Screen Print

Looking at the picture above, most people would think that whoever came up with an idea to replace a human head with an animal, has completely lost their mind (like I did the first time i saw what our task was for the lesson). That was until we actually did it then my mind changed towards it.

So the first step as per usual is to find the image of the album cover or artist you want to base this on and drag it into photoshop where again we had to follow some more steps in order to create what is called a screen print (not screen shot!). So i chose my favourite album cover by Keri Hilson to do this experiment with.

Such a beautiful cover

After that we had to follow a few steps to get it to look like how it looks in the first image.

So the first step was obviously drag the image to photoshop then, I had to degrade the image to grey scale. I had to desaturate it by holding down Command + Shift + U to desaturate it. Then by going to image and then adjustments then down to shadows and to highlights. By clicking show more options, I had the options that I needed in order to set it the way the man in the tutorial was showing me. Moving on, i had to change the levels of all the sliders so starting from the top, I had to change the first one to 7 the next one to 50 then 30, 11, 52, 30 +20 and leave the bottom 3 the way they are.

Using the burn tool, I went over some of the shadow areas to darken them a bit and went over her hair and face just to add a bit more detail to them (making sure that my exposure was set to 9). Once I thought that it looked ok, I had to create a noise filter setting it to 4.0 (making sure I had gaussian set. Heading over to filter, and down to blur, I selected Gaussian blur and set it to about 1.0. 

I had to sharpen the image so, by heading back to filter but this time to sharpen, I chose a smart sharpen and set it to 362 with a radius of 16.7 making sure that gaussian  blur is set. Then by repeating the same step, I had to go back to filter, sharpen , smart sharpen - this time reducing it to 149 and increasing the radius to about 41/42 to bolden the lines to give it a poster effect. 

Next, I had to clone the background so that i can paint over the face and replace it with the animal head. So by clicking on the clone tool, i held down alt and dragged it across a small area of the background so that i can now replace the face with it whilst i cut out the head of the animal. Then I had to click around the face until it was the same colour as the background (as you can see, I left the hair so that my leopard wouldn't be bald).

This is the image i used (simply because I adore leopards). So by dragging this into photoshop, i used the pen tool and drew around the outline of the head and then by enlarging the image i dragged the head cut out into position on the other image and that's how I created my version.

If I had another go at this, I would improve the way in which i went about creating the poster because I admit i drifted away from the tutorial and kind of got a hold of things on my own but incase i missed something out, next time I will follow the video the whole way through & hopefully add some colour to it.

This is the final outcome by the man from the tutorial.

This was actually created to advertise a gig that was happening in London (rather strange way of advertising a gig though).

Stencils

This image as you can probably tell is another beautiful image of the famous Kelly Rowland. This photo of her is about to become a stencil and be painted to become something new. So the first step for me was to obviously find the perfect image of her (I used a lot of them so i chose something new this time). After printing it out, I then traced it on to a piece of A5 card and then got a craft knife (my worst enemy).

After having 2 failed attempts of trying to cut the image out, i eventually got it and then I got my sponge and 3 acrylic paints and began dabbing blotches of paint on to the stencil to create what is shown below.

The whole reason behind me doing this, was to actually gain a new skill and get a bit more experience of stencilling  and the different things that follow on with it. I actually like my attempt on it but i think next time i should spent a bit more time on the cutting out part. It does look rushed but it's only because i was racing against time so i struggled to keep to detail. (that craft knife didn't help either!)

This was done by the artist Banksy, he was the main artist known for having so many successful stencils prints.

Collage (Part 1)

This is the work of Michelle Thompson. Michelle has been seen as the foundation of illustration since she graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1996. She has had many successful projects in publishing, editorial and design. Her illustration work has appeared internationally, most noted with her collaboration with the British designer Vaughan Oliver. Michelle has also illustrated Cherie Blair's book, 'The Goldfish Bowl'. She also illustrates a regular column for The Globe and Mail in Toronto. As shown below.

Other clients include the Royal Mail, BBC, Reebok, Penguin Books, The Guardian and many others. Her work has been featured in Creative Review, Communication Arts and Graphics International and can be found in design books including Hand & Eye and Picture Book by Angus Hyland (Pentagram).

I have chosen to analyse this piece of work because when I look at how she used collage and what it is supposed to be, I actually got quite confused because i can't seem to see how web and mail link with the images that are included in the collage. That was until I analysed it and realised that it is basically saying regardless whether your on the net or your sending mail by hand or via the net (with the eye at the bottom) someone is always watching you like how a crowd watches a car win a race (the racing car in the corner of the collage).

I looked at http://www.michelle-thompson.com/portfolio.asp, where i found a brief about her and it also include a paragraph of what she had said in an interview:

"Editorial work tends to be digital for speed but I still work by hand when the circumstances allow. More often it's a combination of techniques. I have a huge archive of elements collected over the past 15 years. Everything from postcards, books and magazines, to wood block type, typewriters and printing sets. I use paint and ink, pens and pencils, as well as my own photography.




The theme for this piece I think is supposed to be somewhat modern/realistic  because when I looked at her work, they were all similar in the sense that they both linked to what goes on in the world or to things that link with everyday life like web and mail.

I was inspired by this work because, despite my dislike for collage, Michelle managed to grab my attention with her collage illustrations and how she managed to en-tie reality with art and make it her own style and not like that of  Litchenstine or the other srtists involved with pop art and realism. I am now inspired to find out more about how to do online collages like that and hopefully gain another skill.  


I like everything about the pieces i found because of the use of colours she used and how she only applied colour to certain images and left the rest  of them in grey scale.  Also, the use of photography and how she managed to find or capture the perfect pictures that relate to the title of the collage she is working on. Absolutely phenomenal. 

Paper cutting (pintrest part 2)

 

This rather intriguing piece of work was created by the one and only Chrissie McDonald. Her  work mainly revolves around paper cutting but just in an unusual approach (like what is shown above). She has worked with a wide range of coloured paper in all her different creations. Pretty much all of her work has been created from different sizes of paper, which still managed to produce an amazing piece of work. The ideas behind her designs normally come from the range of clients in which she co-operates with. Clients include: 

• Central Saint Martins,

• Creative Review

• Dazed & Confused

• Edinburgh Fringe Festival

• Fallon

• KesselsKramer

• Marque

• The New York Times Magazine

• Orange

• Polydor

• Praline

• RKCR/Y&R

• Time Out

• Visit London

• Vitra

• Wallpaper

• Wonderland Magazine.
 

This is another example of her work for Orange. A well known, popular and now new owner of T-mobile, is having its work produced by Chrissie McDonald. That means each time we come across an advert, poster or flyer from orange, we are actually holding her work!.

Taking a look at the way in which she cut the figures out of different sized paper and again with a range of colours used to make it stand out much more against the gradient background, just helps to both bolden and make the piece that much more eye catching because the first thing you would realise when you look at this would be the visual domination of the imagery, text in the top left corner and the obvious orange logo in the bottom right hand of the piece.

I have chosen to analyse this piece of work simply because it still surprises me that she is the creator behind what we see everyday on TV and in telephone stores and basically everywhere, everyday! also the way that she has used the most simple material to create something that looks complex but is quite simple and extremely effective, especially with the layout that she has used for it. 

http://www.peepshow.org.uk/illustration.php I found this link whilst in the midst of my research on her and it has shown me all the end results of her projects for Orange, Wonderland Magazine and many more. Here are just some of the examples of the amazing work she has created, we have seen but probably didn't recognise who made it : 

New York Times Magazine

Central Saint Martins

Creative Review Cover

Kate Nash

Wonderland Magazine (my favourite design)

Miles donovan - Stencils (pintrest part 3)

Miles Donovan, is a graphic designer and illustrator, his work has been used and elements found in many different regions. Mainly used for editorial work and advertising clients, his work is very diverse and can easily be altered to fit the different design briefs that his clients may require. This helped him become so popular. the art work below, is titled "coney island astroland" and was produced by printclub London.

This was also created for public use as well. He used a technique called screen-print as the base layer of the design and then a variety of hand made stencils that formed the layers  the art work, and then finalised it by using 3 different shades of pinks with white paint to add to the greatness of it. I think that the use of similar toned colours create a kind of step by step effect with the objects, I say this because, firstly you see the dark pink/red highlighting some of the images, then as you glance at a distance you then come across the big wheel in the back which is white against a salmon shade pink, then as you look around more you then find white writing against the rosey pink background. It also relates to one of the subject areas I studied in art called crowd scenes. I say this because the work looks very busy like there is a lot going on at one time.

I singled out this piece in particular because;

• Firstly; it kind of brought me back down memory lane a bit. Looking at it reminded me of the first time I ever came across a funfair and ever went to one. The joy and laughter, fun and memorable moments i shared with my family all replay in my mind when i look at this piece.
• Secondly, it reminded me of the difficulty I had when it came to the crowd scene project in my art lessons and how much I refused to do it but, after looking at this I wish I could go back and change that now because, I can now see how fun it can be to just throw things together and crowd a page with paintings, stencils and colours and still make it look amazing.

Trying to better my understanding of stencilling and the other artists who participated in this movement like Bansky or Cabelleno but mainly Donovan, I looked at a few different websites, www.illustrationdivision.com/Donovan, I took a look at this to try and grab hold of more information about the type of illustrations he does and how stencilling works. I found that a stencil can be formed of any object or anything you see or imagine, this is kind of similar to that of Donovan's work. I discovered an interview of him that helped me to find out how he goes about creating his work; www.theartfuls.com/interveiws/miles_donovan and there was a  quote from the interview that stood out to me the most; "a little bit of this, a little bit of that". After hearing that, it made me think about the times i used to hear my teachers, other artists and even my parents saying that but i never knew that it actually worked when you apply it to your work - well maybe in the case of art. 

Typography Pintrest review 4

The two images shown here are a few examples of  typographic portrates. They were created on behalf of the 51st grammy awards by the recording company who hired TBWA\chiat\day to product the typographic illiustrations that had been chosen to advertise the celebration of the Grammy awards. These posters date back 3 years ago in February 8th 2009. as part of the comition of the awards. There are many reasons that I can think of to explain why this is one of my chosen topics to anaylse but the main one is that I am actually blown away by how they even  managed to think of something like this! They have definitely created history in  my opinion. So many companies can use this to their advantage when it comes to advertising, and this will also benefit the creators because they are becoming more wealthy and recognised by other people using their creation. From what started off as simple photgraphy transformed into a beautiful graphic design piece, which personally, I think gives photgraphy a bit more of a reputation for being one of the sources in the arts to help create or add to a piece and make it outstanding.   

 I looked into the reason behind the workhttp://www.spinner.com/2009/01/13/steve-wonder-thom-yorke-get-artsy-for-grammys/ and  have found out that the posters where created by asking the artists for a list of their favourite songs roughly 15 and one of their own. This was then transformed into the typographic picture (that was after they caught a shot of the artist first), using photoshop and the lyrics from the songs, the images have been edited and coloured with text and then turned into the photo into what they were not expecting.

when i first saw this, I admit I was surprised and instantly drawn to it, I thought it was absolutely amazing and  wanted to know more about it and how it was done. I saw all the bright colours and that triggered off my desperation to experiment with it. Seeing it was very new to me, I have never seen a photo been made out of type before. In my opinion, there are no flaws to this style at all, to me it is just PERFECT. 

Drawing/mark making Pintrest review 5

Reuel Feenstra - Graphite & Charcoal

Reuel Feenstra, an artist ho specialises creating charcoal and graphite drawings of figures. Growing up in a small town called Grand Valley, he rapidly developed his drawing skills and now most of his is with photographers and members of the public who would like drawing of family members or self portraits etc.
His drawings of the little girl sipping her drink and the human eye are absolutely mind blowing!. he has managed to get every fine bit of detail in both images to make it look so real, that you would think he photographed and edited it.

The eye drawing, for me personally is just the most amazing study of an eye that I have ever seen. Especially since I love drawing and observing the  different shapes and colours of peoples eyes, to see work like this is just amazing and shows me that there is more to an eye up close than what you can see at a distance.

http://www.2bdrawing.com/girl_with_crown.shtml# Curious to find more of his drawings, I went through some websites to find out more about his work and who he was, when i stumbled across the link above, which helps to know more about him, find more examples of his work with a link to teach you to draw aswell