Wednesday, 17 January 2018

Summative Project Report

The methods of working I explored over the course of this module were very different (at least practically speaking) to the work I had been making previously, and also developed steadily over the course of the module. I think the fact that I was really interested in Cormac McCarthy’s work, and enjoyed reading it so much, is what pushed me to think so hard about how I should best represent it artistically. It was really satisfying having my understanding of his work influence my work’s physical development in an almost subconscious, natural way, so that as I progressed I didn’t feel I had to justify what I was doing to myself. It became an axiomatic process.

Despite initially being enthusiastic about trying all the different print methods, I quickly found that not many of them suit the spontaneous way I like to work. Screen printing is difficult for me to get along with. If I have to think overly about how an image will be put together, and spend a lot of time in preparation, I start to get bored of it and the results always underwhelm me. Although the screen printed image I ended up with is not necessarily bad, it just didn’t feel like the design warranted the process, and it seemed a little lifeless.
I would like to try linocut more in the future because I liked how my lino prints turned out, I just didn’t do a lot because I didn’t feel like it suited the mood I was trying to achieve in this module. I definitely want to keep experimenting with the combination of monoprint, collage and drawn elements that made up my final pieces of work, as this is not something I have tried before and I was really happy with what I ended up with. Working this way gave me a lot of freedom, in that I could just spread a bunch of stuff out on the table in front of me and create lots of images in a very instinctual way, without the aesthetic stagnating. Being able to work back into things with different media is also something I have fun with.

I didn’t particularly enjoy the process of animating the sting (I don’t like working on computers and yet always seem to end up having to spend a huge amount of time on them) as the process of creating what I thought was a simple effect turned out to be very fiddly and confusing, requiring a great deal of faffing around in Photoshop. I was, however, very pleased with the result. I also hugely enjoyed having the opportunity to make some music. Having an alternative creative outlet helped me stay motivated and interested in the work I was doing and I think holistically it proved a success.

I don’t feel I encountered too many problems on this module. They mainly occurred in relation to the book. It was a shame I couldn’t print it as I intended it to be, short edge bound A4 landscape, as the size it ended up really didn’t do the images justice. I also hate having to do things like measuring and cropping, so I made a bit of a hash of that and in the end, I wasn’t too happy with it. These problems did, however, inspire me to produce the A3 prints, just on a whim, and they were much more of a success. The large size meant all the textural details in the images were heightened and the colours came out great.


I will definitely be taking a lot of the practical techniques I picked up on this module forward, although I do wish I had spent more time in the print room, particularly experimenting with monoprint and, despite not particularly enjoying it, I would like to give screen printing another go. This is purely because it gives you the option to make lots of copies of your work very easily and cheaply, which I unfortunately couldn’t do working the way I did.              

Printed Pictures - Reflective Report

I don't typically work with analogue print mediums so at the beginning of this brief I was looking forward to trying them all out, if a little apprehensive. My initial thoughts were that, coming off the back of the success I had with the sketchy pencil imagery I used for the editorial brief, I should probably focus on monoprinting. I deemed this the best way of achieving  a similar aesthetic. I did briefly consider using linocut to produce images inspired by native American imagery (a theme McCarthy tackles in 'Blood Meridian') but quickly discarded this idea as I couldn't imbue my drawings inspired by this with the right tone of voice. 


   




































My attempt at screen printing was mostly successful, and it does support pencil textures fairly well, I just don't think the design I came up with made screen printing a necessary way of rendering it. This meant I was fairly underwhelmed by the result as the screen printing process didn't add anything to it. I also decided that screen printing isn't something which agrees with my way of working. I tend to do my best work spontaneously so the planning and preparation needed for screen printing mean I lose the creative flow. 





I did quite like the results I achieved from linocut (although I put the second one in the wrong press and it cracked) but I still didn't think they fully captured the mood of McCarthy's work, and I'd get bored of the lengthy cutting process. 

I finally hit my stride with monoprinting, not planning images, just printing textures and spur of the moment drawings, and resolved to use those in some way. I found it a much more natural process to just start cutting up the monoprints and work back into them without thinking using drawn and collaged elements. I mainly used 'No Country For Old Men' as inspiration, as well as quintessentially American photography, such as Robert Frank, Wim Wenders and Gregory Crewdson. Before I knew it, I had amassed quite a large amount of images and decided I would make a digitally printed, landscape A4 book of them for my final outcome. I used some quotes to fill up space on pages where the images were portrait. 

Unfortunately it turned out I couldn't print a landscape book at A4 size, so I had to print it at A5, and the images really lost something in their downsizing. There also wasn't a great choice of paper available for double sided printing and I didn't end up with what I ideally wanted.  




I also didn't do a very good job of putting the book together, so I ended up with wonky pages and an overall quite unprofessional finish. However, as a last ditch attempt to get something I was properly happy with, I decided to just choose my five favourite pages from the book and make A3 digital prints of them and these turned out really great. I also chose a much nicer stock to print them on and put them in cellophane sleeves. They feel generally much more like nice, precious objects than the book does.  

Idea Pictures - Reflective Report

I began work on this brief with thumbnails largely based on McCarthy's novel 'Blood meridian', as this book was the one I had read most recently and subsequently freshest on my mind. I became very involved with researching theories behind it and symbolism in it etc. but actually, which wasn't really an appropriate way of working in response to an editorial brief about the author himself. I tried too hard, initially, to create visual metaphors which I could relate very clearly to his writing in my own head, specifically 'Blood Meridian', but which wouldn't have seemed as relevant to other people and didn't create particularly strong images. This is why my initial thumbnails didn't end up having much bearing on my final outcomes.  
After trying to force ideas into visual forms that couldn't really accommodate them, I came to the conclusion that visual metaphors weren't the right approach for me. I found that once I relaxed into making work which I wasn't trying to connect to McCarthy's writing too literally, the images I created were stronger and reading his work at the same time was influencing them, just more subconsciously. This more holistic approach works much better for me, as I usually create my best work spontaneously. It meant that my final images were imbued with a McCarthy-esque atmosphere in a subtle and more general way which seemed to me to answer to the brief more adequately. 


Square Illustration
      


For my square illustration I decided on a portrait of Cormac McCarthy, which I initially thought was a boring idea. In the end, however, the way I drew this image, and the colours I used were conducive to an appropriate tone of voice. I was initially intending to layer up the pencil sketch over a painted, red pattern background, but that was too overpowering so I had to play around in Photoshop using the different blending presets. I took this approach for all my finals.



Landscape Illustration



For my landscape illustration I decided on this drawing of a dead horse, it seemed appropriate owing to McCarthy's tendency to write about death and horses. This is my favourite of the three, and I was originally going to finish the drawing off but ended up liking the unfinished version a lot so never bothered. I particularly like how the red areas in this image make a suggestion of the horse's viscera without being too gratuitous or literal. 


Cowboys (Portrait Illustration)






Finals


I decided on the first image from each of these slides, on the basis that it's not so off white that it is too obviously trying to look old. 
Overall I am very happy with my outcomes for this brief and enjoyed working on it. The use of largely analogue media reflects McCarthy's rough and unrefined view of the world and the colour red enabled me to hint at the violent nature of his writing without having to literally depict it (which may have seemed clumsy). My biggest regret is the fact that I think all these images would have worked better as vignettes, particularly in terms of how they would be embedded onto a page with an editorial article.    

Moving Pictures - Reflective Report


Cormac McCarthy Sting from Alex Brown on Vimeo.

My initial idea for the sting was to use the picture of the dead horse from the 'idea pictures' brief, having it slowly decay into the ground. But, after realising that I couldn't use After effects for stop motion style animation very effectively, I changed my idea completely to one which was based on my 'printed pictures' work and which I could animate using keyframes. I intended to use my image of the two characters sat at the table and have the sheriff remove his hat from his head and lower his head down in a solemn gesture, then have the woman put her head in her hands. I would match up the musical soundtrack with each of their movements, a single chord for each one. 

However, I started to think I'd probably find that quite complicated to animate, as I'm not very confident with After Effects, and also that I required something much more subtle to convey the mood I wanted to. There would probably have been a risk of it ending up a little too Terry Gilliam-esque, which wasn't a style that would have been complimentary to the subject matter.  

I decided that the more subtle I made the animation, the more it would emphasise the eerie atmosphere and compositionally sparse quality of my 'printed pictures' images. I actually ended up using a sort of slightly warping zoom effect, akin to the famous dolly zoom effect used by Alfred Hitchcock in 'Vertigo' or Martin Scorsese in 'Goodfellas', more of a cinematic camera trick than an animation really, but I was really happy with the result. I achieved the effect by separating out an image into several layers and using keyframes to adjust the scale and position of each layer in opposition to each other. It worked very well in communicating an oppressive and uncanny atmosphere. I also added a sort of shimmering effect to certain layers in each scene which worked rather well. I had already made the soundtrack by this point (an airy, minimal piece of Americana style music using guitar and harmonica) so I adjusted the pacing of the animation to that and overall they worked really well together. 

Despite thinking what I had made was perhaps too subtle at times, once I added the music it was very much brought to life. In fact, now I think one of the few things I would change about it would be making the movement in the second and third scene even more subtle, more like the first scene. I have also noticed that the fade out begins whilst movement is still occurring between the second and third scene, but in the first scene movement stops before. I also think I could have incorporated the name in a more interesting way, but overall I am very happy with how this turned out, and making the music gave me a refreshing opportunity to indulge in something, other than art, which I massively enjoy.     

  


















             

Printed Pictures Finals

Final Book and Prints.

In the end I could only print the book A5, so I decided to do 5 digital prints of my favourites at A3 size so I had some big versions of them as well. 


Images selected for 5 Prints






























Book





Moving Pictures finals

Final Sting



Cormac McCarthy Sting from Alex Brown on Vimeo.

Sunday, 14 January 2018

Study Task 6 - Presentation

'Ding Dong Circus and other stories, 1967 - 1974' 

Sasaki Maki (Edited and translated by Ryan Holmberg)

Published by 'Breakdown Press'

























This is a 256 page paper back graphic novel containing a collection of Maki's work and an introductory essay by him. The comics themselves are printed in one colour onto the stock, a sort of dark purple/blue. The stock itself is fairly unremarkable, it just seems like good quality, standard book paper, perhaps a little thicker (I couldn't find out the gsm). The same purple blue is used along with a really nice bright orange on the cover. The title is in Japanese but a white belly band covers that up. It is very nicely put together and pleasing to the eye. I might consider using a belly band on my book (although I'm not sure about how as mine will be landscape), but probably will use slightly thicker paper for the pages.  The most unusual aspect of the books design is the fact that the essay is printed on much lighter weight (almost newsprint) pale blue stock, but this sets it apart from the rest of the book nicely.    


'UNMATTER'

Dominic Kesterton

























This is a 20 page, risograph printed comic which benefits from very unfussy presentation. It has a bold blue cover and the content is black and white on quite nice thick paper. Despite how simplistically and cheaply it is put together it remains very tasteful and slick and still manages to feel like a nice object.