Book Research - The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame 

This book is based on characters that are humanized animals living in a simplified lifestyle in a countryside setting, the story is based around the characters that are Mole, Rat, Badger, Toad, and their friends. The book is also based on morality, adventure and friendship. 

The book could be influenced by the public discourse that was happening at the time period of it being written, representing the change of technology and living with the challenges and benefits of it. It addresses social change in relation to the technological advances as it appeared in 1908 which is a few years before the first world war. It shows the reaction from the Edwardian public to political status, economic change and technological/military innovation and is influenced by the discourse that follows. 

As it's set in a simplified rural lifestyle which at that time was fading and changing and was a children's book, the author wanted to keep that ideal for the new generation that would be reading it. He wanted to keep the whole 'running free in fields of grass and flowers' and being completely carefree and blissful instead of having reality make the new generation grow up hopeless. It's as if the author was working against the new changes and modernity that was happening around him. The author in his own writings was dismayed with the demolition of rural and pastoral lifestyles and he portrayed this with The Wind in the Willows. 


When the Wind in the Willows was originally published, it only had one illustrations on the front cover done by W Graham Robertson whose work started off as Pre-Raphaelite oils but later he went on to do illustrations, caricatures and impressionist landscapes . His work is difficult to find but I managed to find some of his work in relation to his different practices. 

Wind in the Willows illustration

Pre-Raphaelite Oils

Illustrations

Impressionist Landscapes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_in_the_Willows
http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-wind-in-the-willows/

Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows: A Children's Classic at 100

 edited by Jackie C. Horne, Donna R. White
http://www.kennethgrahamesociety.net/illustrators.htm
http://www.jssgallery.org/Paintings/W_Graham_Robertson.htm

Collaboration Research

THE GO MONSTER PROJECT

This project was done by a group of Illustrators that worked together with children to make really good artwork based on the kids own idea and drawing. 

Collaboration Installation

FOLIO GALLERY INSTALLATION PIECE 

INTRO 

We worked in groups to create a collaborative art installation for the folio gallery for Illustration for Commercial Application.

We were split into groups of five and four to work towards a collaborative final piece and worked towards creating our own final idea based on the People and Characters section of our module which is based on the study of people through studio workshops, performance drawing, reportage, life drawing practice and print room workshops. 

We began working towards our goal by sitting down and drawing all of our ideas out onto a A2 sketchbook, 

We came up with a few varied ideas such as characterizing people we knew into superhero's, pirates and supervillians, and doing each other as characters. We wanted to embody each of our art styles into each others work too so we tried drawing over each others drawings too, and drew each other from life,

We had some problems within the group on which idea to choose as one of us wasn't there for the brain storm but after some deliberating we chose pirates for our final idea.

Lauren created the three main characters for the pirates which were her own outlook on Davy Jones and his crew.

Lucinda created the fish people that were based on Sirens which were thought to lure and drag men to their deaths. 

Josie did the jellyfish and sea creatures, and some of the pirates

Carlie did fish and mermaids. 

I created the Kraken as our sea monster which was going to be right at the top of the wall and trailing onto the ceiling. 

We deliberated whether or not to have colour in our designs but decided against it as the black and white had a nice effect and we used our time to add more detail into the drawings instead for a better effect and look. 

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM OUR PIECE

I used Faber-Castell pens in B for this design and they go on really well on walls and are good to draw with too because of the difference in nib sizes. They also paint over easily and don't mix with water as other fine liners do. 

Digital Manipulation and Pixel Sorting

DIGITAL MANIPULATION

I had the most fun with digital manipulation as it had the most freedom to do what interested me the most within it. I looked into using different colour palettes and colour theory to create my work. I worked with using different filters with my work too and layered them up over each other to create strange effects. I tried to use work from all of the module sections such as reportage, animals and creatures and people and characters. I spent too much time on one of my paintings though and didn't get as much work as I would have wished to do. The paintings I created were scratchy and had a glitchy computerised effect which I liked. 

MY DESIGN

I created this image from my life drawing with a burlesque dancer called Frankie, I wanted to make it look simple but powerful and I think I achieved that. 

I tried out a few different colours for the outline of the figure but decided that the pink looked the best with the black and white. 

DIGITAL MANIPULATION - ARTISTS

PATRICK SEYMOUR

Patrick Seymour's work is elaborate and highly detailed but only uses lines to created a 3d effect. His use of colours go well with the black background he usually uses. I like his work because of its simplicity but whilst still being powerful and elaborate. 

Sandra Duchiewicz 

This artist makes amazing digital art on Photoshop, her work has a beautiful oil paint effect yet still keeps with a sharp line. I like her art because of the soft colouring she uses, it has a nice muted effect that works well with her figures. 

Tianhua Xu

This artist makes digital art that is incredibly realistic and intricate, you can see the amount of time within her work and how much detail has gone into it. I like it because of its authenticity and how detailed it is. 

Pascal Champion 

This artists work is interesting because of the colours he uses and how sharp his line quality is. I like his work because of his choice of colours and the shapes he incorporates in his work. His main influences are from his surroundings and he incorporates colour that he makes from colour palettes. 

PIXEL SORTING

Pixel Sorting was first made known by the artist Kim Asendorf. It's done by dragging the pixels of an image to create elaborate spokes but still keeping the look of the image. It's an interesting look to do and I wish I could have tried it but I ran out of time to do it and didn't get chance. I might try using it with my next project or just in my own free time. It could be used as a good texture for painting too which I would like to incorporate into my images. 

Giacomo Carmagnola
Giacomo uses an art form known as 'pixel sorting' to create elaborate and detailed images. I really like his work as it still keeps the image beforehand but makes it look otherworldly and strange. 

durr

After the visual culture lecture on a National Identity, I looked into Tokyo's national identity and found that there was a organized crime business called the Yakuza. I found that there were three head's gangs of the Yakuza and that some of their traditions included having a full body excluding head tattoo that was like a dragon.
I tried drawing out these designs for animals based on the Yakuza and the Italian Mafia. I got the inspiration from my own cat who reminds me of a Mafia boss so I drew him as one. I used fineliners for this and decided to do a rabbit version with the Italian mafia.
The hands on the rabbit design are too small and the anatomy is off but I like how the facial expression turned out as it looked similar to how a rabbit gets freaked out. With my cat design, the head is way too huge in proportion to the body and yet again the hand is too small, as well as this I put too much pen on the eyes and it contrasts badly with the rest of the fine lines of the body. I do however like the design of his suit and how his ears turned out, I also like how intimidating he looks as this portrays how I feel about cats well.
I also tried out doing a design for a fish, but i didnt like how the face turned out as it doesn't look anything like he would be part of the mafia so i instead based him off of a skater style. I do however like how his suit turned out and the shading with the pen.



I tried doing a print on water colour paper, I drew from a french bulldog and then redrew it out onto lino, i coloured over the watercolour paper with brusho red and orange and then tried to print over it. However it went wrong as I didnt wait for the paper to dry as I seemingly forgot how to lino print.
I did some more of these prints based on the anatomy of a rabbit, however I made it look like a dinosaur skeleton. I like the effect on the watercolour paper though so I tried it again on colourful watercolour paper which I coloured with brusho. I wanted to make the colours look scratchy to comply with how I did the print, as I used a scalpel for it, for the added scratchy effect. I also cut too deeply into the print and cut through it which did not help whilst printing.



I did these designs as I wanted to try out a surreal style pattern, however the rest of my work got in the way and I did not have time to finish them. I was planning on scanning the cat pattern into the computer and reflecting it on illustrator and creating it into a colourful pattern. I was also going to try this with my second pattern. I may still try it after my deadline just out of curiousity.



I tried out painting my cat whilst he slept, however he got up and moved so I could not continue, I however worked into it on photoshop and remade it into illustrator into a pattern.



I tried some effects with bleach, unfortunately the bleach didnt effect the black paper all that much so I tried again with chalk on beforehand and going over it with bleach then, yet it still didn't have a very interesting effect.

People & Characters Research

PEOPLE AND CHARACTERS

For my people an characters I looke at more stylized art and wanted to make my own drawing style more my own so I tried out a few different methods of painting. I was mostly interested in female figures because I enjoy the line quality of the curves of the face. I used a few different techniques with my work such as ink blotting, printing and other methods. 

I really enjoyed this section of the module as it was fun to draw different face shapes and study into it. 

ANNA ROSENKRANS BIRKEDAL

I like this artists work as it is soft toned with dark ink pen lines, I like her choice of shading and the cuteness incorporated in her work. She takes her main influence from Japanese art and uses it with her faces. 

PHEOBE CAMPBELL

This artists work is realistic and has good shading, the artist has made the faces really stand out but with interesting background choices that make the shading on the faces even more 3d.