EVALUATION - Project: “Street Style Illustrations”

EVALUATION

Unit 45: Graphic Image Making

Student: Ana Vieira

Project:  “Street Style Illustrations”

This Project was very enthusiastic for me. I really started to know more about illustration and the most I learned more I get in love with it. I also enjoy fashion so combine both parts was very fun for me.

Since the beginning I had an idea of what we had to do and how to do it by seeing the 2^nd year previous work.

We first had some fabric draw exercises, where we had practice drawing fabric and his folders and next we had body proportions exercise, where we had to measure each other’s according with the head size and then draw the other person. These exercises were very useful to me because I have some issues when I have to draw fabric and people. Sometimes is difficult to me get the texture of the cloths and the proportions of the body.

After this we started to see what illustration means and we started to research blogs about street style that Sally gave to us and choose 4 blogs. Of each blog we had to choose 4 pictures that we most like and found interesting.

We used these pictures to train various techniques that we saw from illustrators. First we did a simple pencil drawing with shadows of 2 of these pictures to practice drawing the clothes textures and folders.

Each class we looked to the work of 3 illustrators and then we practice their techniques and methods painting or tracing one of the pictures that we found on the blogs.

First we look at Agnes Decorchelle (with her detail colour pencils drawings), Andy Warhol (with his simple watercolour paintings where he just focus in the clothes and in the accessories) and Zoe O’Ferral (with the almost cartoony draws using pens to give de fabric textures.

Agnes Dercochelle

Andy Warhol

Zoe O'Ferrall

Than we look at David Downton (his beautiful work he uses water colour do draw the basic shapes spending more time in the model face and in some details), Julie Verhoeven (her work is more from the imaginary with a lot of extra elements that she add like circles, water drips, etc.) and last but not least Michael Roberts (who uses coloured paper cut outs to make their African inspired illustrations).

David Downton

Julie Verhoeven

Michael Roberts

David Downton (picture of his work in the right) was my favourite artist of all. His work is so elegant and beautiful. I love the big watercolour areas giving the shape of the outfit and the detailed faces. His work was my principal inspiration for my final piece.

For the final piece we had to research again in the blogs 3 sequences of 4 pictures that had some in common, like a colour, a piece of the outfit, the style etc.

The first sequence that I made was in common the colour blue, the second one had the colour yellow and skirts in common, and the third one, the one that I choose for my final piece, had he colour red and patterns in common.

After we choose de three sequences we had to make thumbnail sketches of the sequences thinking what materials and technique we would be using and then choose which one we would decide to do it.

I choose the third one because I love the colour red and because I thought that the patterns could be a interesting part of my illustrations.

I knew that I wanted to use watercolours in the outfit, inspired my David Downton. Then I thought that the area in focus would be the outfit and not the faces or the rest of the model, so I decided to make just the outline, with a black pen, of the face and the rest of the body and accessories of the model, like shoes bags, etc., this was inspired by the technique of Zoe O’Ferrall. I also wanted to give a unique touch in my illustration, something different of the others, I thought “why not to give some texture?” so I            used the Michael Roberts technique and I cut out black paper to make the patterns of the models.

When I started doing the final piece I realized that i didn’t liked some of the pictures very much, and the result wasn’t what I expected so I decide do go and research for more pictures and I’ve changed 2 of the 4 that I had. I made news thumbnail sketches always keeping the same idea of techniques and materials.

In my final piece there is two picture with spots (made by a hole puncher) and two pictures with stripes. I’m really pleased with my work, I think the result was excellent and the paper detail is very different.

In the final stage of this project I was in a rush because in the end of the Christmas term I lost my sketchbook in the tube and the next they I had to travel to Portugal. During this time I didn’t made much from what I had to do in the graphics book so when I returned from Portugal, 2 weeks later, I went to pick up my book and start to do all in a bit of rush but I think I done everything that I needed but if I had more time I would loved to do the artist transcripts in my book, I left the pages in blank so in my own time I will start to do it.