My girlfriend is very talented in a number of ways, but art isn't really something in her arsenal. I'll stop short of posting the drawing of a house she did for me a few months ago (with a handy label saying "a house" next to it - very useful), but she has asked, several times, for me to post some colouring in her and I did last weekend.
With her not really sharing my passion for design, this isn't something we usually get to do together. When she suggested buying some of those felt-outlined colouring boards whilst out on Salford Quays, I jumped at the opportunity. A cheap night-in doing something arty - me all over. We justified buying them by getting one for her nine-year-old sister too, although it was we who were more excited by the prospect of an evening of colouring pens and felt.
Looks good eh? She didn't go out of the lines once.
Here's mine, seeing as it's my blog and not Fi's:
I've really enjoyed reading Simon Garfield's "Just My Type" recently. A geeky book for font enthusiasts, it does what you'd expect - tells interesting stories about various typefaces, type designers and the like. It has, however, added an irritating geekiness to my latest project.
The book speaks of little tips for recognising fonts when you see them, comparing not being able to place a font with not being able to name a song that's stuck in your head. So, when completing a task like the one below, I frustrated myself by examining every serif, every counter, every tail, in order to better ascertain which fonts I was dealing with.
Anyway, you must be in suspense by now, so here you go (apologies again for poor images, they were too large to scan and the lighting in my room is poor):
The work consists of sections of different type cut out from the Radio Times, and arranged in sets of three so that they get steadily more complex, and still look as though they belong to one another. We were provided with the titles "The Long Road", "Flight Delays Today" and "Journey to the Moon", and the numerals, along with series of dots. The rest of the text isn't meant to make sense, and the areas of texture and colour are there to represent imagery or photographs.
As tedious as this exercise sounds, I've actually found it enjoyable - far more so than if we were given sensical type to use. It allowed me to be creative with shape and layout, and to explore how type can be used as image.
The titles we were given were set in Futura, and several adverts I cut out from were in Helvetica, Avant Garde and Frutiger, but I admit defeat in identifying the typeface used for the main articles - I'll have to polish up on my serif typefaces.
Just a quickie - I told myself when I started my blog I'd post all my work, even work which isn't particularly good, so here we are:
The above is a screen-print created around the theme of "a personal response to events from 1970". It didn't take me long to realise that I wanted to focus on Pele, as many football fans would. I decided to use the two core colours of the Brazil flag to tie in his iconic face with Brazil's iconic colours. I loved planning and designing the above piece, but found my screen-printing skills let me down somewhat. Submitted just before Christmas, the piece got me a C, with comments similar to the ones I've just made.
I guess my creativity kind of took a rest over Christmas - I busied myself with family, food and work, and didn't find the time I'd hoped to find in order to make some work. Because of this, I returned to Uni eager to create something, and that's what I've sort of done here.
Don't get excited (as if you would!) - they're no masterpieces - just a couple of images I produced whilst I could have been at the pub. I'd done these two sketches before I'd left for Christmas, and had wanted to play around with them as I liked how they looked. Here they are, poorly scanned in from my wannabe Moleskine:
Told you they weren't exciting didn't I? I decided to sketch all the clutter and bits of rubbish I accumulated on my shelves, and it made for enjoyable pencilmanship. I thought it would be a shame to leave it there, and so:
The clutter is emphasised by the busy and frantic black lines, and the contrasts in tone. I like this image - it holds its own due to the iconic nature of the clock in the centre (or not, feel free to tell me if I'm spouting rubbish - I'm used to it). After trying the single tone and angry line method of reproducing mess, I tried a different tack:
A much brighter, blockier approach - this shows a more relaxed response to clutter (albeit on a more organised shelf). I reckon this image captures me quite well, if there's one thing being artistic and messy in equal measure teaches you, it's to make your messes look good. That's what I think's going on here.
There you are, a small insight into my term-time bedroom. Be thankful I didn't draw the view under my bed.
As part of my contextual studies module for last term, we were asked to blog about a site/artist/bunch of bits of work we found inspiring/interesting/fun. I'm not a fan of blogging solely about other people's work, but seeing as my blog contains only my own work, this post should tick a box on my assessment sheet. (A quick hello goes out to my tutor who I know will be reading this at some point, hopefully the previous sentence will be taken in good humour...)
Anyway, I can do the rest of my post without witty or snide remarks (honest) because the site I have decided to focus on is one I love - one I was introduced to a few years back and one I frequently visit to gain fresh ideas, or simply to rest from my own work, and choose to appreciate the simplicity of thinking artistically... Drum-roll, please: http://www.eatock.com/
Daniel Eatock is based in London, and from the evidence on his website he's dabbled in all sorts of areas of art. However, it's not the aesthetics I find most interesting, it's the thought processes. This isn't a biography of Eatock, so I'll show you some of his work in pictures - you can make your own mind up:
Of course, the best way to get a feel for someone's work is to have a flick through for yourself - the website is more than accessible, in fact, the general feel to Eatock's work is that of accessibility. Included on the website are a variety of interactive works, where viewers submit their own responses to his work.
All in all, I find it great resource. Eatock encourages you to think in different ways, and challenges to some extent what we appreciate as art.
It's strange writing about your work. I always have the feeling that I need to make sure what I write is entertaining, witty, and that there aren't any embarrassing speling misstakes, but this is coupled with a sense of "ah well, it's not like anyone's going to actually read the thing is it?!". Anyway, I hope you do enjoy what I write on here (and by "you" I mean the people I assume don't read it).
I should probably get on with it now, eh?
I've had quite a few things to get done by the end of term - both for my "Typographic Fundamentals" module (bet you wish you were doing that), and for Illustration. I posted my type work yesterday, so today is the turn of the work produced for Lloyds TSB's "Art of Nurture" competition.
This image was made to support the theme of "We Succeed Together" - the idea that all the various kitchen utensils work as one to make this beautifully tasty image of a cake. This was firstly created by hand, before some jiggerypokery involving scanners and printers.
My second image made me feel like a true artist. I wandered into a group crit where we were to display our final ideas, and you can imagine my embarrassment when I held up this:
My speech went something like this: "Well, erm, this is my design for "We make it simple", and, well, I'm not sure, it all seemed too easy, and too... well, simple."
Amazingly, this piece of work, which to create probably took around 18 seconds, drew great praise from my tutors - probably the most positive response I've had from them all year. I found my self in the strange position of being compared to Josef Albers, Mark Rothko, and other such "artists".
Anyhow, I wasn't about to ignore the advice of people who work in the industry, so I will submit it as a part of my brief. For the record however, I definitely prefer the cake.
People from the West Midlands pronounce "tiling" as "toiling", which is fairly apt...
Here's my final typography poster, produced in association with Wolverhampton Art Gallery, to advertise an exhibition of the work of Ed Ruscha.
The "n" represents the tent, and I used this frame to order the rest of the text. The green is representative of the grass.
Upon completion, the main task we were set was to "tile" the piece together - in order to create an A2 piece, I instead printed onto two A3s, and tacked the two together. Not as easy as it sounds.
By the way, Ruscha didn't ever live in a tent (to my knowledge), for the full story of why the poster contains what it does click here.
