I really struggled with this entire brief (polar bear
series) as I didn't like the set of rules that I set myself in the first image.
I decided to hand draw all the elements of each composition, scan them in,
image trace them and construct digitally. I wanted the images to have a wobbly,
hand drawn quality to create more of a mood and charm so that the viewer empathies
more with the polar bear. I found this a tedious process to do over and over
again, particularly when all the elements were the same. I think I just got
bored of the process and the subject matter and the images got progressively
worse as a result. I wanted to be exhaustive but I think that it would have
worked better if I had kept the same topic and set of rules but instead used
different articles, so I wan’t drawing the same thing. I like thinking of new
ideas around a topic and feeding them into my illustration as they come, which
is why I struggled so much here (I would go nuts doing children’s book
illustration).
I have also never worked properly with light before so this
is something I struggled with. I couldn't get the angle right
and work out where the light source was in 3 dimensions. I also had to base
the dot size off the strength of the light, which was tricky because whenever I
got it slightly wrong I had to redo them. I also had to also keep checking they
were big enough to not form a a fuzzy grid pattern on a smaller screen. However,
I got the hang of it in the end.
One thing that I didn’t struggle at all with was colour. Using
two colours along with their halftones is working well for me aesthetically and
I am getting better and faster at it. I really like that the dots are both
functional (because my deigns have the potential to be screen printed) and give
my illustrations some depth and texture. I also like the process that my screen-printed
image has gone through; from wobbly drawings, to a constructed/ digitalized image then back to something wobbly and analogue again. This way of working was
definitely born from the limitations of designing my screen-printed t-shirts
but it works as well for digital print.
Although creating a narrative scene was a big challenge for me,
I am happy with what I have produced. The work is still cohesive with my
portfolio but demonstrates a different skill set. It reflects my compositions
skills and shows that I can create a refined yet detailed image. However, it
was a shame to have had to suffer through one of my last briefs and because
they took so long I haven’t churned out as many pieces as I would have liked
to. I now have just a week and a half left which I need to cram at least 2-3 finals
into.
