceeded into applying the initial layers of colour which are the most basic medium tones of the piece so a Crayola orange and a dark orange. Initially I wanted to have the beard of the Human white, but I quickly realized that it simply wouldn’t work with the complexity of the tiger; besides, trying to blend together the two skin tones would have been even more difficult as one of the two would lose their natural tone in the process. Therefore, I settled for and equal division but at the same time a soft fading and mixing of the two in order not to sacrifice any realism in the process. I was inspired by some of the work of Denis Gonchar to pulling the resource of using animals in my products and just generally inspired to the naturalistic and animal theme in the work, Along with the animal portraits which inspired greatly and started off the spark of my interest in the final topic surrounding my final outcomes, I was inspired by Davis Artwork also in the artistic sense, and the techniques he used in his paintings. Davis is said to do a lot of work non-digitally and some of his non-animal work is instead photoshop – for example the various portraits and profiles he does of people and characters are digital as well as involving a whole different style of painting. When creating some of his animal recreations he has a vector based style of oil painting with clear bold coluors and bright tones, the animals are usually not a full body but often just involve the head and neck and at most the bust. His vector style of painting is very beautiful – and creates a surreal however very realistic recreation of the animal he portrays. As well as using the original tones of the animal he uses colours that contrast or exalt the surrounding tones in his work and weaves them into the fur along with the other, more natural tones. He also uses these colours when creating a background image for the picture to reside into, and in doing so he eliminates a lot of empty space directly behind the image in a way that creates the illusion of it not floating on the canvas – an illusion because he keeps the borders of the paintings engaged in his work to allow some negative space for the eye to roam after having such a varied range of colours and shapes take form into a singular image.
His other work on the other hand consist of soft brush strokes and portraits character and humans looking into directions. The technique behind this type of work is very different from his other style, in this work he uses a more common and natural looking approach in recreating the imagery without much complexity in the painting style that however involves strokes not blended together for an effect that shows the direction of the brush. This is the more natural style I was inspired to use in my work and final piece as I thought it would have otherwise created a too complex piece distorting the attention from the image.
EVALUATION OF MY ISSUE EDITORIAL This is my final editorial on the issue which i decided to talk about and capitalize which is the conflict in Israel and Palestine. With this editorial I wanted it to cover the major areas and topics that were touched and are of influence or cause of the Conflict in Israel and Palestine. The cover as well as the back I wanted to capture the urgency and gravity of what this conflict was bringing about the people involved. This meant i used the colour red a lot in the border and the in the word conflict as it is a colour that connotes danger and urgency as well as alarm and catches the eye of the reader. I also kept the same watercolour fading effect for the recreation of the flags and i wanted it to be a mixture of both the Palestinian and Israeli flag to show how the conflict overlaps the two cultures. In the first double page I wanted the reader to understand how violent and to be immersed into what this conflict is actually causing and perhaps what it is caused by. Guns trafficking into the Middle East has always been a constant problem ever since the American invasion, and the repercussions stayed throughout the centuries and that culture of was continued to today just as the war itself essentially did. I placed a repetition of guns on the page to symbolise and represent this as it is a tool used for violence - and wanted to keep a geometric motive to the artpiece without however ruining or distorting the attention too much or it being too polluting for the double pages and also wanted to keep negative space underneath the text as it created a feeling of hanging to the page. In the second double page I wanted to bring some symmetry to the editorial and i did this by using a picture taken by me of an American flag I recreated using a piece of cloth and oil paint. I created the flag first by taking the measurements and sketched the main motif needed to achieve a symmetric miniature of the current American flag I painted it with the appropriate shades of red and blue and then let it dry. Then to achieve the look of it fluttering in the air as if on a flag pole I placed it on a white surface in order to make the separation from its background easier when it came to photoshop, and “crunched� it and made it look it was fluctuating by creating creases in it to look the part and then took pictures from the correct angles - so looking up at it as flags are usually placed high on flagpoles. The flag is place across the double pages in order as America’s influence is more than central in
the conflict - and i wanted to show this by placing the text and information around I and “cowering” behind the flag. There is hint of blood behind the flag to symbolize that America does not have a positive influence in this conflict overall. The third double page is a secondary image which i thought was too powerful to pass - it portrays perfectly the struggle in the first lines of the conflict. I wanted to focus the attention on the two militia in the picture and so I desaturated the rest and tweaked and adjusted the tones to make them even more stand out in the picture, to really show the mental and physical danger, distress, and harm these men, women and children are suffering. In order to create a sense of over-powering and censoring for the people involved in the conflict in both sides - i placed the text behind the smoke to show the darkening and dimming of the ideas and thoughts and voices of a lot of the civilians and soldiers whose lives are being destroyed and homes demolished and uprooted due to this war. The last double pages have instead a clear message - and that is to without any doubt mark down and make the reader understand and grasp the brutality, cost and outcomes of the conflict. I did this by taking a picture of a hand (my hand) with blood pouring over it - to represent the typical “bloodied hands” deriving or being a result in murder. I used ink to represent the blood and poured it partly on my hand and let it drip - then when i felt it was the best moment, i took the shots. The outcome was incredibly realistic - and with some retouching in Photoshop I was able to make the ink resemble the blood even more closely; I didn’t want to however drop the geometric concepts and order that prevails in the chaos - as sadly there are those who profit from terrible things such as these, and it can be argued scheme and plan them JUST to achieve said profits.