Wellcome Collection & Ai Weiwei

During the Workshop Week, we made several trips to galleries within London. The most popular of these was certainly the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road, within which artist Ann Veronica Janssens' installation yellowbluepink was being displayed.

Unbelievably, these are all photos taken directly within the installation room. The work utilises coloured light and mist to highlight the physical processes of human perception. Within the installation, visual details are blurred and distorted, and one focuses more on colour and the depth (or lack thereof) of ones field of vision. The installation is extremely successful in drawing attention to ones own senses and concentration, and in addition to that, being quite disorientating. Below is a video taken again directly within the installation space; I think it may highlight the extent to which it impairs vision and, by extension, perception of depth.

Moving on from this, we visited Ai Weiwei's exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art; the following image shows his sculpture, Grapes, within the exhibition space. The photo does not quite capture the symmetrical and cyclic nature of the work, but does demonstrate its balance and finely constructed composition.

The work was created from 27 Qing Dynasty stools, and was part of several works intended to deliberately subvert the original function and aesthetic that an object has; the rendering of stools into such a sculpture displays an intricately balanced and interesting product, but can no longer function as a chair. Ai has described this to be a transformation into a "useless object".

Left is an image of a famous work by Ai, named "Hanging Man", which was additionally featured within the Royal Academy of Art. A simple, linear portrait of a man is constructed out of a coat hanger; the book "Hanging Man: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei" uses it as its title and cover.

This concludes the trips to both of these exhibitions. I found them generally enriching as they both challenged the concept of "perception"; the former as a physical process, and the latter as the way one views the function of an object, and its place as art.

Workshop Week

During the initial weeks of the Graphics pathway, we underwent several different workshops that consulted different artistic fields within graphic design. The first of these was motion graphics animation. During the workshop, we worked on several different short animated pieces, the first of which depicting the Moon orbiting the Earth as it spins on its axis.

The video above is the result of the former part of the workshop. I have never worked within motion graphics animation before, so this was a new and difficult experience for me in which I learned a lot in a short space of time. I used the program Adobe AfterEffects to export a Photoshop file which contained all of the graphics components for our animation, and worked on the file accordingly until the sequence was complete. The following image shows the work in progress as I was editing the AfterEffects file.

The following video is the second type of animation we worked on within the lesson; the brief was to make the balls repeatedly bounce and additionally to create the ripple effect on the surface. I found this to be the most difficult of the animation tasks as the method was fairly complex; one can see the result of my difficulty through the inconsistent speed of the second ball. 

For the following third video, which I consider to have been more successful than the former two, we were given videos of two separate people moving their arms in a similar fashion. I created the effects pictured by editing the brightness and contrast of the figures in order to create a silhouette-like image, and layered multiple versions of the figure. I then added the bright background, resulting in the stark contrast of the image, and the ripples. I consider the amalgamation of bright colours with the silhouette and ripple imagery to be very effective and I am happier with this animation than I am with the previous videos mentioned.

Somerset House exhibition

The class recently went on an excursion to the AOI: World Illustration Awards at Somerset House. The exhibition displayed winning illustrative works from the Association of Illustrators' recent competition, spanning several different fields of illustration, from books and advertising to self-initiated work. I took a significant interest in this exhibition due to the direct nature of the exhibited artwork.

The works above are by the artists João Fazenda and Nata Joh respectively, and are similar in that they depict scenes reminiscent of folk or fantasy tales. Fazenda's work is part of a series of similar illustrations using the same medium of red and black drawing ink; they accompany a book on traditional Japanese folk tales. The work on the right falls under the category of self-initiated work; it is the front cover of a book the artist wrote about the experience of moving to new places. The giant in the picture is a fantastical representation of new experience. I personally took interest in these works, as while they were different in style and subject, they were successful in their realisation of folk-tale imagery; they exemplify the level of diversity within the artistic field of illustration.

The work above is entitled Home Sweet Home by illustrator Nicholas Stevenson; it is part of a collection of two works that picture imaginary homes. I find the use of the suburban icon of the Henry Hoover quite effective in its abundant portrayal; it resonates with the general public as it is a recognisable and familiar image that represents the home.

The World Illustration Awards was conclusively an artistically enriching experience as it demonstrated the diversity between genres of illustration, as previously mentioned - even if they are depicting similar subject matter. 

Fashion

As a start to the Fashion rotation week, a life drawing class was held. There was one model present and we were to do several styles of drawings over different lengths of time. In one instance we were told to create a sustained drawing; the model held one pose for 20 minutes while we were to focus on tone and shading. While I personally enjoy creating sustained drawings, I find it difficult to work under a time restraint and do not consider mine to be finished. The picture featured below is the sustained drawing.

We were then to draw in different styles for the remaining poses held by the model. I chose to use charcoal for my next drawing, pictured below left. I am not comfortable with using charcoal as a drawing medium, but wanted to try something I was unfamiliar with in order to experiment and improve my skills. I am unhappy with the result of this because of its rough and inaccurate quality given by the charcoal's smudging. While I do not consider shading to be a particularly weak point of mine, the charcoal made it difficult and I decided that I need more practise and time to adjust to the medium before I tried creating life drawings with it.

As for the image featured below right, this is another example of a process that I am uncomfortable with. We were given five minutes to complete a pen drawing; I don't find the medium of pen comfortable for drawing detail, or life drawing in a more general sense. The time restraint caused me to create a disproportionate image with incorrect form and anatomy.

This session of life-drawing developed my figure drawing skills and my ability to create sketches under a time restraint.

Moving on to our next practical assignment, we created maquettes of wearable items that we had to base off a certain artwork. I do not have the image of the artwork to hand. 

The left image is a cape, and the latter is a dress. While I like the composition of the dress maquette, they were both created in a short space of time, resulting once again in an inability for me to fully concentrate or produce something particularly detailed. The images both match the artwork I used through their use of colour and shape. I have decided that I need to strengthen my ability to work under time pressure in order to form the best results possible over the length of the course. 

We were then asked to develop one of the maquettes we previously created. I chose to try to develop the cape design as I liked its shape but did not feel that the design was the most appropriate for the form. I experimented with adding different components and shapes to the structure in order to create a more defined design; I am fond of the addition of shoulder adornments to a cape but do not feel that the other embellishments were particularly beneficial. 

The following series of images depicts the task we were then given of creating life-sized designs on mannequins. We worked in groups of three in this project, and rotated around the different mannequins that were situated in the classroom. We were either played a song or given a theme with which to work, and the prop we were creating had to match the general feel of what was shown to us. I found this experience very entertaining as it was highly creative, and I had also never had the experience of working on anything fashion-related before, particularly not using a mannequin as a base.

We then had to combine several of the props we created in the previous task into a design for a dress. Still working in groups of three, this is what myself and my peers created for this task. I was pleased with the result as we had the success of using some rather abstract shapes and forming them into something that had 

wearable function.

After working in groups of three, myself and another member of my class proceeded to work in a pair to create the next dress we were assigned to make. Pictured left is the original product of this project. We worked on the mannequin as we were assigned to, but as we dismantled the piece it came apart. We tried fitting it onto my partner, who was to be the model, which caused it to come apart further. Unfortunately, this exercise was not a success. The cardboard hood that we created was a focal point of design, but as that no longer functioned the item looked much like a mess without any compositional focus. 

We were then told to stand in front of the floor level indicators by the stairs on each floor of the school in order to take images of the dress functioning on the model. Here are the pictures that I consider to have come out the most successfully out of the ten that were taken.

To conclude the week's work, there was a class "catwalk" in which the models displayed the dresses to the rest of our peers. There are videos of this below.

Lens-based Media

For the start of the Lens-based Media rotation week we visited the Tate Modern art gallery as a class. There were several works exhibited there that I took a particular interest in; the following artwork that I photographed is called Movable Shoulder Extension by Rebecca Horn. 

This piece in particular sparked my interest due to its unique format of being a wearable item. Both the artwork itself and the photo have a particularly minimalistic and striking design and function which I felt was worth taking note of. Unfortunately, however, I found that the artwork had very little commentary presented alongside it and no explanation of its purpose - suggesting that it was more of a purely visual work. 

This work is called Interrelated Portraits by artist George Condo; I decided to take note of it due to its stylistically appealing nature. The artist blends an iconic cartoon-like style for the figures while blending them together in a surrealist way; this particular mix is striking due to the juxtaposition of very opposite styles, giving it a disturbing yet endearing quality. The artwork was also created with ink and the loose nature of the lines contributes to the uncertain and surreal nature of the piece.

The following artwork is called The Life Saviors by Hamed Owais. The Whitechapel Gallery, where this piece was exhibited, did not allow for photography within the building, so this is an image taken from the Internet (source). The image is a striking commentary upon world situations, but I chose to take note of it due to its stylistic features.

The disproportionate nature of the main figure adds to the disturbing quality of the work, as similarly to Condo's work, it gives the image a surreal quality. The style of painting is flat and uses desaturated colours and I find this to be aesthetically appealing and appropriate to the message that Owais is aiming to depict through this work.

Our first exercise as a class during this week was drawing-based. We were to draw a certain figure that we encountered often during our lives, but whom we never spoke to or weren't personally acquainted with. I decided to draw and write about an intimidating man who often sits on my doorstep. You can see my contribution to this class exercise on the top-left hand side of the following page.

For the above exercise, we we went on to draw a photograph that we had previously taken within the space of 20 minutes. I found this particularly difficult as we were also required to cover an entire A1 sheet of paper for this drawing; this paired with the time restraint led to a lack of concentration, and the sense of perspective within my drawing was ultimately lost. 

During most of the week, we worked on a collaborative film project that had to have relevance to a recent news event. The topic of choice for my group was the recent findings of water on planet Mars. This is the majority of what myself and my peers spent our time on during Lens-based Media rotation week, but I cannot write more about the project as I do not have access to the recording.

To conclude the Lens-based Media chapter, this movie is the product of a collaborative class exercise we did called 360 Rotation. There were nine participants per group, each sat in an inward-facing circle, drawing a figure who stood in the centre. Putting each image in consecutive order, an animation was produced of the central figure, aiming to ultimately look like the subject was being viewed from a rotating angle. 

Graphics

At the end of the previous rotation week, we were given the task of visiting upper Waterloo Station in order to take photographs. While the brief was fairly vague, we were told to "capture movement" in the images that we take, and also to make sure  one of the pictures is of a piece of graphic design.

Below you can see the images that I took on this visit. They are both relevant to the topic of movement as one shows a physical crowd of people moving through the platforms, and another references it in the text: "beat the crowds". I was not completely sure of what was meant by "capture movement in the graphics" which was written in the brief, which is why I took photos of both a graphic image and a moving subject.

On September 21st we started the graphics rotation week with the theme of "Poetic Migration", which I can see was relevant to our previous task of capturing "movement". Our first lesson as a class involved an activity where we collectively constructed a poem. 

We each mentally pictured a scene in our minds that was related to the topic of "movement", and described it using short sentences. In smaller groups, we cut each of the sentences and pasted them on a separate page to create an entirely new poem made up of our individual descriptions. The resulting poem is pictured right.

I was personally unsure of what relevance the poem had to graphic design in particular, but found the end result interesting.

Our next task was to experiment with different ways of drawing portraits of our peers. Among these methods were four ways of drawing that were suggested to us by a teacher:

1. Continuous line drawing
2. Drawing with the pen in the mouth
3. Drawing using your weak hand - in my case left
4. Drawing with your eyes closed

Pictured below are the results of these experiments.

This task helped me feel more comfortable drawing in a less detailed and pedantic manner because we were forced to work with our weaknesses. In my case, my weakness is drawing loosely; the second picture, where we had to draw using our weaker hand, was particularly challenging because I had never had the experience of drawing with it before.

Our next task involved experimenting with typography. We were given a piece of paper on which several fonts were printed in black, and we were to trace individual letters of the font in order to create words.

The image below shows the result of this project. We were given templates from which to create the frames, and experimented with creating words within the given space - the words had to be taken either from the poem that was created in the first task, or a poem found by the individual.

Once we had completed enough thumbnails, we were to choose our favourite and enlarge it to A5 size, additionally trying to improve the composition and the design of the image. My chosen design is pictured on the right.

Despite the fact that we were supposed to implement design improvements into the enlarged copy, I feel that the quality of the design has actually declined in this instance due to a number of factors. As we were tracing the fonts while doing the thumbnails, the letters were guaranteed to be of equal size; in the enlargement, the A and the V of the image are clearly both smaller and thinner than the E and the R, which is also misshapen.

We were told to bring certain objects to class so that we could create a scan from them - the criteria was that it could not be a phone, and that we should also bring a piece of black material (such as a T-shirt) so that we could cover it.

As people were scanning body parts - such as hands and faces - I decided to do a scan of both my hands and the object that I brought with me, a coin purse I bought in Morocco. I chose the wallet because of its intricate design along with its shape, which was convenient for scanning. It is not the kind of design commonly produced in England, which I thought could serve as a point of interest.

For our next task we were told to experiment with unique methods of mark-making using more than one medium. The following images are of the work that I did during this project. For the first image, I initially practised mark-making using a permanent marker that was out of ink; this created a pale and dry effect. I then covered it with masking tape and drew over it; once I removed the masking tape it had left an interesting mark. 

To create the effect pictured in the second image, I inked a series of dots that formed the shape of letters. I smudged these using tissue in order to connect them, which formed letters and words.

The following image shows a culmination of the previous exercises I have described. The overall image is not aesthetically pleasing to me as I was not paying particular attention to the way I composed it. I enjoyed creating the effects and experimenting with mark-making techniques, but the resulting product is not something I would consider to be good.

Once we moved on to our next class, Adobe Workshop, we were taught how to use certain tools within Photoshop to merge images together. The image on the left demonstrates the product of what we were taught during that lesson.

We were told to find a photo of animals and a space-related background picture, and to place the animals in the space. I achieved this using two techniques; the first of which is the Magic Wand tool. The tool was used to cut around the dogs within the image and create a Layer Mask - this was then set to 100% density and an appropriate level of feathering so that the central figure of the dogs was appropriately blended into the background.

I then applied layer effects called Inner Glow and Outer Glow, in order to smoothen some of the jagged edges created by the Magic Wand tool.

While I already knew about and made use of some of the techniques presented to us in class, the Layer Mask feature was new to me and is now a valuable addition to my existing Photoshop skills.

Also during the Adobe Workshop class, we were taught how to use Adobe Illustrator, being set the task of creating a logo out of our name.

I created the following image by drawing out several standard shapes and writing my name among them. We were taught how to use the Transform tool, which I experimented with in order to create the desired effect. I used primary colours and a comical font as I was aiming for a bold and childlike design. 

The green cuboid underneath the logo was not deliberate; once I had learned how to create 3D shapes I experimented with the tool, but ran out of time when I tried to implement it into my logo, which is why it resulted in an unused element to the design. 

Following the classes on Adobe programs we took during the week, we were set a piece of work that involved using Photoshop at home.

In accordance to the week's theme of "poetic migration", we were to research poetry in our own time and produce something that was relevant to that theme. I came across the poem We Refugees by Benjamin Zephaniah; I found it to be particularly relevant due to the central topic of refugees.

I decided to employ the use of a simplistic design for the poem's backdrop, using dark, unsaturated colours in order to make sure nothing is detracted from the poem. The forest depicts the rich landscapes described in the text, but is given a sinister quality through the use of colour. The central silhouette amplifies this effect. I wanted to portray the author's intentions of bringing to light the struggle of the refugees.

This concludes the work I produced over the course of the Graphics rotation week.