Module evaluation sheet

Feedback and evaluation sheet:

Final books

This is the final book produced compiling all the digital church illustrations:

• While I am happy with the work I have produced, when printed, the colours came out a lot darker than they had been on the computer monitor. This has changed the images quite drastically I feel. However people have said that it adds to the eery look, so I will accept it. 
• The printer left a lot of scruff marks on the pages, meaning that my final product is not as slick as I hoped.
• The inner pages, printed on  thinner stock got warped by the ink. Should probably have used the thick stock throughout
• I made the outer cover slightly larger than the inner pages, but it may be a little too large
• Little logo on the back didn't come out very clearly

I am very pleased with the final chosen format being taller than I initially planned. This was definitely the right choice to make. The index page also turned out very nicely, with people commenting on the nice addition it made.

My second book, produced in the last couple days of the project was also quite successful and well received. It is a lot closer to how I had been planning to work in the early stages of the project and is more similar to what sort of work I produce in general. In this way, it is less adventurous, but considering the context on how/when it was produced I think this is acceptable.

Apart from a little smudge/mistake on the text, I think it came out really nicely. Given more time, I would have done something with the cover, maybe sticking a label or screen printing onto it.

Cover ideas

 

Ideas for the cover spread:

After drawing the tower for the text to fit on, I experimented a little with what the rest of the cover would look like. I wanted something on the back cover, and tried out doing multiple multi-coloured towers, but this went against the whole mood of the book and ended up looking like jelly.

I decided I wanted a gradient at the very least (as a black background was too plain), but one that was different colour to the one that was featured in the background of the inner illustrations, so chose a dark purple as this was one of the more successful colours in the earlier experiments. 

Cover text ideas

My idea for the text on my book cover was to have it in perspective on the side of a spire. I tried to do this using the perspective tool in Illustrator, but found it too difficult to achieve the perspective I desired and didn't really have time to play around with it until I figured it out.

So instead I did the text on Photoshop using the font Georgia and used the transform functions to play around with it and decided I would work around that

 

Of these three, I decided that I liked the third best, but did not want to simply use a generic serif font, so I modified it by making the ends of the serif sharper, hopefully making it more suitable for the contents and feel of my book

More colour exps.

Further colour tests- I decided to see if it would be better to colour each spread the same colour so that there aren't too many different colours making it look like a rainbow, but I think that having more than one colour throughout the book looks really tacky, so would rather just stick to one throughout.

Formats

12.6cm x 21cm

11.2cm x 26cm

10.15cm x 26cm

Experimenting with slimming down the format of the illustrations when looking at them as a set. After having slimmed them down, I feel that my original size was much too wide and needs to be changed accordingly.

I will wait until it is time for me to print until I decide how far to slim it down as I am torn between the two slimmed sizes in this post.

Having finished most of the illustrations and looking back at the first one, I realized it was not consistent in style to the more recently completed ones. Therefore I have redrawn and updated it to keep consistency up.

Colour tests

Some colour experiments with the shadows and backgrounds:

I think which colours work is largely dependant on the colour of the building. I think the purely red one of St Stephens works because of the colour of the building. The yellow one of Blackfriars is also similarly interesting.
This may mean that each church illustration goes in a different colour.
I also would like to experiment with dual colours as in the two rightmost thumbnails.

Digital format experiments

 These are two of the digital church drawings I have done which I think reflect the tallness and grandness of these buildings I wish to convey. In my progress surgery it was recommended that I push the format of the books in order to better express this.
It will also remedy the problem some of my images have of ending before reaching the side edges of the page.

Cowley Road Methodist Church has been given a taller and narrower frame (11.2cmx26cm). The drawing itself was also stretched to better fit within.
I definitely think that the narrower frame is suitable as there is now less uninteresting space surrounding the image

Blackfriars I have stretched two different amounts as it feels that somehow it doesn't work as well stretched to the same amount as Cowley Road.
This has made me realise that the compositions of the images are all quite different and this sort of decision might be better left when I can apply it to all the finished illustrations to see how they all look as a collected set.

Digital experiment

After considering the suggestion to be looser in the way I work I decided to quickly warp a photo I had taken and then trace over the warped image roughly to see how I could imbue more character into my drawings:

The result was very interesting and quick to produce so I decided to take it a bit further:

I feel that not only the warping of the structure, but also the blue shading adds the character which I was looking for in my drawings, making them appear much more alive than before. The fact that this was also much faster to produce than the other pen drawings is just an added bonus.

I still need to work out how the text will be placed, but it will probably be done right at the end on InDesign

Teletubby Mutant GIF

For the visual language mutant super power, I made myself into a teletubby.

I painted two frames of television static on cardboard and then taped them onto my stomach while taking photos of me tapping my side to replicate the actions of someone trying to fix their television box.

I think the end result is fairly successful, though I probably should've painted at least one more frame of static as they don't appear as though they bars are scrolling along down the screen as I had intended with just the two.

Progress Crit

Key points of self-evaluation:

• I need to experiment with my media more and take risks as I have gravitated towards what I am most comfortable with. 
• Including the narrative of the graveyard between the two churches is not appropriate for the book as a whole. Shifted to regular book from concertina
• Need to explore what I'm trying to say about the churches through the illustrations

Key points from this eval sheet:

• Simplicity of book's idea is attractive
• Use of watercolours is atmospheric and strong, should be adventurous
• Binding/size of finished book needs to reflect the grandness of the churches I am illustrating.

Key points from this eval sheet:

• Watercolours are best when used more subtly than in the previously done illustrations
• Experiment with pens to achieve different line quality. Be less "tight" - try and be quite fast

What I am especially taking on board from this crit is my line quality, especially the suggestion to loosen up and try and speed up the drawings.
Currently the drawings I have been doing have taken quite some time, so not only will I achieve some a new look for my images, but I will also be saving time.

Me attempting to loosen up:

I feel that these are  alot nicer than the previous, more rigid ones I did, but now I am also beginning to think that having this images "floating" on a page alone is boring and plain looking, so need to come up with something to counter this.

An experiment I did to remedy this by using charcoal on a printed watercolour, which turned out ugly:

A Book of People, Places, Objects & Spaces cont.

After discovering Sunga Park, I decided I want to approach my illustrations in a similar way:

These were done by doing pen drawings on one sheet and washes of brusho on another that I placed on a layer beneath the pen drawings on Photoshop. 

I think that the brusho makes great washes, but after talking to my tutor I feel that maybe these look a bit lifeless compared to some other looser drawings in my sketchbook, and don't really convey much about the churches or the experiences I had visiting them.

I also need to think about how to be more adventurous with the combination of brusho and pen, and how they work together rather than separately producing them.

I also had not really thought about how to place them in my frame, and so I am now left with floating vignettes.

Some compositional sketches taking frame into account; I think that this is how I need to approach the rest of the drawings before I can think about final execution.

Just a couple pages of the compositional sketches I did in my sketch book

A Book of People, Places, Objects & Spaces Cont.

After visiting my final church, Leeds Minster, I read an interesting fact: 

The park across the road used to be a graveyard. This graveyard eventually became so full that grave diggers would dig up bodies, smash the bones and re-bury them with new coffins. But when it rained, the earth would wash away and expose the shattered bones. This upset the people, and so they were then moved to the crypt in St George's Church.

I found this funny because St George's was the first church I visited, making my journey seem cyclical. I want to show this story somehow in my book, either through a double page spread illustration as seen above or maybe as a continuous drawing in a concertina that also incorporates the other church drawings in between.

A Book of People, Places, Objects & Spaces Cont.

Since I pretty much know I want to do pen drawings I experimented with colouring one digitally. I think it could definitely look nice if I were to invest more time in it and it would also be possible to add texture and colour in smaller details more easily, but I would like to try traditional means before falling back on digital

I may do traditional and then enhance with digital