While doing the first task, I started to second guess everything I did or used, as, in the end most things could be considered luxuries. While food and water are definitely necessities, the food that I made wouldn't be just a necessity, as many of the ingredients that I used were there purely to make it taste good, like salt and spices. Moreover, even the glass that I drank water out of or the utensils I used to eat the food could be counted as luxuries, as while they do make my life easier, I could also survive without them.
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Doing this made me wonder what I should actually be doing with my newly acquired free time, as there is no need for any kind of entertainment to survive, and if I were a hardcore cynic, even a simple walk could be considered an indulgence.
I decided to stop after a few hours because I didn't know what to do with myself at this point, since anything I thought about doing could count as a luxury in one way or another, but the exercise did make me realise how little I actually need to survive, and I'll definitely be attempting this exercise again.
In the end, after trying this out for a couple hours, I feel very torn since while it does feel fulfilling to not use any extra things, it also kills a lot of the joy of living. I will try to to this sporadically from now on to try to find a balance between reducing how much of a consumer I am while also not getting rid of every luxury I interact with.
If I were to try this again, I would probably do it when I am less busy, since I feel like when life is really hectic I tend to want to reward myself with non-necessities to motivate myself to keep going.
I decided to note down all the activities I did and things I used while performing this task, which are a fairly nutritious meal I made with what I already had in the pantry, water in a glass, coffee, which I considered a necessity because I need it to stay alert and focus, sleeping, which entailed having a bed, blanket and pillow, and movement, as at least a small amount of movement is necessary to not get muscle atrophy.
Below, I reduced everything to what would actually be needed for survival and living according to nature. Here there is water but with no cup, a piece of bread as there is no need for cooking apparatus, with only the necessary nutritional intake no not die, no coffee as there is no need to be alert if I'm not doing anything, as I wouldn't want to do anything that makes me become better, and no movement, as being active isn't necessary to survive. Surprisingly, I ended up keeping the blanket, because sleep is definitely a bare necessity, and it would be too cold to get any sleep without it.
While looking at the second task, I realised I tend to separate my thoughts like that pretty often.
Since thinking about long term goals and future plans is really stressful, I tend to ignore them when I'm just trying to get trough the day.
Most 'here and now' thoughts that I'm currently having would be work related, specifically this project but also the "amplify" one that is far from done so I feel it looming over me. I am also really worried about the fact that it's raining and I don't have an umbrella, but I will soon need to leave. But what is most overpowering is the hunger I am feeling, I can't stop thinking about how I should.ve woken up earlier to make breakfast. I can almost visualise myself cooking it so that I wouldn't be so regretful right now.
As a visual response, I drew out how making breakfast would've played out if I had time to do it.
I realise now that I'm writing this that this actually goes against the task, since my thoughts are actually about my morning, so my past, and rather than being about the "here and now", and this response is more about the mistakes that got me to where I am.
I feel like making this small comic really amplified my feelings of sadness and regret as now I have a visual representation of the ideal morning that I could have had.
I think for me, task 3 is pretty much impossible, as I am supported by my parents and because I have flatmates that I share a lot of things with, so even the food that I eat is partly supplied by someone else. But, I do wish I was more independent so I will try to gradually become so.
MONO PRINTING WORKSHOP
For this workshop we had to use a square format, so I wanted to do something that can work with that shape.
Since my first task was Cynicism I wanted to do something to portray how that set of tasks made me feel.
While doing the cynicism task I felt pretty sad as I realised how difficult it truly is to live independently, without relying on others for any kind of help, while also being able to thrive with the bare necessities for living. It was the first time I considered living my life in such a way and I thought it sounds like quite a fulfilling lifestyle, so I was quite disappointed when I realised how much it would take for me to get there.
In response to this, I decided to draw a sheep with overgrown wool, since, even if they might not enjoy being domesticated, sheep depend on humans for survival, just like people depend on others most of the time.
The sheep represents that I believe we can't be completely independent from other people or society in general, since we are a product of society and inherently social, so we need to depend on each other for most things we do in life, including socialisation and using objects made by other people.
Moreover, if their wool isn't sheared regularly, it will matt up and become really heavy, possibly suffocating the animal.
This made me think of one of the other cynicism tasks, which said to focus on the here and now, temporarily ignoring the past and present. While I found that to work really well for a short period of time, I think ignoring our other worries consistently can create an even more tense inner-self. Neglecting to organise our thoughts and letting them accumulate without making sense of them or talking to someone about them can make us feel suffocated, just like how sheep can suffocate if their wool is neglected.
This outcome was a good way to put more thought into the subject of my illustration.
Even if it's a simple task like this I can still come up with an idea that has some meaning.
Learning from my "amplify" experience, I used this task to get better at coming up with a clear idea before developing it, which made this task go smoother as I felt more sure of myself.
This was also a good opportunity to try out mono printing, which is something I've been avoiding for the past year because of its messiness.
I found that combining mono printing and riso printing together was a fun experience that made me excited to try more new ways of creating textures in illustration.
Another thing that I want to change since "amplify" is using a single medium and not experimenting with multiple formats before settling on a final outcome. Going forward I want to try using digital means to be able to enhance my traditional pieces and to better control certain aspects of them, for example what pops and takes centre stage in an image. The sheep were a good time to try this out although I wish to try doing more with them in the future.
MUSICAL PHILOSOPHY
For this task, I chose the Russian duo IC3PEAK. They are known for criticizing their government, being especially vocal about the heavy censorship in Russia.
I didn't choose a specific song but I mainly focused on their album 'Sweet Life' which is about the conflicts between the government and the people.
I've never worked on illustrating music before so I wasn't sure where to begin with this.
I started by making some thumbnails to have all my ideas on paper. In the beginning, I was mainly working off of really descriptive lyrics ( for example the narrator's cat getting run over by a police car). I thought this was too literal and uninspired so I wanted to explore other things.
My next move was to start thinking about the kind of space the music is inspired by since this is something that was talked about in the lecture when discussing Mike Skinner (the Streets). A night landscape of concrete blocks tends to be quite depressive and ominous, but I don't think my thumbnails managed to reflect any of the energy of the music.
To try to get a result that represents the music I chose better I tried working more in a messier manner since a clean and contained illustration would go against the message of the songs.
I tried to play around with including text in the images since this is something that I'm still trying to get better at.
Since one of the main goals of IC3PEAK is to fight censorship I thought graffitti could be a great place to look at.
I was inspired by walls that have been graffitied and covered in posters and then repainted and covered in graffiti again and so on. I think this fits with the revolutionary message of the duo and can also convey resilience and persisting until you reach your goals no matter how much opposition you might encounter.
I tried to get the graffiti wall effect by using some ripped mono-printed paper from the previous project with watercolour.
I think it was a fun experiment and although I don't love the results there are elements that I like in them like the combination of textures and the way the white paint covers part of the drawing in the first one which can be a place for the viewers eyes to rest while maintaining the chaos at the bottom.
I also wanted to try working with spray paint, but I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to buying one for this experiment so I used some color hair spray. It was difficult to work with since it's very sheer and it doesn't stick well to paint, but since making something more disorderly was my goal it ended up working perfectly well.
Overall I think this task took me out of my comfort zone since I've never done something inspired by music before.
It was also a great way to try something new which was quite exciting. I really enjoy how these last few images because they are not as literal as some of the previous ones. I tried keeping them simple in the sense that there is nothing yelling out the message of the music I was inspired by, as I tried to rely on mark making to convey the idea of their songs.
I think I would definitely try something similar again but perhaps try to find a balance between the messier look and something more deliberate.
COLLECT YOURSELF
When presenting my collection, I decided to go for a realistic diorama of my desk. I wanted this to be an immersive exhibition that could give the viewer a glimpse of my desk.
I chose this route because my objects don't really go together, their only common aspect being that they are mine.
I added some extra decorations to my exhibit to make it a more accurate representation of my desk. (crumpled paper, crumbs, a pen)
Although my objects don't have much in common, my tangerine and Halley's pumpkin were practically identical.
For task 1, I decided to draw a short story, which includes all my objects, about a girl getting a cookie.
Although it is very simple, I found it very enjoyable to come up with a story based on just a few objects.
Going forward I will try to do this more often as I think it would be beneficial when coming up with ideas. If I do it again I would probably try harder to make the use of each object more evident
More collections I collected
jam jar collection
soda tab collection
STENCILING WORKSHOP
Dima Gorelyshev
Dima uses stencils in a really effective way to achieve a really crisp look in his illustrations, while maintaining some beautiful textures.
Something that I meant to work on this year was to create work that is more effective at visually communicating information. I think Dima's work does just that by using really clear shapes and just the neccessary amount of detail.
Stencils
First Attempts
The stencil workshop was one of my favourites of the year. I feel like I was able to create some work that I enjoy. I like creating artwork that is textured, so stamping was a good way to do that while still maintaining a polished look which is sometimes hard for me to achieve. Although, in the past, we have discussed how what truly makes an effective illustration is the idea behind it and not the style, I would still like to get better at creating professional-looking work, and I feel like this workshop could be a step towards that as I see myself using this technique in the future.
Stencil Cut-outs
I also tried to experiment some more with the stencil leftovers and cut-outs. These had the added benefit of being able to control the composition better since I can move the paper around, and created a silhouette-like effect.
I definitely want to use stencils again in the future. Trough this workshop, I was able to grasp the fact that making simple work with minimal details, that is also effective at visual communication is not as hard as I might have thought.
poster by me (leopard and seal) and Eanna Swan (bear and turtle)
We got to experiment some more with stencils soon after, in the 'Contemporary Issues in Illustration' seminar about environmentalism, where we were tasked with creating a poster. We struggled with finding something to write on it so we kept it simple for impact and efficient communication.
