Hand Illustration experiments

I took photos of my face which I then did dark bold outlines of and traced the photos, to show the shadows on this image I used lines to show the areas where I have dark shadows on my face (top right hand corner).

This image I used a different technique where I traced the photo once normal size but then blew up the drawn image and traced it using purple pencil, I then made the image smaller and traced that with pink pencil. The two coloured drawings I layered.

Andy Warhol 'No. 1 from Mick Jagger 1975 Inspired

Andy Warhol 'No. 1 from Mick Jagger 1975

Quentin Jones Analysis

'Self Portrait'

This is a self portrait that Jones did of herself for 125 Magazine, Quentin Jones is an illustrator/animator who paints with rough or loose brush strokes. She uses nude women and animals as subjects and adds "dark and quirky sense of humour." I have chosen to analyse this piece because I have started doing a lot of observational drawings of my face, this work of hers gives me ideas on how I could develop my work and what techniques I could use similar to her work.

To further my understanding of her work I have looked at her website where there's a lot of her work, she mainly does magazine articles advertising fashion and movies for example. I would associate her work with couture and catwalk type of art/design, because of the many illustration and animations she has created for fashion events/designers. Such as the work Jones designed for the cover of her modelling agency's A/W show pack and Glass Mag illustrated fashion story. 

I think that there's a theme of dark colours in her work, most of her the most overpowering colour is black with one bright shade of colour added for text or brush strokes ( for example the A/W cover).  Also I think that her work has a Minimalism theme to it because there's clear and simple intentions in her work, exposes the essence or "identity of her subjects through non-essential forms, features and concepts." The title does inform me of what the work is about, knowing that its a self portrait I can see how she used her normal theme of dark shades of colour with rough and loose brush strokes. In this piece Jones herself is the subject, she uses herself to show how her work ethics with illustration represents her. 

This work is collage which includes a picture as herself as the centre point, cut outs of dogs with cut outs of her eyes added in. Theres also hand made typography using brush strokes to write a quote across the page, there's also ink drippings coming down her face. There's a mixture of wet and dry media in this piece. The colours she has used are quit soft even though there's a lot of black and grey theres a soft element to it because of the light pink added and also the lighter shades of grey, the colours are dull but the effect it has doesn't give that impression. The work is of A4 size in a magazine, the scale of it does effect the way I look at the work because the image does take up the whole page, the background is one soft colour so the main focus is the image and text. The formal elements that are key to this work are the lines and colour, the lines of ink on the face and around the arms help the eyes move around the page. The colour used are not very bright but the different shades of the same colour used makes the work simple to look at, the light and dark shades of grey blend well with the black and light pinks used. 

I chose to look at this piece because it has inspired me and giving me ideas on how I could develop my observational drawings. My first reaction to the work was that it stands out, the collage of her image with the dogs and the brush strokes of text added is effective. I like how Jones used her face and added the ink/brush lines, also the cut outs of the dogs with her eyes add a ugly/beauty controversy effect to the piece. I don't like the brush strokes around the hands because I don't see how that relates or what it adds to the piece. Jones work reminds me of Ashkhans work.

Moodboard

1. Quentin Jones - Illustrations

2. Black and White photo 

3. Illustration by Minjae Lee

4. Quentin Jones - Mixed Media 

These images are a collection of the route I'm going for, the theme is mixed media using mainly black and white with bold colours such as blue and purples added. I am mainly inspired be the work of Quentin Jones because his illustrations are created using mixed media and also are in black and white with little but distinct bright colour added. Also how Ashkan Honarvar uses the human identity to highlight the different way of showing beauty, using mixed media to layer images and cut outs to create a new image. The black and white photo of the girl smoking is a random picture from the internet, I plan to take my own photos of that kind of setting but instead of smoke have illustrations and cut outs coming out of the mouth also long hair blended with cut outs and illustration. This is my first idea I have for my final piece, I plan to take the photos and edit the selected photos on Photoshop make the photos black and white. Also maybe layer different photos to create a blurry effect with the different photos.

Mind Maps

Askhkan Honarvar Analysis

'Vanitas Collage'

Askhkan Honarvar was born 1980 in Shiraz, Iran he currently works and lives in the Netherlands. Honarvar tries to capture and portray the unavoidable beauty by accepting the darker sides of human 'nature'. This piece 'Vanitas Collage' was created using mixed media, he collaborated with Kathi Kauder who is a stylist and fashion and photographer Sabrina Theissen. The series of 'Vanitas Collages' were published in November 2011 in I Love You Magazine. I chose to analyse this piece because I am planning to make similar work and use the same mixed media techniques.

To further my understanding of his work I looked at his website and TrendLand a magazine website which showed all of the 'Vanitas Collages'. ' Equilibrium(equal) between life and death' this quote describes this piece well because I can see how the artist is trying to represent life and death, for example the dying roses could be representing death where as the actual human model in the image could be representing life. The title does inform me well because the word 'Vanitas' describes paintings that contain symbols of death or change, which is portrayed well in the image. "It shows the human body in a way wouldn't normally see and by taking the other body parts and putting them in different places forces us to see the beauty in the body like the beauty in nature." The different unusual sections of these pieces highlight his view of the human body, that each human has a different image a different look the way people portray or display beauty comes in different ways.

This image is a collage made up of photography, illustrations and cut outs from magazines. The main model which I believes represents life and illustration cut outs layered over the photo. The colours used are quit  soft for example the flowers are soft dull coral shades, this adds a soft and natural element to the image. Where as the most outstanding colour is bright and bold shade of burgundy, I think its very solid and covering all of her body and parts of the body that are usually on display such as the eyes and hands or clear. The clear details in the eye is outstanding compared to the other images in the piece because its in black and white, I think the eye represents all that we see around us as humans whether good or bad. The arms are reaching out of the central image, I think the different tones of colour on the arms represent different races and people.

I chose to look at this work because I thought that the collage was interesting  with the photos and illustration gathered together, which is what I like about this piece. I don't like the some of the illustration/images layered on because I don't see how they work or what they represent, the meaning is not very clear. Also the colours used could of had more variety to them. This work has inspired me to try and make collages and experiment with photography and illustration, try to use images that are realistic and animated.  

Illustration Brief