FIRST DAY BACK - 7.10.2013.

So today was the first day of Year 3! It was a great feeling to be back at uni, seeing everyone that I'd missed over the summer but also just to get back into a working environment. 

Today mainly consisted of a lot of powerpoint presentations explaining the main points of BA7 and the industry report. I found it all very confusing at first but I think it was due to how overwhelming it was to have so much information to take in, especially since I wasn't too sure about what it all meant in the first place! Although after taking a breather to absorb it all in I felt a lot more calm about what was explained to us. Glynn mentioned that we shall be working in pairs over the next 2 weeks to produce a body of work that reflects a conversation that we have created through exploring our partners work, making sure that we bring it together by finding links between each others ideas. I think this project sounds interesting since it's not a way that I would normally work to generate ideas and discussion. I feel that it will be a good way to get out initial thoughts regarding the BA7 project and industry report and to see whether they are something that will work on paper, not just in your head. 

I was paired up with Jane which I'm extremely happy about since I have always wanted to work with her but never had the chance to. It was really nice chatting about my thoughts and ideas that I had come up with so far and to just get someone else's perspective is always liberating. We swapped ideas and made a few quick notes but we are back in tomorrow to discuss it more in depth so I will scan in our scribbles along with the brief for this mini project task. 

PROJECT PROPOSAL.

1. Project proposal title: 

Hidden, reworked, revealed. 

2. Project proposal content: 

I plan on working from real magazine articles that relate to the beauty and fashion industry to then create appropriate illustrations that go alongside the writings. The way that this fits into the project title is that the articles will be selected by other people and the original illustrations will be covered so I have nothing visually to work from other than the words themselves. Once the illustrations have been created (reworked) then I am allowed to see what the original work was before (revealed). Although I also feel like I could just choose articles without illustrations to begin with since they slowly started filtering fashion illustrations out from magazines, so again this could be also looked at as a way of showing how illustration can work alongside this industry in magazines. 

3. Context and audience: 

I think that the main audience would obviously be readers that are interested in the beauty/fashion industry and go for magazines like Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire etc so I imagine that the ages will range from about 16 right up to more mature women. Fashion magazines can draw a variety of age groups since they offer a range of articles whether its beauty, fashion, travel, food they have something for everyone. I'd like to use this project to explore creating work that isn't for fictional writing, as much as I enjoy illustrating fictional stories I'd like to see how my illustrations can be applied to non-fiction and 'real life' writings. This will also be a good way to really focus on one solid idea rather than messing about with lots of little ideas, creating small bits of work and then not really knowing what to do with them all, instead this means that I have a more concrete foundation to start with. 

4. Research resources: 

In regards to how I will research into my subject I will start looking at various artists that already do illustrations for fashion magazines or have done in the past. I'd like to see what sort of illustrations were popular when they were used in magazines often compared to the rare ones that get published now. I also plan on making good use of the university library due to the huge book selection we have, I think this would be a great area to explore within books. I've also already begun looking at various artists work that ties in with the beauty/fashion world to get some ideas of how I can push my work in terms of trying new textures, materials and compositions. 

5. Learning methodology: 

The majority of my ideas and imagery will be generated from the articles that I find and start to create images for as this will be my main starting point since it's what will help me to get things moving. Alongside this there will be lots of artist research relating to collage and paper art since I know that collage is definitely my preferred, and visually strongest method of working. This is to give me a deeper and wider knowledge of other ways of working with images that I can take into account to then explore and apply to my own style. I feel that this way of creating illustrations is the easiest way for me to get my ideas across but I don't hesitate to mix medias if I feel it is appropriate. 

6. Work for assessment: 

I have found that it has taken me a very long time, 2 years to be exact, to find my right way of working. I wouldn't say it's 100% fool proof but everyone has their moments and mental blocks but I seem to work best by just diving straight in with my research then once that's there, I can go crazy with the image making and just keep creating visual work. Sometimes I can do my visual alongside my research but it really depends on what I am looking at, either way I will be sure to cut, arrange and glue my thoughts down. I think from the project I will have learnt how to adapt my work to fit various 'stories' whether from life or from someone's head, this will help to boost my confidence in that I don't have to just stick to the 'story book  route' of illustration and it can be applied to areas I am very passionate about. I hope to hand in a body of work that will be concise, clear and shows how I've adapted my work to fit into my area of interest. 

Questions 7 and 8 were so confusing since I don't really understand how to answer them but will be able to ask one of my tutors on Monday for some help. 

THOUGHTS.

Thoughts and ideas for the 5 week project: 

I've been having a long think in regards to what I could plan my 5 week project on. It's been really hard since I love illustrating stories and have enjoyed focusing on that last year. They're also a great way to already have a 'brief'  to work straight from, I enjoy having something already 'there' to just expand on and project in my own style. 

With that being said, it led me to think about my work and the real world. Yep that big ol'ball of fun. I love illustrating fictional stories since you can be as creative as you like with them plus it's just something that I'm familiar with. I've already experienced reportage illustration by working on a project relating to  the Castle Museum but I didn't get along with it at all since I just didn't feel like it was an area/subject that I was interested in. This led me to think about applying my illustrations to the fashion and beauty industry because it's somewhere that I would like to see my work be a part of. I finalised my ideas down for what I could plan my project on, thinking about not making it too complicated/unachievable within the time period given but still choosing something that will help to move my work forward. 

These are the 2 that I narrowed it all down to:

• applying illustrations to real articles within fashion/beauty.
• creating a small zine aimed at young girls/teenagers filled with DIYs and how to's relating to beauty/fashion.

It obviously all made sense to actually focus my work into the area that I am interested in the most and would like to see develop into something bigger. I think that both of my ideas could work for the 5 week project but I could see either one leading from one another to a more 'final' project. I feel that the zine idea would be something fun to do for a 5 week task but then again I can see that it can be developed into a more substantial project for a final. On the other hand the same can be said about the real articles idea, it could be something that introduces me to applying my work to my interested area orrr it can be graduate show worthy with the zine being the initial idea which leads to a more formal, finalised outcome. 

So you can see I just feel a bit confused since I'm drawn to both in equal ways, it's just which one would be more beneficial for initial idea exploring and expansion.  

HANNAH KLEE.

LAURA GEE.

PATRICK DUFFY.

DOUBLE UP - PUFFIN CLASSICS.

Double Up consists of two artists, Sophie Pickup and Georgina Carroll, that combine set design, illustration and everything in between. I was looking at book cover designs and came across these by Double Up for Puffin Classics. They created book designs for stories such as, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and White Fang by using the natural landscape combined with paper art to create characters and objects for the book covers. 

I love how they have only stuck to using simple shapes to represent things like trees or the moon and then used the surrounding landscape to create the rest of the atmosphere. I just think this is such a clever way of using paper art without sticking to the standard 'glue and stick' routine but actually applying to a real surrounding.