I wanted to recreate the Birthday Flowers Zine in a little more of a refined way, so decided to try out drawing the image digitally. I used procreate for the image, and photoshop to add text (I changed the words slightly), I then printed it all out and folded in the same way I did before.
I absolutely love how this looks, the simplicity of having one whole image; although it does have to be something that works upside down on some pages, the vase of flowers is ideal. Looking forward to playing with this structure more.
This was also a nice exercise in working digitally, as it's definitely not my preferred method of creating art, but with this piece it helped me arrange the image to work as individual pages, and add text easily.
The second year part-time MA Illustration students are working on a collaborative publication, which involves us as illustrations responding to the Creative Writing BA class' pieces from a recent trip to Cliffe Castle (where we also visited).
A lot of the pieces really spoke to me but the below was the poem I decided to work from first:
Using a free photo reference from Adobe Stock, of a girl laid in grass, I created the above using gouache, wax pastel, pencil and watercolour brush pens. I wanted to keep the water shallow and green like a garden pond, with lots of texture and energy in the water in comparison to the figure being still and muted, surrounded with specs of flowers, grass and reeds. I thought about how it might look printed alongside the poem, and wanted to keep the edge unfinished so it blended into the page.
Doing this pieces has reminded me that its the energy and texture that I love to see in my work, when I think less and focus more on how I feel then how things should look. A very fun and enlightening exercise.
I've made a few changes to my Folktale Story, I really wanted to lean into the idea that this is an anti-capitalist story, and that "the fool", eg. the worker, discovered that they aren't valued, noticed or important, and rebel against that.
Having played around with the narrative for folktale week, I thumb nailed out my ideas and started working on the details on the main character.
Thumbnails
I want to ensure there is a magical, folky feel to the panels, I'll achieve this by using a fantastical size for the tree, having cottage/stone built style houses, gas style lamps in the street.
Although the thumb nails are very quick drafts it's made me realise that I want to go with a more natural colour pallet, but keeping the pink sky!
Character
This exercise is definitely pushing my out of my comfort zone. I often shy away from using figures in my work, but having the Fool in each panel is really important to the story, so I'm excited to get going on the actual art pieces.
The seven prompts for 2022 Folk Tale Week are: Fool, Tree, Star, Rebel, Costume, Potion, Victory. I want to encompass each prompt into a continued narrative. As mentioned, to push myself out of my comfort zone, to learn to work to others suggestions but also, just to enjoy and play with my illustration.
Darkness - Initial Narrative Draft
The Fool And the Tree (combined) - His unquestioned duty, like those before him and those after him, is to climb each day to the top of the tallest tree.
Star - And as he reaches the top, just as the sun goes down, he masterfully flicks tiny crystals into the deep blue to create a beautiful night sky.
Rebel - But why should he keep suffer all day, and work all night? Its time for a rest! And a trip to the distant village, perhaps, in xxx's clothes so not to be recognised.
Costume - He pushed open the gates to the village, and what a blinding sight. LIGHTS; strung from houses, hanging from poles in every colour. All blocking his magical, hand-crafted sky.
Potion - How could they do this to him? To work so hard for something not to be seen. He pulls his bag of crystals from his belt and throws them into the drinking well. The water bubbles and boils as he walks away.
A Walk to a Waterfall is a diary comic based on a short solo trip I took to Settle in August 2022.
The themes are depression, isolation, and hope, all encompassed in a physical journey.
One of the elements I plan to visually portray in this comic is a looseness that usually comes along with working on location. To recreate this I'm going to give myself a time limit for each panel, alongside a limited colour pallet.
It will also be hand lettered, to instil the diary feel of the piece. This will be added outside of the time limit.
On this trip I took many references photos, and did work in my sketchbook whilst there. I used theses alongside notes I made on the trip itself to create a script and thumbnails.
Script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-yrhTDx0OgpIJMNI6_QAklkNcOEV2r6FTi--mXZ6Q8I/edit?usp=sharing
Thumbnails:
I wanted to start working on adding people into my work, it's something I usually avoid, but the stories I am creating are reliant on people being present, particularly myself. I researched resources on building characters and character design; through this I discovered Sarah Dyer, Sarah is an award winning picture book maker and teacher, who also has a Patreon where she shares exercise on character and narrative
I began working through these, I particularly enjoyed a warm up exercise of drawing a page of faces, here is a little video of my process:
@okaychloegreen Warming up with 23 faces. ♬ Animal Crossing (New Horizons Lofi) - HYGH Lofi Music & Lobit & Cooky
Having an aim which is simply to fill the page allowed me to loosen up, think less and intuitively draw faces the way I like and enjoy. It gave me the chance to experiment and think differently.
From this I moved onto experimenting drawing myself quickly and loosely. I tried various materials, ink pencil, brush pen, crayon, as well as various expressions until I found something I really liked.
