Practical Work, Cardboard Head

With the making of a cardboard box head that is tied with the children’s book illustration project, I am going to approach the task by creating something simple and not too complicated in terms of form and the structure of crafting. I just gathered any pieces of card, but most importantly a box, as that serves the main structure of the ‘helmet’ that it would be put on the head. I didn’t want to create something that is too complex, and decided to go for a simple robot look with circular cut outs for the eyes and mouth, and added an antenna looking object on the top.

There could have been more to the head or perhaps make it somewhat surreal by adding more stuff to it or applying some colour, but in the end I just wanted to create something simple, and not something that would otherwise make it look so complicated that would make the structure of the head fall apart due to the weight or complicated structures that would obstruct the surrounding area when wearing it.

Making it look like a robot connects with children’s illustrations more, because I think robots in a way are associated in many stories of children’s books, whether it’s being used as a companion or a toy (which is most common) or a metaphor within the story. 

Directional lighting on narrative sequence

By utilizing my chosen colour palette, I had applied it to my figure sequence narrative to experiment with lighting and colour mixing. The experiment turns out alright, with two colours mixing well (blue and red) although the third colour (orange) feels a little out of place slightly but overall the colours do fit alright with one another. I managed to get this exercise done on the day, which tells me that I may use this method for the sequential project as part of the creation of the content of my sequential narrative for it, considering there are multiple pages with at least 5 panels on each one, which would take long to do, however, judging on what I had produced today, it feels safe to say that I can get it all the content done by the deadline. 

Full colour narrative sequence using blue, red and orange as my limited colour palette.

Colour Workshop

I had chosen my 3 primary colours that will be the colour palette for the figure sequence narrative. Blue and red are considered my favourite colours while orange is a colour I think will go well with the other two for limited colour palette. 

Several experiments of mixing different tones of the same colour to see the outcome whether the same colours stands out between its own tint, tone, shade or from its primary hue. Most turn out fine, though there are a few that feels odd with the matchmaking, but it will allow me to identify which mix and match works best before experimenting the colours on my short narrative. 

Figure Sequence Using Different Viewpoints

A 5-Frame sequence using at least 2 different viewpoints to practice perspective within a narrative sequence and to apply it in a way to communicate the audience, whether its tension, suspense, adrenaline, etc. I quickly based the theme of the short sequence on 'hunting', where we begin from the hunters' point of view who are hunting for food, which then quickly swaps to the creature's point of view of ambush that is hunting them. The main focus I wanted to achieve the changing of point of view, from the hunters who are hunting for food, who then becomes the prey of a more dominant creature within the food chain, where the perspective switches over to.

Drawings in Cheltenham

Quick observational drawings from a starting location all the way back to the drawing studio. To be honest kind of struggle with the task of drawing things from an objective point of view and to ‘map’ my journey and I was slightly confused. I ended up doing some quick sketches of people and dogs at the park, as they are the only interests I have at the location. Knowing that I only have very limited time in drawing them, I resort in doing very quick sketches from glances and from memory. 

After staying in the park I head back to the studio and found a corpse of a bird in another park down the road. I decided to draw it, until it started to rain, and so I made a quick sketch of it instead. Based on the drawings I had done, the beginning of my journey started lively, then ended with a drawing of a corpse of a bird. In terms of narrative, this can be of life and death. 

Figure in Perspective

Characters are one of the things I do want to practice at and this session consists of life drawing of people, while trying to incorporate extreme perspective into it as much as possible, but at the moment it is quite difficult as I am not exactly confident in drawing people in extreme perspective, usually I want to practice the fundamentals first of drawing figures, such as the basic shapes and structure of the face and the human body. At the moment I decided to draw as usual for life studies while trying to incorporate perspective, though not to the point where it will look extreme in a way, such as very close ups from below or obscure angles, as I wanted to do the basics first. 

Majority of the drawings were done in a few minutes, as I wanted to nail down as much information and as fast as I can, usually I would take my time but this can be a good exercise to train your memories and to be very quick and observant.  

Ellipses, illustrated car

Practicing drawing ellipses and putting it into perspective. Using everyday objects such as cups, plates and bowels as study, including other items that involves ellipses in their shape, form and structure. 

Next is to try and apply the technique of drawing ellipses on objects that often has a more complicated structure to it, such as vehicles, i.e. cars. I'm not exactly confident in drawing vehicles considering they are not my strengths, but it was good practice in doing so. Still needs improvement.