ITAP Week 1 RVJ (Reflective Visual Journal)

Drawing is a personal and emotional way of expressing yourself on a page, which nearly everyone is conscious about, as it is one of the most recognised ways of seeing if you have ability or not, so you constantly feel judged and that every piece has to be a masterpiece. The RVJ is a great way of expressing ideas and your thought process though images regardless of their quality or style and it allows you to experiment and take risks with materials when creating an image, not necessarily using pencil, giving you no limits to what you can accomplish. An example of this is Danny Gregory who, in his journal volume 6, draws a range of everyday things he sees in there just to get ideas down. Some are quick sketches others time has gone into them, but it is clear he is going though a journey and capturing every thought that comes into his head though imagery.  Another example is Leonardo De Vinci, who is known for developing his ideas by “thinking on a page” describing his ideas though imagery rather than words, using the right side of his brain by experimenting with ideas then coming back and using the left side to analyse his work seeing what works and what doesn’t, then going back to the right side to come up with a new idea based on what he’d learnt. It is important to use both sides of the brain when it comes to getting the best creative work out of yourself. Using the right side of the brain to be experimental, curious and playful and the left to analyse, edit and ask what is useful. Neither side is better use to us then the other, as creative people we need both as they both complement each other helping us to achieve better results. 

T-Shirt designs

These are a couple of the designs I made for T-shirts which were influenced by the David Fullarton. What I took form David Fullartons work that I liked was the fact that he collects random scraps of things such as bus tickets and books so i went out and collected a few things like this to produce a load of different textures for my image and text like the ones above. These designs are my favourite because I like the way the graph paper and book pages have added to the mono print images also, the coffee stains made on the one help add to what I was trying to create. The message I'm trying to get across in these pieces was of lonelyness and by having ripped up pieces of paper with some overlapping it symbolises piecing things back together. 

Day of the Triffids book cover

This piece my target audience are adults, which I have tried to accomplish by giving the piece a sinister feel to it with the colours used in the background. Out of the four displayed I think the one in top right works the best because the text is clear and easy to read, the buildings in the background have blended well making a dark, mysterious backdrop in contrast to the foreground silhouette of buildings. The etching of the Triffid is not too over powering on the cover but fits in well with the background. 

I got the idea for this from looking at Katsushika Hokusai's work which gave me the inital idea to do a etching on perspex of corn, but when i left it to dry on its side it reminded me of a Triffid so i incorpreted it into a book cover design for the book "Day of the Triffids."  

Audi R8

As this is an advertising poster it has to be aspirational and to do this I found a dramatic image for the background that I could put the image I'd take of the car onto. By then making a mono print of the image created I layered it on top to add texture but keeping the drama it creates. To follow the texture given by the mono print I spray painted the text and blended it in so it all linked together but using different techniques. Also, I rendered the car in shades of red to make it stand out, so even though there it all this texture, text and dramatic backdrop the main focus is still the car and it is the first thing your eye is drawn to, hopefully making the car something desirable.

CD Cover

My influence for this piece of work was Daivd Fullarton as he inspired me to collect things to do with memories. So I decided to focus on somewhere I've been and collect images I have and from magazines as well as from whatever else I could find. By collaging the pieces together to get a layered image I found some text to link with what I was trying to get across so it was more clearer to people what the piece was all about. I think my message has come across well in this piece because the text combined with the dreamy expression on the mono print and the collage of images all from one place gives a feeling of reflection.

Ralph Steadman

Ralph Steadman uses pens, brushes, inks, acrylics, oils, etching, silkscreen and collage, and has also produced sculptures in iron and steel. He has an often brutal, savage style. I like his work because I find the scrastchy style the images are drawn in make the images interesting to look at compared to if they were perfectly smooth lines. Also, the limited use of colour in most of his images giving the image real impact on the page and giving his work a very distinctive style.

Life size mono print

This piece is inspired by the work of Laura Oldfield Ford and David Fullarton. The elements I took from their work to use in mine were to use mainly back and white and to add colour in a few places to make an impact on the piece. Such as in this piece I worked using black ink and used different coloured paper to attract your eye to certain areas. Another element was to collect different things in this case I chose to collect different types of paper which when printed on the ink gave a slightly different effect making each piece of the mono print different from the last. 

Recycling Posters

These are posters I designed to promote recycling by showing how much energy people could save by recycling so much of of one thing for example the one of the left shows that one glass bottle can power a computer for 25 minutes. My inspiration for these was the work of Lester Beall. I've shown elements of his work by using the arrows from the recycling logo repeated across the background of the pieces as well as having simple, clear, easy to read text and by having a simple image that illustrates what I'm trying to get across in the posters.

David Fullarton

David Fullarton uses the notebooks he has filled with odd words, catch phrases, numbered parking lot receipts, warnings, and instructions in foreign languages.  Collaging text, numbers, and images onto brightly colored grounds, Fullarton delights in lifting phrases and images from their contexts and placing them in new surroundings that amend and redirect their meaning.

I find his work interesting as he takes a new and funny way to look at things in life such as how much time people spend on facebook, youtube etc and jobs for students. I also like the way he collages everything using bright colours to get your attention and then following it up with an interesting font and a humorous illustrative image to go with it. 

Laura Oldfield Ford

She is best known for her politically active and poetic engagement with London as a site of social antagonism. Currently She is working on producing more then one hundred ink drawings chronicling the impact of regeneration on London. She does this by going on walks around abandoned areas and imagines them populated by the semiotic ghosts of failed utopias in the year 2013.

I like the way she uses colour in her work to help highlight certain areas in the picture. Also, the colour comes arcoss to be like garffette in some pictures where she has highlighted walls and even wrote words using the colour. As well as this the way she uses text in her images is interesting because they are mainly dates, times or just a couple of words, but this is just enough to have such a positive impact on the work making it even more interesting, making you think what does this mean, what makes these dates so important. Another thing I like about her work is that you feel as though you are inside the image as though you were actually there.

Her work is produced from zine. She also uses pen and acrylic to produce the work.

 

 

Julian Legrand

"I've always been drawn to black and white. I like its timelessness and its distilled essence" - Julian Legrand
This quote sums up what I like best about his work because of how simple and affective taking a black and white image is and how having it this way ages the photo making it instantly more interesting to look at then if it was in colour.
Another thing about his work I find interesting is the way he goes around and just observes peoples behavior taking pictures of their unscripted natural way of life not knowing what his going to get hoping to come across something interesting.

Below is a link to images on his website that he has taken by walking around the streets of Paris
http://www.julienlegrand.com/street-photography-black-and-white/

Lester Beall

I like his work because of the simple use of colour and the way he uses something simple such as an arrow and lines to help get the message across, as well as this I like the clear use of typography, as it is clear, simple and very effective on the page. Also, I like the way he makes the most important things bigger and stand out on the page so its easy to see what the message is in the piece. Such as in "light" the light bulb is bigger then anything else on the page because it is more important then the house or the text. This shows clearly that the piece is about saving energy.

Willaim Kentridge

I find his work visually interesting to look at because even though every image is nearly in black and white, when he adds another element to the image such as text, texture or another colour it impacts the image to make it a lot more interesting. His work manly tries to communicate political views with a poetic element, such as in his image entitled "Her absence filled the world" he tries to bring across the message of segregation. I think his work is mainly for older generations because of some of the serious messages he tries to communicate through his work such as colonialism and segregation.