I have a carnival/jungle theme idea so start a spider diagram to brainstorm the idea.
Moodboard
My moodboard is a collection of thoughts derived from my spider diagram and includes downloaded images of different textures/colour/ideas. One painter in particular, Henri Rousseau (post-Impressionist) has captured my imagination.
When I viewed his work in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris many years ago I wasn't inspired. Looking at his images on computer, the colours are brighter and the content quite childlike and innocent which is what I intend to capture for my poster.
Decorative use of pattern in the leaves, nice element because the lines give the eye somewhere to go and might compliment the right font, enticing the viewer to read on?
Thought about including a Victorian woman with a parasol standing against foliage with a lioness looking passively on, magical for evoking the romance and luxury of the event.
Unsure now of how to incorporate a short, clear visual message with this idea which seems quite complicated now that I consider myself as a bystander catching a glimpse of this poster.
Trying to solve the problem in another way, I see that the pattern of a tigers face in one of my thumbnails can be transferred as a stronger more direct element which conveys meaning to 'Carnival of the Animals'. Going to use black and white for the tiger after the Black Mastiff poster below, then add patterned green foliage.
Foliage is an interesting graphic.
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| Henri Rousseau |
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| Henri Rousseau - Lady in Red |
(Note to self - caution re: the detail, must be striking but not caught up in too much drawing) - be strategic to communicate to the audience. Black and White very striking for commercial use and communicative too with the most important information bigger.
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| Black Mastiff gig poster |
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| Tiger courtesy sxc.hu |
Cover above is cut with the writing clear and separate from the illustration
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| Carnival of the Animals CD courtesy amazon.com |
Image courtesy www.vectorious.net - computer generated image not hand rendered.
Concluding that although my drawing will be hand drawn, I may need to manipulate the image to create dramatic effect.
THUMBNAILS WITH VIEWPOINTS AND VARIOUS ARRANGEMENTS
The foliage is taken from the Henri Rousseau paintings. Leaves create contrast and pattern. Here I decided to pursue the tiger drawing and increased the thumbnail dimensions to start working in A3.
I have added, after my tutor saw this exercise, the development of ideas for the foliage. I drew the foliage from the Henri Rosseau reference and painted each with green gouache. I like the idea of the black and white posters I saw, referenced in this exercise. The green colour and shape of the stylised plants add pattern and colour.
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| I cut out the green plants after painting them with gouache and played with their placement, glueing them down until I found a suitable composition. I |
Line visuals
I snipped the first line visual into pieces and played with the elements to get different compositions.
I chose the second drawing and composed the page accordingly, like this - with the tiger's face central to the composition then I started experimenting with the placement of text.
I discovered www.dafont.com, a resource for hundreds of true type font styles. I have since discovered that this resource is a standard for junior graphic designers.
Final A4 Colour Visual
Worked on Henri Rousseau's colour palette and have used red card. I placed the painted foliage in green (complementary colour) under the tiger creating a drop shadow and highlighted the eyes.
I found it enormously frustrating not having a way to tie in the text other than cutting a printout and sticking it. It is clear that I lack the skill to finish this in a professional way that makes a tight, solid graphic statement I think. I sought out the Adobe Suite and with a designers help, sat with her, while she showed me how to place the text that I chose from www.dafont.com. The truetype fonts are Sansation and Carnival.
Posters like these below incorporate the text as a large part of the composition which is what I tried to accomplish.
Final Poster
Summative critique
I would have shown my spider diagram and used that far more in retrospect. I think words for me have alot of power with ways in which to proceed visually. I find connections that for me, are impossible otherwise and have only become aware of this at the end of the course.
At this point my InDesign skills were more limited than now, and I sat with a designer to achieve these font placements. I see what my tutor means when she questions the composition of the piece where it loses the energy of the drawing of the tiger a little.
I think that distortion and angular composition would've worked better. Here again is my penchant for the conservative. I would have juxtaposted the tiger with far more outrageous text. This could have done with lots of exaggerated line and detail. These techniques have become apparent to me with artists such as Veronica Lawlor and also Harriet Russell, both of whom have been introduced to me by my tutor.
I have referenced Tania Kovats' book and what is particularly interesting and could have been used here are her pointers on the 'drawing of water' for description and movement.
My learning log relates to the artists I have mentioned above for further notes and exploration.
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