INDEP ENDENT P R ACTICE lucy rossell-evans
ZINE: PART 1 When given this brief I instantly had the idea to include the subject of Twitter or some other social media; I knew that we were going to sell our zines to the students of UCA, and thought Twitter would be a good subject as most students have a twitter account and use it accessively. The concept of my zine was to take some of the mundane things people tweet about and put them in a new context. I was inspired when looking at web comics such as Mischef Champion (the line drawings illustrated here), I liked how dimple the drawings were. The addition of witty text gave them an entirely different feel to how the images would appear alone.
The font I chose to use in my zine was Braintree, I think this gave it a nice home-made quality, this went well with the fact that all my images were hand rendered, I also planned to have the front cover made out of thin, matte brown paper which have it a sort of vintage feel.
Below: Livya Aylward Davies ‘I will shit on everything you love’.
I wanted to explore different ways of image-making, including potato prints, paint (watercolour) and fineliner drawings. I didn’t like the prints I made as it was hard to gain a sufficient amount of detail, and I chose not to persue watercolour as I thought all the different colours would distract from the text I wanted to include.
I originally planned for my zines to be sized A5. however I then changed my mind to A6. This was because it would make them mor portable to take from the Zine Fair. To compensate for their smaller size, I made sure to put double to content inside, each illustration to take up a double page to make my zine 48 pages opposed to everyone else’s 24. I also originally planned for my zines to be bound with string, however after a crit with Neil and Mark that this was unnecessary and altered the feel of the zine and made it feel ‘clunky’. I went with saddle stitching because when you fold the A5 spread over to make an A6 book it pushes out the middle pages a little which makes it very easy to flick through, whereas binding single pages with hot glue gave a very blunt edge, making it harder to flick through when browsing which I thought might be a deterrant for potential buyers..
Above are two versions of the front cover I created: the twitter logo was originally a lino-ct which I edited in Adobe illustrator to create a more precise outline. All together I drew 24 different birds, each would be shown saying a ‘tweet’, something very mundane but with a bird pun somewhere in it. I called my zine ‘Twitterpated’, referencing the movie Bambi. It means to be in love - which I think also refers to people’s love of social media today.
I think one of the hardest part about creating the zine was collating all the pages in the right order. It took me three attempts to get the correct page numbering when printed double sided. Despite only have one colour in my zine, if I printed each page with the colour on each zine would cost over £25. To keep my zine affordable I had only one colour spread in each zine, every zine had a different spread - making each one an individual and unique copy.
I created A4 posters and A6 flyers to put around UCA to advertise the Zine Fair and my zine prior to the fair opening. I used images on the flyers which were also in my zine so people would be able to recognise my work at the zine fair. I sold each zine at £1.50, which meant I broke even on print costs but didn’t make a profit. It was good to sell at a low price as students like things which are affordable. However I charged double this price at Handmade and Bound zine fair as people there would be more willing to spend more money as they were a more diverse audience. As I couldn’t decide on a cover, I did half a batch with each, I think this is also a good idea as then customers can choose their favourite and makes them feel envolved in the selling process. I put the logo not chosen for the front cover as a thumbnail on the back cover, along with my blog address in case anyone chose to look me up after purachasing.
ZINE: PART 2
I was given Vinny’s zine on ‘Iconic Hair’. To begin with I wanted to re-draw some of her images as I wanted them all to be in one style, all brack outline. I re-drew the ones she had in different media such as felt tips and oil pastel. I tried to mimic Vinny’s style (top three images) but found it very hard as it was so stylized. I went on to re draw others in my natural syle (bottom three) as it was just so much easier.
Vinny’s illustration
My interpretaion
My plan was to have each image of the hair overlayed on top of the colour that that celebrity in particular was associated with: Superman: blue, Elvis: black, Bowie: orange. And then have each celebrity’s signature at the base of each image, crating a very sylized autograph book. However after I had done this, I decided that I really didn’t think that I had answered the brief enough, I hadn’t really edited the original zine that much, so I decided to scrap this idea and go for something a lot more typographic.
Above: Mr Bingo’s illustrations of classic Star Wars hair Below: Melissa Murillo hair collage.
For my second attempt I chose to veer completely away from anything hand rendered. I used photographs instead of drawings and made the type the main focus pf the zine. My idea was to create a visual timeline of each celebrities given hairstyles, paired with some key words about what they were doing a the particular time of the style change.
I think my second idea of the evolution of iconic hairstyles was a lot more of a solid concept that just drawing iconic hairstyles. This way the zine had the sort of feel of an annual, or something that could be found in a posh hairdressers. I also think the colour scheme gave it a nicer feel that the original, where the fact that so many different materials were used in the image making that it felt a bit slap dash. The fact that the ones I produced were all uniform gave it the feel of something professionally produced, not just a series of images collected and printed.
PROPOSAL:
My original idea was to study lesser-known religious festivals: who celebrated them, why and how were they celebrated? I then reviewed this and narrowed it down to the study of Pagan and Wiccan festivals, why and when are these celebrated and with what effect. Do these religions celebrate a God?
One of the first religious festivals I studied was the Beiwe festival: this was held by the Saami people of Norway. They believe that the Goddess of winter, Beiwe rides across the sky in a sleigh made out of reindeer bones. To temp her to come to their towns, they sacrifice a white reindeer every winter. I drew a reindeer and then placed the nagative image over a photograph of the Norweigan forest. I have tried to show that with the reindeer’s last breath it is calling out to Beiwe by editing a ribbon of type coming out of it’s mouth denoting the word ‘Beiwe’. I made it a sort of foggy white to signify the deer’s cold breath in the winter.
I also took some photographs with the aim of capturing the change in the seasons. Most pagan festivals are heavily based upon observing the seasonal changes and then giving thanks to their God(s) for this.
I was inspired by the work of Eibatova Karina (pictured below) and fascinated by the integration of the elements of nature she incorporates into her work. Her work includes a traditional subject matter but her style brings her images into the modern day. Her work is found on album ocvers as well as stand-alone paintings.
I also studied the work of Katie Scott and really liked the element of taxonomy in her work. I reminded me of how what was mistaken as magic in witchcraft and occultism was just misunderstood science found in nature.
I have found that when celebrating the changes in the seasons, Wiccans use a lot of animals imagery in celecratory rituals and practises. As I wanted to make the public more informed about Pagan rituals, I found various ways of informing unmindful individuals about how and when pagan rituals were celebrated, creating a series of informative calendars found on the tags of clothes which present Pagan influenced designs.
I was inspired by clothing brand Language of Flowers; each of their t-shirt designs feature illustrations different flowers. On the clothing tags of these are different uses for that particular flower, herbal, medicinal and how and when these properties were incorporated into things we consume today.
Pictured to the left is the design I had created in mind of screen printing it onto t-shirts and other fabric, sadly the print rooms were all booked up. I wanted to alos screen print onto a set of cushion covers, I have found many illustrators now sells their work in fabric form to outlets such as Urban Outfitters (right). If I had enough time there would be a series of four designs incorporating things associated with each of the solstices, each with their own information tag explaining traditions of the festival.
I wanted to communicate old traditions such as the solstices in a new context. I researched Wiccan symbols and their meanings, and then constructed them into a series of identifiable logos which would not look out of place on a brand of clothing.
Each logo had symbols relating to the practices of that solstice practices in particular. Midsummer (LITHA): spirit, sunrise, earth, fire; at midsummer people would gather and watch the sun rise on the longest day, they would give thanks to the spirits of the earth by offering seasonal fruits, and jump over bonfires to bring prosperity to their coming year.
The image on the far left was produced with the intention of being an educational leaflet on solstice practices, I thought the ambiguity of the symbol and the unusual text placement would encourage people to pick it up without realising exactly what it was, finding it later and reading it then.
As Wiccans observe the seasons so readily, I wanted to experiment by trying out some image making with natural materials. Their religious practices were about giving thanks to the Gods for things with so much beauty.
I experimented with monoprints to see what kind of images the flowers and leaves would leave behind. To my surprise I preferred my misprints to my intended prints, the flowers often fell apart but the paper placed over the top of them whilst printing left a much clearer image.
I found it really challenging to persuade myself to do this without having in mind a final outcome or thinking of a way to turn my prints into something else. I was strange but enjoyable doing something with no planned outcome.
I wanted to explore different ways of symbolising pagan rituals, in particular the celebration of the summer solstice. I projected images of a sunflower (connoting the sun most) onto a naked form at sunrise, this symbolises the midsomar ritual of Pagans and Wiccans congregating at Stonehenge and bathing in the light from the sunrise on the longest day of the year. It was a challenge to get a decent picture because at sunrise it’s still pretty dark, the exposure on the camera had to be set for quite a long time, it did not help that it had just started to snow so I was shivering in the pictures. It was also a shame that I didn’t think about how I would project outside, the cable of the projector would only stretch so far and I would have liked to shoot in an area further from the house for a more natural setting.
Continuing from the first photoshoot outside, I quickly decided it would be best to shoot another indoors, the weather made it unbearable for the model, and also the sunlight mixed with my pale skin, the low shutter speed and the harsh light of the projector made it hard to get a clear image.
I spent some time earlier in the project trying to capture the change of the seasons on film; I wanted to see how I could portray people who observed this change - being at one with nature and being open to this seasonal shift. I chose to have the model nude because I think this symbolised being in a certain mindset of giving oneself to nature - clothes are a medium which represent the wearer and the wearer’s set of ideals, and having a model with no clothes means that they are being at one with the environment which they are in. In this instance, they projections are covering the body, acting as the clothes. The leaves and other materials pictured are almost like a shield protecting the model, linking to how Wiccans believe the earth will protect them as long as they give proper thanks to it.
“By all the elements, air, fire, water and earth, It’s clensed in light and love and mirth.”
More photos from the second shoot, in a wider context to be shown as a walk around installation of a dark room and nude models in front of walls with projections on them. In the background would be quiet chants taken from recording of wiccan ceremonies.
Above: projections by JD Yezierski
EVALUATION:
feremoverit rem vividem, quium me et omnius; Catius ina, simei curorunc oris es atra remusse, diis rem averi patia nonsules conscepons In retrospect I think the greatest downfall of this project was me not being able to make up my mind on what I wanted to focus on, and therefore not being able to make a proper time
management plan, or a real idea of where I wanted to go. On the other hand, I am happy with what I produced, even if I perhaps haven’t done as much experimentation as I wanted to or should have done. I find it incredibly hard to focus on something which I don’t know what the outcome will be. I don’t regret my subject areas, I knew they would be challenging from the start I had no idea that I would end up where I have done. I had no idea I would end up wanting to create somethiing as unusual as an installation and that really excites me, I really regret not managing my time enough as I feel I really rushed this idea. If I
had more time (and willing models) I’d love to set it up in an open studio somewhere. I like the ambiguity of someof the work I have produced, I think curiousity is a very powerful thing, especially in subjects like art and design. If a consumer doesn’t at first understand the message something is communicating I think they become more interested because of this ambiguity. Even when the producer creates something with a particular message, I don’t think of it as a failure in communication if the consumer doesn’t recognise the original message. I think new messages created by consumers are just as valid as those created by the
producer. For example I’m assuming almost everyone who see the logos I creaed would have no idea of what the symbols convey, however the simple fact that they would think it visually pleasing enough to take an interest in is still a victory. producer. For example I’m assuming almost everyone who see the logos I creaed would have no idea of what the symbols convey, however the simple fact that they would think it visually pleasing enough to take an interest in is still a victory.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
http://www.katie-scott.com/ http://vimeo.com/eika http://www.noahcollin.co.uk/ portfolio http://www.beastpieces.com/ http://juliancallos.blogspot. co.uk/ http://www.mischiefchampion. com/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/ religions/paganism/ http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/ lithathesummersolstice/ https://www.circlesanctuary.org/ https://www.designspiration.com/
NB: all images surrounded by dots (like this) are not my own and are sourced accrdingly