Narrative Imagemaking: Final Pieces

It's been a while since I last posted, in that time I've been working towards my final outcomes in textiles, mixed media and narrative imagemaking. I also visited London during half term which proved surprisingly helpful as I visited lots of galleries and came back feeling inspired and ready to work.

For our narrative imagemaking final piece, we had to create 6 pieces using Adobe Illustrator. I have some experience with digital art and I enjoy using drawing tablets so I found this brief really fun to work on!

I chose to center my pieces around an event I went to in the summer- a Japanese culture convention held in London, called Hyper Japan.

 The first piece is taken from this photograph of myself and a Japanese rock band called Lost Ash who I met at the convention.

 First of all, I sketched the picture by hand in my own style of drawing so that I could then scan the image into Illustrator.

Once the image was on illustrator, I created a new layer and worked on top of the image using the pen tool to create an outline.














I then created another layer beneath the outline layer and hid the initial sketch so I could add colour.







After completing the colouring  I added a background and final touches such as highlights and tidying up the linework. Here is the finished piece!

The second piece followed the same process except I realised that after the amount of time the first piece took me, if I tried to add in all the details I had in the sketch then there was no way I'd get all my pieces finished in time.













In the end, I decided to leave out the objects on the table and the extra figure and hope that the image still made sense. I might add them in again if I have time before the final assessment.

This piece was made in the same way as the others, except I decided to add text on top. It says: "おにぎり！おいしい" which means "onigiri! Delicious"














 I decided to give this piece a more graphical look because I thought it would be interesting to experiment with different styles. I also used text with black text behind it to bring it out more and look like a shadow.

I did this piece a little differently as I worked straight over a picture instead of a drawing. I made this piece much more experimental than the other pieces as I used different brushes and a more realistic style but I'm really happy with the outcome.












I also decided after completing the piece that I much preferred it uncropped as I like the splashy paint-like effect it has.

I also worked from a photo with this picture too, except I added some of my own details such as the faces.

Jackson Pollock

 We missed out on our textiles lesson this week because we went to see a Jackson Pollock exhibition in the Tate Liverpool. I really enjoyed the exhibition, I love looking at abstract art and trying to pick out shapes and forms, wondering what the artist intended or whether there was any kind of intention at all.  

Most people are familiar with Pollock's paint splash paintings, yet I found that there were a lot of other really interesting pieces at the exhibition which I much preferred to his famous paintings. 

For example, he 
 produced a lot of silk screen prints which were really interesting to look at and much more interpretive than his other work. My personal favourite is this one, which was created for a Betty Parsons event he attended. There's something almost comic-like about the piece, it's much more illustrative than his other work and I find the lines running through really interesting.

 We tried out making out own Pollock inspired paintings, which was a lot of fun. Needless to say, it got very messy but I'm pretty happy with how our group's work turned out, even if we got a little too carried away towards the end and it started to look more like a swamp

some of us got a little messier than others

Studio Ghibli Storyboards

 I have been researching storyboards recently and have chosen to share the work which most inspires me: Studio Ghibli

I've taken all of these images from Floobynooby (which is a blog I love)

Firstly, I admire Hayao Miyazaki so much. Ghibli films are always so beautiful I feel like I can't take my eyes off them and if I'm ever lacking inspiration I know that all I need to do is put one on in the background and immediately I'm in the mood to create.

One thing that constantly impresses me about Ghibli movies is the ridiculous amount of detail put into the backgrounds. Although the characters are done in a simplistic animation style, the backgrounds are amazing.

I absolutely love looking at sketches from my favourite artists and seeing how their work progresses to their most effective pieces, and Studio Ghibli storyboards are no exception. Seeing the original ideas behind the films makes me nerd out a little and get really excited. Even the sketches are absolutely stunning.

I also love how the colour is used in these pictures to bring everything out. It's interesting to see how the artist has used the composition and colour of the scenes to set the mood, and how it all follows through to the actual films.

My Timeline

For our narrative Image-making lesson, we were asked to complete a timeline of our lives in a way that we found interesting. I took "time-line" very literally and decided to present it like a washing line of sorts, with little cards showing datesx photographs or illustrations, and a word or two about what happened. I tried to include all the major events in my life that I could remember, even though I missed out finishing school and starting college for the sole reason that I was running out of pegs and thought that my other cards looked much more interesting.

Week 2

I finished another comic strip. This time it was about my friend and I missing the college bus at lunchtime. 

 In textiles, we had to create an abstract piece that represents out community. This is unfinished here.

 In mixed media, we experimented with making aperture books. We also tried other styles and were asked to create and fill another book for homework.

More Influences

Along the lines of narrative art, John William Waterhouse is one of my favourite painters. I really love how his work shows mythical creatures and is surrounded in mystery and symbolism. I find that they're the kind of paintings that I want to spend hours looking at and learning about, not to mention that they're just reeeeally pretty.

For my GCSE art, I actually chose the "narrative art" brief and decided to base it around mermaids, inspired by Waterhouse's paintings. 

I feel rather embarrassed posting this here after showing Waterhouse's work but oh well.

Another artist I'd like to talk about is Laure Provoust. I discovered her from her book 'The Artists Book' which I found in the college library, and I couldn't stop laughing the entire time I looked through it. The book not only shows the artist's work, but is full of odd little anecdotes and stories that continue throughout the book. The whole book is a piece of art, really. 

Gerard Way

So in our Narrative Imagemaking lessons we've been researching and exploring a lot of narrative art, whether that be ancient egyptian art, silent films, symbolic paintings or even comic books. However, when comic books are mentioned, my brain goes straight to one thing: Gerard Way.
  Whilst he may not be the most well known comic book writer/artist, his work never fails to impress me. Plus he's probably the only reason I picked up a graphic novel in the first place. If you're a fan of comics and you haven't read any of his work, I'd highly recommend it.

The Umbrella Academy is a really original story, following a "dysfunctional family of superheroes" all who are looked after by an undercover extraterrestrial and a talking chimp. Trust me, it gets weirder. The UA actually won an eisner award in 2008 for best finite series, however Gerard went on to create a second volume: Dallas and is currently in the process of writing the third.

I'm not the most avid comic reader, however I have read a fair amount and this still remains my favourite story of all time.

The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys is an interesting concept because it goes hand in hand with My Chemical Romance's album Danger Days. The comic was created as a continuation of the band's music videos on that album. It is set in a time where the world is run by a tyrannical organisation called Better Living Industries who try to "strip citizens of their individuality". It follows a group of rebels living out in the desert who are following in the footsteps of the original killjoys.

This is so much more than your average comic book, I love everything about it. Gerard has such an incredible imagination and I'm constantly in awe of his work- whether it be art, music, or comics.





Gerard also co-wrote an issue of 'The Edge Of Spider-Verse' for Marvel.
Some examples of Gerard's artwork:

"David Bowie"

Concept art for The Black Parade

"Space Boy" from Gerard's Umbrella Academy pitch

Concept art from Gerard's pitch to DC

One thing I couldn't end this post without mentioning is that one time Gerard noticed a tweet I sent him of an experimental drawing of him and then favourited it and replied. I was very, very excited...