Dwayne's recent lecture regarded American midcentury, post-war illustration. We looked at the comparison between the UK and America, studying how America portrayed the perfect, idealised life, whereas the art of the UK reflected a dull life. It was an interesting lecture, looking into various artists and illustrators through this era, learning about their careers and their individual styles. Brian Sanders Brian Sanders was an English illustrator, working in an American style, using bright, vivid colours to display an idealised reflection of life. He studied at St Olave's Grammar School, which was located at the foot of London's Tower Bridge at the time. Sanders spent most of his final year focusing on painting and life drawing at the Sir John Cass College of Art. He was later offered a place at the Slade School of Art, but due to personal reasons he worked in an advertising agency. His art career was interrupted due to working for the National Service with the Royal Marines. After his time with the National Service he worked with photographer Adrian Flowers, which gave him a boost with his freelance career. It is said that he took great influence from Ben Shahn and David Stone Martin, and therefore he struggled to advance stylistically as he found it so difficult to move away from their work. I really like the work of Sanders, how he captures an everyday scene but makes it visually appealing due to the composition and colour techniques he uses, and I have produced my own piece inspired by him/the era.
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After being given the brief of illustrating a poster for a play, I decided on 'A Doll's House' from the choices as I thought there were many elements of this play which could influence my ideas, and I thought it gave me many opportunities to be very creative. After researching the play further for inspiration, I produced lots of thumbnail visual ideas, playing around with colour, composition, subject etc. I aimed to add in lots of little details which I thought added to the poster well due to the concept of the play. For example, there are references to the woman being called a 'skylark' which is why I included a birdcage concept. Furthermore, the play is based around Christmas time which also gave me ideas for my poster. I did struggle to come up with lots of different thumbnail visuals, so I had to keep searching for inspiration and played around further with colour and composition. I learned a lot throughout this brief regarding visualising ideas as I used lots of different media to produce lots of different, interesting poster designs, in a small space of time. After coming up with my initial ideas, I then narrowed down and generated some refined versions, continuing to experiment with colour and material to produce an appealing poster. Finally, I produced 3 final designs on a larger scale, all of which highlighted a different concept of the film. Overall, I was happy with my outcome of this brief. I had to push myself quite hard to keep going and generate different poster designs which I did struggle with quite a lot at about the halfway point. However, I kept experimenting with different compositions and used a variety of media to help further. I definitely learned a lot about idea generation so overall I'm happy with the outcome.
This week Zoe gave a really interesting lecture on Vogue and how it has evolved through the years. It was also about how fashion editorial photography can reflect a narrative to the reader. I found it really fascinating seeing all the main photographers' work and how different they all were. Zoe's main question was 'Is fashion photography art or fart?' and after seeing the journey Vogue has been on I think it is definitely a form of art. For this blog post I will be comparing two different fashion 'stories' from Vogue. Vogue May 2019 Kate Moss took the cover of this edition of Vogue which I thought was an interesting choice for me to work with considering she is quite well known for being associated with Vogue, with 1993 being the first time she covered Vogue. I think the main thing that comes across to me in these photographs is that it reflects how fashion can look good at any age. The magazine is generally read by women between the ages of 25-55 so this can be quite influential. Despite Kate Moss only being 45, she is probably one of the older models in the magazine, however, the photographs show that she wears the products well, which is a good reflection towards the diverse audience. All of the photographs are black and white which definitely portrays a particular mood. Moss is generally posing for the images as she's modelling the clothing and accessories. Therefore, the images tend to give off quite a sultry and sexy vibe. This combined with the use of an older model is attractive to a certain age group, also due to the fact that she's promoting a luxury brand, one of the reasons it's appearing in Vogue. Vogue December 2019 In this edition of Vogue, a lot of the articles are Christmas orientated so the piece I will be looking at is mainly to do with the party season - all glitz and glamour. The model choice for this segment was particularly interesting as they have involved 2 very contrasting individuals - both of which wouldn't have appeared in Vogue in the early editions which highlights the evolution of Vogue and the move towards inclusivity. For example one model is from Japan, and the other is British - both with distinct characteristics e.g. red hair. The article displays a very fun yet glamorous narrative which is reflected through the splashes of colour, experimental makeup used and the sparkling jewellery which are the main focus of the story. This element of the magazine is probably attractive to the younger audience, however you see from the information provided on prices of the products it would probably be more suited to an older audience due to the luxury items. There is a range of images which tend to portray a young and innocent feeling, very youthful and 'girly-girl' as shown by the baby pink highlights. This contrasts greatly to the edition involving Kate Moss as they give completely different vibes. In summary, being very interested in fashion, I am fascinated by the way Vogue has evolved and how it has become more inclusive and diverse over the decades, and how it fits with the current movements. The only thing is sadly over the years, Vogue has become very focused on the celebrities involved rather than bringing new fashion trends to people. However, these coincide since fashion designers need celebrities to promote their clothes.
In this week's lecture with Nick we looked at high modernity, and we looked at the introduction of abstract art and further pop art. The task for this blog was to re-create a version of Richard Hamilton's collage 'What makes today's homes so different, so appealing?' using elements of our 2019 culture and society. Using photoshop I created this collage, in which I have tried to reflect many of the 'issues' or the everyday norm of life as it seems today. The main thing I have involved is Theresa May on the tv, representing Brexit which has obviously had a huge impact on society over the last couple years, and will continue to do so for the years yet to come. One of the main things with society nowadays for me is the numerous campaigns for saving the planet, but yet only a certain percentage of the world seem to care. To portray this I have included many protest campaigns such as fast fashion, and also the plastic protests - as seen on the MacBook and on the iPhone. The clothes delivery parcels lying at the side highlight to the audience that I feel as though people aren't taking these problems seriously. The figure I have included of someone meditating is to show that everyday the society seem to be very stressed and anxious, however, people need to start paying attention to the real problems in the world such as saving the planet that we live on. Instead of using an actual person, I created a silhouette to represent that people nowadays appear invisible - we live in a world that is so technologically based, that people are practically invisible and the art of physically communicating and using your voice is dying out. To further intensify this I included a famous political poster from Banksy on the wall, and to add a personal touch I included a Manchester bee poster which signifies a point in time where the country really did come together.
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Ailsa ForresterIllustration student at the University of Cumbria. Archives
December 2019
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