Drawing Day- Manchester

As an illustrator creating work I will have to do location drawings and my own research when I am creating pieces. To get myself used to this process I decided to spent a day drawing in Manchester City Centre. I hoped to improve my reportage drawing skills especially in drawing figures quickly and to gather resource material that would lead into my future work such as the piece I hoped to create for the Cheltenham Illustration Awards.

Manchester Piccadilly Gardens

I spent a few hours sat in Piccadilly Gardens, it was a warm day and so the gardens were full of people.

                             

I gave myself time to do more detailed drawings of the buildings I especially liked the cluster of buildings visible across the gardens at the top of Oldham Street. Although many poeple were stationary for a long time I tried to draw them quickly as I didn't want them to feel uncomfortable. In the future I might inform people around me of what I am doing to get rid of this feeling. After a while I could draw people in a few quick lines, I especially like the man half sat up on the right of the page and think I captured his pose well in just a few lines.

In another part of  the city I did some quicker looser drawings and found that this was good practice but maybe not detailed enough to be as informative as I would like.

The Manchester Museum, Oxford road

I also visited the Manchester Museum which is part of the University of Manchester on Oxford Road, I have visited this Museum in the past and know it has lots of interesting things especially in the natural world section which would be good to draw.

I spent time drawing the elephant skeleton, knowing it is a rare thing to see and because I enjoy drawing skeletons and bones and find it interesting how they fit together. It was half term when I visited so there were many children running around which made it more difficult to draw and limited the time I spent in the museum, I will take these factors into account on future drawing trips.

The Museum setting allows you to draw people whilst they are concentrating on something else and makes them less uncomfortable of you drawing there. I will visit more museums when drawing people in the future.

         
I looked at moths too as they had a large collection of moths and butterflies and I would like to do some designs using these in the strong black and white style I have been practicing that may become tattoo designs.

I had a productive day and will do more research drawing days in the future to get used to it and develop my professional practice.

Crow Press Show

D.R.E Illustration

I think t-shirts are great promotional materials especially this one which is very simple with just the creator's logo. It ties in well with the other work and reflects a lifestyle of the characters in the postcards as though you can be like the characters whilst wearing this tshirt. I also like that the contact information is on the t-shirts label, this makes the t-shirt look professionally made as well as easily providing additional information. I would feel like a part of the artists work and directly involved in their style if I had this t-shirt. The item looks very high quality, I think the choice of the long sleeve baseball shirt was a good choice and the only bit needed to be added is the logo by screen printing, so there would be a low chance of the design going wrong.

As the logo is very sharp it will be very noticeable if the red bleeds into the white during washing this could mean the t-shirts quality might be short.

                                                                                 

My favourite thing about the D.R.E Illustration is still the logo as I think it is so effective and would be very easily recognised  I had a quick experiment at some logos using just geometric shapes and think I will try to create a similar one to apply to my designs. There are infinite possibilities using circles, squares and triangles so I will explore further.

Kane Valentine

I think the wax seal is a really original way of promotion and brand identity it also provides for a very attractive promotional package to sell or to send to potential clients. It also shows they have gone that step further to have a seal made with their brand logo. It would be good for a creative CV too however I wonder if the seal would be too fragile in normal post so maybe you would have to hand deliver examples of your work. The whole promotional display is like a stationary set which is a very nice idea however I would see stationary as quite traditional and associate it with the written word not with a modern art form such as concept art. This may say something about the artwork combining traditional and modern themes but I think it could be confusing to the audience. The modern is also reflected in the QR code which is placed upon the letter/envelope design like a stamp, this is a good way of linking the real objects to the artists website but again seems slightly at odds to me.

From this piece of promotion I am interested to maybe present my creative CV similarly like an old letter but maybe use a sticker or facsimile of a wax seal as I think the real one might be too fragile.

Jak Draws

I liked this display as it shows where the illustration work is going and the career path that it is working towards. It clearly shows how his work would be presented at a convention or fair and I think it would work well to interest customers and fans. It is interesting to me as I want to create my own comic as well. There is a wide variety of different applications for the designs which would sell well and other artwork for people who are not yet interested in the comic and might just want to se ethe artist's style. It works well as a display and is interesting it also looks very professional and that it could be used to help get tables at stalls as it will show the organiser what is planned. I also like the large screen behind the table which helps explain each type of his artwork and has links so that people can find out more information.

This work reminds me that I need to fully consider all the promotional material and other products that go along with the main comic book.

Anna Coffrey

I think these are really appealing business cards. Although it is a very simple product the different biscuit designs make them special and mean they will appeal to different people, they are very friendly business cards which i think would encourage people to look at her work or contact her as it gives a good impression. The rounded corners of the cards make the designs work. They show her style as well as being recognisable which should give people enough of an impression. However doing different varieties of cards must make the cost more expensive so will have to be worth it.

I like that the cards have a strong theme that ties them together and has the element of 'collecting the different varieties' I will try to have a collective theme for my cards when I get some too.

Papio Press

For papio press badges work well to show the wide variety of designs they have produced. Each one is like a small preview of a bigger piece and in this way is effective. It allows people to buy a larger range of their work more cheaply than buying separate prints or more expensive products. I think badges are popular too and when people wear them they are advertising your work for you and can tell people where they got it from. Having the design on the packaging too shows that all the elements of the promotion have been planned for and shows the versatility of the patterns.

I would like to create badges once I have a substantial body of work to base them off and think they would be good to show characters faces and then customers could pick their favourite.

From the promotional materials I would like to:

• Create a simple logo for my personal illustration
• Focus more on my main product; a comic
• Have promotional material that runs alongside this, badges, small prints
• Create nice packaging for my creative CV so clients will want to open it.

Group Presentation

We showed our posters and explained our ideas behind it, I think they worked well as a theme and our message was clear and easily relate-able.
If we had more time we could have created a digital presentation of our posters edited to the same standard and with the overall 'Shit Your Mother Would Say' title, this would help to tie all the posters together better and better communicate our overall message. However we had less time because of our study trip to Antwerp so just had the handmade posters ready at this stage.


To back up our 'Group Event planning' brief we created a powerpoint presentation and each went into more detail on different slides. This allowed us to each have a turn and contribute to the project and it all flowed well. It gave us a practice of pitching an idea and what sort of details we'd include to make our plans seem feasible.

Group Project- Event planning and promotion

Our next group project was to organise a group event where we could show our work or in some way promote it, this could be hypothetical or we could actually do the event as long as we stuck to a £200 budget.

Tewkesbury town hall

Because of our small budget we decided to do internet research for venues in the local area and luckily found that there was an Arts & Crafts fair happening at Tewkesbury council hall on Saturday 14th March.

This journey would take around 40 minutes by bus and only 20 minutes by car. Thankfully we had local contacts with a large vehicle so this would save us transport money and free up some more time.

We would have to produce work for the craft fair and would focus on printmaking so we could make multiples quickly. We also planned to buy tote bags to print on as they could be more saleable and also have a practical use to encourage people to buy more. 

Other funds would go to creating promotional material such as business cards and for refreshments to attract people to the stall. When not working the stall we could hand out cards and make contacts.

Attempts to work out budget

Working out where the money would go was complex and made me realise I would rather plan these events in groups than individually. Working out what our profit would be was difficult too and Alexis who had business studies experience took charge with it. We would present our ideas as a powerpoint presentation and I would focus on our plans for the stall.

Interior of town hall

This is the layout of the fair with small tables that would fit two or three of us at a time. This would allow the others to take breaks, share contacts, meet other people learn from them and also to attract customers.
Our experience at true believers would come in handy with working on the stall and making it look appealing. We wouldn't be able to have standing displays as it would impede other people but could use cloths and bunting around our table to make it look appealing and better display the merchandise.
We would have to arrive early to set up around 8:30am and also have a rota for jobs and breaks.

Typography Poster- Group project

Another group project was to create a series of typography posters with a shared manifesto, messages that say something whether it be motivational cautionary or just general rules for life.

We brainstormed in our group and after thinking about using inspirational movie quotes we decided it would be too hard to link these. We instead looked at experiences we would have in common such as growing up and so found our poster theme.

'Shit Your Mother Would Say'

The made up 'rules for life' we heard growing up

It was enjoyable and amusing remembering and sharing things we had been told as children. I picked the reassuring lie 'If They Tease You It Means They're Just Jealous'.

As I had never tried creating a typography poster I looked to some of the printed ephemera I have collected over the years for inspiration. I decided to do the poster by hand as it is the way I am most comfortable working and it would give me an idea of how far I can get without using computers.

printed ephemera

This gave me some guidance with fonts and I looked to the bolder clothes label fonts for the stand out words 'tease' and 'jealous' then at the more playful font of 'david + goliath' to hopefully represent the childhood setting of the phrase.

working out fonts

I tried to keep the layout of the poster simple just focusing on the text. Incorporating images took away from the direct nature of the message and would have me relying too much on the imagery.

 

Final poster

The things that failed on this poster could have been avoided by creating it digitally. However I like the amount of control I have over the flow of the colour in the bottom lettering. The next step would be to scan in the image for a higher quality then correct the straightness of the lines centralise the lettering and experiment with different spacing.

The poster was interesting to create but I don't think I'll create any more solely typographical work as I am a lot better with imagery than text.

Group project book

Spot colouring

It was quite interesting and a bit of a strange feeling to see my work printed in a book format. The darker tones did not print out as well as I'd hoped so this is something to consider when designing images that will be printed in the future.
I used yellow to individually spot colour my 100 images and picked the lightbulb to better illustrate the connection between the idea and the tools needed to then communicate it.

Spot colouring my pages

More True Believers

Contact cards and examples from artists

Whilst working at the comic festival the most valuable experiences I had were talking to comic book creators, seeing the variety of work there and getting advice about my own work.

I enjoyed chatting to Jude Melon also known as JCMelon a London based artist who has an ongoing webcomic 'fight or flight' found at http://fightorflightcomic.blogspot.co.uk/

Comic cover #1

bookmark from TBCF

Although 'fight of flight' is an ongoing and major part of his professional practice JCMelon taught me of the importance of diversifying and having shorter more saleable things that customers can by rather than having to get fully invested in an ongoing series.

one of his prints

To attract more fans and to give them a taste of his art style JCMelon also produces cute prints with mainly animal characters and amusing quotes and slogans, these have a wider appeal and customers would like to buy them as gifts as they have obvious messages.

JCMelon was talking about how artists always have  a big project or plan that they want to achieve but you have to do smaller scale work first to get experience and attract fans.By the end of this the large project will have changed in nature, having been influenced by the smaller scale works and you will also have created a fan base.

After talking to JC Melon I will take a step back from the comic book I have planned and try to diversify with more saleable items.

Another artist I met and greatly admire is Paul Duffield an illustrator and comic book artist who produces serialised webcomics as well as contributing to other works such as The Phoenix Weekly Story Comic. His comics are available to read on his website  www.paulduffield.co.uk/

His newest graphic novel 'The Firelight Isle'

I find that his compositions are beautiful and add a new dimension to reading his stories. I bought his comic 'Signal' a short wordless tale that he describes as a 'visual poem'. This can be seen in the flowing sequence of the panels the repeated patterns and elements like notes the layered imagery like a complex melody. It has inspired me to create something similar as I want to create a shorter piece of work that will advertise my style and get me used to seeing a project through to completion.

My copy of 'Signal' already well-loved

Page spread from 'Signal'

I will contact Paul Duffield soon and hopefully get an interview and some advice.

Potential Publishers

UK Comics publisher

I met Stuart Gould at the True Believers fair who was easy to spot as he was eccentrically dressed and found he strongly supports independent creators and will help printing comic books art books and graphic novels aswell as prints and posters. He takes a personal approach unlike online printers and wants to know the creator and their project. Once I have a comic book project fully planned out I will consider working with him as I like his attitude and approach. UK Comics helped to publish John Lock's 'Afterlife' comics and he is a Cheltenham based author who was one of the most important creators at the festival.

Hellbound Media publishers

Hell bound media is a publisher specialising in small print comics often as the name suggests with horror and supernatural storylines. They also produce collective volumes with guest artists doing different stories. I liked the work in these and showed them my 'Remnants' booklet, they liked my art style especially on the cover and I left them my contact details. I got a good response from them so would consider seeing if they would publish some of my work in the future ' Remnants' has supernatural themes so might fit well with them.