Giving Instructions

The aim of this exercise is to produce a visual set of instructions for making a cup of tea. I began by collecting examples of tea making instructions and relevant images.

My reference material includes two sets of visual instructions for making a cup of tea. The top image provides a very clear set of instructions without using words; however, the layout is a little plain. It does also miss out some information such as how long the tea should be brewed for. The bottom image is very specific – including appropriate dimensions for the tea pot! This image requires a lot of reading to absorb all of the information.

Based on my research, how to make the perfect cup of tea is a somewhat controversial topic! To avoid all of this controversy, for the purposes of this exercise I decided to illustrate how I typically make a cup of tea. I began by thinking about how many steps need to be illustrated in order to instruct somebody how to make a cup of tea. I then started making sketches of the different objects that are used in the tea making process.

This process made me think about how to make objects easily recognisable. For example, kettles come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, as do bottles and boxes of milk. In order to maximise the accessibility of my illustrated instructions I chose what I think are the most recognisable forms of these objects. I also decided that I should include a few key words in the image e.g. a box of tea bags including the word ‘tea’, a label on the ‘milk’ bottle and the words ‘4 minutes’ alongside the timer. These words increase the clartity of the instructions without cluttering it with text. I also began to think about the use of colour. For now I have only coloured key elements within the drawings e.g. the switch on the ketlles, the tea bag etc. However, I am wondering if this might lead to quite a boring looking diagram. An alternative may be to lightly colour all of the objects but have key parts of those objects e.g. the switch on the kettle in bold colours.

I began to think about the layout of the instructions. I didn’t particularly want to have a linear set of panels as this is quite boring. I quite quickly liked the idea of the panels spiralling to a central cup of tea – the end point of the instructions. This shape is reminiscent of a clock (‘time for tea’) or looking down on a cup of tea. I thought about making the image 3D with the steps sitting on top of a cup but decided that it would be difficult to clearly illustrate the steps if I did this. The focus might also end up on the tea cup rather than the instructions.

In the end I decided to use colour throughout in order to make the illustration visually attractive. I’m not particularly satisfied with the end result. I think that the layout is a little confusing to follow. There are also endless red cups of tea such that the final cup, in the middle of the diagram, does not stand out.I considered giving the middle cup a coloured background, to help it stand out, however, I think this could make the image even busier. If I were to redesign this, I might have a much larger cup of tea in the middle. I might also have make the image larger and have more white space between the different elements of the image. I might also put a boundary around each diagram and have a more geometric/ formal layout for the positions of the image representing each step in the process.

It was also challenging to use watercolour on this paper. The water was ripping up the surface of the paper. I’m enjoying working with paint, however, I’m sort of making it up as I go along in terms of technique, which in some cases is more succesful than others.

Abstract illustration

In the first part of this exercise I listened to Beethoven, senata number 15 in C sharp minor and tried to create marks that I thought conveyed the essence or mood of the piece. I found this exercise frustrating. What I created on the page looked like a mess that in no way represented the music. I started again and tried to illustrate something that for me gave a feeling of the music. I had forgotten from my childhood that I dislike this type of piano music – I find it horrible and frustrating to listen to.

In terms of an adjective that describes the tone of the piece – I think that I would choose ‘irritating’. I think that the central part of my image best illustrates the word ‘irritating’ – where the cloudy grey meets solid lines. I chose to develop the image sticking with the same media – 5B pencil.

I think that the final piece is interesting. I don’t think that it is suitable for a CD cover – at least not if you want to sell any copies of the CD. I think that the final piece lacks the energy and emotion of the earlier markmaking, it’s become too stylised.

Image development

This exercise involves taking an existing image that has a range of content and then using blank L-shapes to crop the image. Then analysing the impact that cropping has on the focus of the image and choosing a word to represent each new image.

Next, I chose one of the images and developed it into a poster.

I think that I was a little too cheesy on my choice of font and should have gone with something plainer that fits the content of the image better. Otherwise I think that it’s quite an effective graphic image suitable for a poster. I had intended to use bold solid colours throughout the image. However, I like the different shades from the underlying photograph coming through from beneath the sea.

Reading an image

Image taken from: Key Steps in Illustration Handbook p. 55 published by the OCA.

The aim of this exercise was to analyse the above image and answer guided questions about this image.

The key elements of this image are: a sleeping dragon; two children; treasure; and a cave. The image suggests that the two children have entered the cave, or dragons lair, they have found treasure, which maybe they want to take away, and they are trying not to wake the dragon who is potentially dangerous. This interpretation of the story being told in the image is heavily based on common themes in stories involving children and dragons.

In terms of colour palette, the image strongly contrasts hot reds, oranges and yellows, with cold blues and neutral greens. Tone is used to highlight areas of the image that are in bright torchlight, or else in the shadows. The dragon and the children are the characters in the story and thus important; they are bathed in light, highlighting their presence.

Illustrating visual space

The aim of this exercise was to take three objects (a tree, a child and a building) convert them to greyscale and experiment with composition.

When the child is smaller than the house and tree then it makes the image look realistic – i.e. everything appears to scale. These images are quite boring; whereas I think that the images where the child is larger than the other elements are more interesting and more dynamic. In the case of the bottom left image, either the child is monstrously large, or the building and tree are toys.

When the elements of the image are aligned with the horizontal and vertical then it gives the image a feeling of order – everyting is where your brain expects it to be. When the elements are at angles to the frame rather than being aligned with the horizontal and vertical then this gives the image a feeling of chaos, or quirkiness. Things are not quite right, what has gone on to create that scene?

My favourite composition is the bottom left image where the child is large relative to the building and tree. I think that I find this image interesting because the figure, who is naturally the character in the image, is dominant. I like the possibilities of this image – what has happened to make the elements out of scale with one another?

Response to Part 2 feedback

In the feedback for Part 2 of this course my tutor suggested many different illustrators, animators and styles for me to take a look at the work of. Having scanned through their work I chose a few illustrators to look at in more detail in order to try to understand their style and produce some sketches in a similar style.

Noma Bar

Based on the graphic style that I’ve used in some of my illustrations, and also use of metaphor, my tutor suggested taking a look into the work of Noma Bar. Noma Bar’s work looks simple but is really clever. There is usually more than one image that can be seen in each illustration – one object transforms into something else. The style is really simple and graphic and there’s typically a simple colour scheme with less than three colours. One quote that I saw from him stated that he’s aiming for ‘maximum communication with minimal elements’. Some of his work is political, some of it is witty. I decided to brainstorm ideas of objects that can be transformed into something else. My favourite from these sketches is ‘Ringpull Penguin’.

Hannah Hoch

In the ‘Choosing content’ exercise in part two I used a ‘found’ background and drew my illustration of a wartime detective on top of this. My tutor suggested taking this further and using parts of the background texture as elements of the character. He suggested taking a look at the work of Hannah Höch.

Hannah Höch used photomontage to creat whimsical images that typically feature people in some form or another. I find the images quite disturbing – partly because different elements in her images can be at very different scales, which is unsettling.

In order to have a play with this style. I decided to take ‘Ringpull penguin’ from my previous sketches and develop it further using photomontage.

I find Ringpull Penguin quite disturbing. I did not make things as out of proportion as in the work of Hannah Höch as I already found the process of making Ringpull Penguin uncomfortable. I could imagine this style being quite powerful if you were trying to make a statement – for example in this case it could be an environmental statement about the impact of human populations on the natural world.

Op art

In my assignment for Part 2 I created an image of a strawberry using offset lines. My tutor suggested that it might be interesting for me to take a look into Op Art (optical art). Op Art is a form of abstract art that uses optical illusions to create special effects within an image. These special effects include making the image appear three-dimensional, hiding images withing images, or making elements of the image move. A lot of Op Art is created in black and white varying the thickness of lines, changing the scale of patterns or offsetting black and white lines. Other Op Art makes use of colours to create optical illusions. I had a play in my sketchbook with some basic Op Art techniques. I’m not sure any were particularly successful – more time and effort needed – however, I think these techniques are useful to be aware of to incorporate into future illustrations.

Visual metaphors

The aim of this exercise is to sketch out a list of objects and subjects that could be used to symbolise the phrase ‘economic catastrophe’.

Choosing content

This exercise is about choosing content to produce a simple portrait of the character represented in the following exerpt of text.

The room was void and unquickened; it was like a room in a shop window but larger and emptier; and the middle-aged man who sat at the desk had never thought to impress himself upon what he entered every day. Comfort there was none nor discomfort; only did the occupant deign to qualify the pure neutrality of his surroundings, it would surely be austerity that would emerge. The spring sunshine turned bleak and functional as it passed the plate glass of the tall-uncurtained windows.

The windows were large; the big desk lay islanded in a creeping parallelogram of light; across this and before the eyes of the man sitting motionless passed slantwise and slowly a massive shaft of shadow.

Perhaps twenty times it passed to and fro, as if outside some great joy wheel oscillating idly in the derelict amusement park. And the man rose, clasped hands behind him and walked to a window – high up in New Scotland Yard. He looked out and war-time London lay beneath … on his brow was fixed a contraction; this he carried from desk to window, and now there was neither hardening nore relaxation as he looked out … during 15 years he had controlled the file of police papers which dealt with the abduction and subsequent history of feeble minded girls. Here lay his anger as he looked out over London … year by year the anger had burst deeper until now it was the innermost principle of the man.

Michael Innes Adapted from The Daffodil Affair.

Questions

If this were to be made into a film what would the main character be like?

Male. Middle-aged. Serious. Pensive. Angry. British. Detective.

What clothes would the character be wearing?

Trilby/fedora hat. Suit, shirt, tie. Shoes. Trench coat.

What furniture is in the main area where the action takes place?

Table/ desk. One or more chairs. Maybe a filing cabinet. Very little furniture. Plain, functional furniture from the 1930s/40s.

Collect visual reference material for the items on your list

Initial visual reference material (sources provided on individual photographs).

Textural and visual brainstorming and idea generation

I created a moodboard for the word ‘pensive’. Interestingly this moodboard highlighted quite cold colours, pale blues, greys and brown. I also quite like the idea of incorporating the crumpled paper, or old typed text into the image in order to convey the frustration that I think is present in the text. Maybe using old newsprint to fill in the image with collage, or alternatively as a background.

I used part of an image of paint flaking off a wall for the background and made a rough sketch of the character in front of this. I wanted the character to be shadowy and blend into the background somewhat. I think that it is quite a bleak image of the character staring out of the window down onto wartime London.

Using black and white

The aim of this exercise was to produce a line image around the word ‘sea’, then to invert the image and use shapes cut from the inverted image to fill in the original image.

Original line image and final black and white image.

My original line image did not work well for this exercise as there were too many different marks in it. Therefore when I inverted the original image using adobe photoshop I removed a lot of these detailed marks from the image. As I didn’t have access to a printer I decided to do the ‘cutting and sticking’ using adobe illustrator.

I like how bold the final image is when compared to the original. I cheated a little by using different tones for the sea, sky and sand, rather than sticking rigidly to black and white. A disadvantage of doing this task digitally is that I lost the ragged edges and texture that I would have got from cutting and sticking paper.

The final image has a very different feel to the original – day has turned to night and the sun has become the moon. The final image reminds me of a monochrome version of the types of images used on the US National Park posters that I discussed in an earlier post – simple, graphic, bold.

As I produced the final image in illustrator I decided to have a quick play with converting the monochrome image to colour but with a limited colour palette.

An objective drawing

The aim of this exercise was to use either pencil or fineliner to produce an objective drawing with a high degree of visual accuracy. I produced my drawing with a range of pencils from HB through to 2B.

I really enjoyed this exercise and I am quite pleased with the result. This exercise made me really look at the object and think about proportion. There are a lot of geometric patterns within the trainer design that I had never previously noticed. I chose this shoe because it has a lot of different textures, which made me experiment with shading and mark making to try to represent these textures e.g. smooth leather, versus rough webbing. The exercise also made me look carefully at the relative tones of different parts of the shoe in order to convert from the colour that I was seeing on the object to different shades of grey in the drawing.