01 botanical illustration & printmaking 02 book cover illustration 03 concept art 05 illustrated narrative 06 retail design
botanical illustration & printmaking
detailed botanical illustrations we began the year by drawing plants at the nature reserve, specifically blind contour drawings and observational drawings.
observational drawings
the blind contour drawings were more spontaneous and enjoyable than the observational drawings, which we had to focus intensely on in order to capture all the little details
these observational drawings were done in a fine liner and are of a bulb-looking flower. the mediums that I chose to work with were watercolour, pencil, ink, charcoaland paint
blind contour drawing observational drawings the illustration below is a small blind contour drawing. I learnt that they are enjoyable because they are so unpredictable and you never know the outcome. It was most challenging to do blind contour drawings with inkbecause I couldn’t see how much paint my drawing needed. The drawing techniques overall were fun to experiment with.
these examples of observational drawings are mixed media. they are both in pencil, black ink and charcoal. these ones have a looseness to them and have less details. the observational drawings were definetely the most challenging of the techniques we did. it was difficult to capture every detail and required a lot of time and patience.
doing observational drawings was challenging but the watercolour was the most difficult. Took a lot of practice and patience with the watercolour paints.
observational drawing this is an example of an observational drawing in pencil of a cactus plant.. this drawing involved a lot of detail, patience and precision on my part.
The whole process of the event was challenging, because it was all new printing techniques I had never played with before. All the processes were time consuming and there were prints that didn’t come out how I thought they would. I learnt that time management is the most important factor when it comes to printmaking. Everything we did,I found challenging in some way. I found it mostly challenging to do the embossing, transferring and chin colle.I really enjoyed the monotypes although I felt I am such a beginner in all these techniques. The overall process of everything was incredibly interesting and I was taught so much in such a small amount of time. I know that next timewe do these techniques I will understand it better and be able to develop it further.
etching & water monotype print
this is an example of an etching done with black oil paint. I etched the bulb flower that I drew in fine liner prevously.
rationale In our retail brief we were tasked with the challenge of making our own pattern ranges and putting them on our brand clothing. I created a brand for myself with a range of diferent patterns and placed them onto swimwear, undergarments, pants and dresses.
Reflection In this brief my goal was to complete a graphic novel, to experiment and try find my own artistic personality. I learnt how to write a narrative, how to storyboard and how to properly make a graphic novel and bind a book. In my graphic novel I wanted to communicate a story about a girl named Harlow and how she is struggling with her ”inner demons” such as depression and anxiety. Her mental health is reflected through the book as the colour of her skin and her environment. The environment and her become colorful as she heals. I want to communicate that anxiety can be exhausting to live with and that it is not something that goes away. The ending is very open ended and allows for the reader to interpret the story in their own way. Mental health is something that matters to me and is something that is very taboo in society. No one wants to talk about it, so I thought I would. I want the reader to understand that one has to work on themselves and take care of themselves in order to start the process of healing. In reflecting on my medium, I am glad I chose to work in ink and I greatly enjoyed it. I did enjoy the monotypes, but I haven’t practiced enough to say that I’m good. Although the monotypes gave me some beautiful textures to work with. Typography was simple and not difficult to do. The challenge came in the technical side when I had to put everything together. Creating the composition and trying to match the character to the background was the challenge. Overall I enjoyed this brief but it was a lot of work to get done in such a short amount of time. I know now that I love creating characters and stories for the character, but If I could re-do my novel it would be very different and more in-depth.
From the previous 2 exercises I was advised to try another method of drawing characters. This exercise 3, I focused on body movement, facial expressions and the details of the anatomy. The drawings below were done in a thing charcoal pencil and were characters that I got from film pictures I took of my friends(, but I distorted their bodies, created different faces and left out a lot of other details.)
In these drawings, I explored the details on a face, such as the mouth. I explored drawing hands in detail and finally drawing a full body with unusual movement and shape.
When I created these characters I looked at Oliver Jeffers characters and saw how he drew the upper body of his characters. His detail went into the upper body as her left his characters legs usually as “sticks�. Although my characters don’t have stick legs, they do not appear with a lower body, only a upper body, that has movement or distortion.
rationale for our second event we created a piece of conceptual art. we did a lot of research on digital art and then created our own.
I created these images with ink and a paintbrush. I looked at objects in my house to come up with the ideas of the drawings below. These are some ink blind contour drawings that I created from looking at objects. I learnt that some came out a bit too dark and some of the objects I used may have not been simple enough to work with. This exercise was challenging in its own way. In the exercise I stuck to thick ink drawings. I wasn’t entirely pleased with the outcome However it was interesting to see the different outcomes and I do enjoy doing blind contour drawings.
floating rock process and technique
Material study
this is how i did the process of my floating rocks. I cpainted rocks first by using a specific colour palette and then began to add textures into the rock formations. this led to me finishing them off with a waterfall and special effects. i really enjoyed This Exercise was the most helpful for me, because I got to d this part of the digital process. raw things that had inspired me and draw the things that were stuck in my head that I wanted to draw. I made time to play around with the Wacom a bit more and I took one of my drawings and made this digital piece on the left. I really enjoyed this exercise as it was easier for me to draw instead of draw and cut things to stick them together. The exercises all had their own challenges, but I worked my way around it and enjoyed the process.
This is part of my process work. The water in the environment was definitely the biggest challenge. These are some of the “Koi fish� that I have in my final image. It was a challenge to show the vibrant colours a& details when I put the fish underwater, but overall I think the water environment came out nicely despite the challenge it was.
Process work
reflection the second event was challenging, but was an event where i learnt so much about how to do things digitally. by doing a lot of digital work, i have gained skills for life. it allowed me to grow in a different art space. i overall enjoyed this brief but struggled with character development, composition and my colour palette. i believe that if i had the chance to do it again, i would have a completely different vision and style.