Alex's Illustration Blog

This year I feel like the speed at which I am able to draw has greatly improved, this is evident from the 60 second poses I've been doing. As a result of this I've been able to record information quicker when drawing from life, as observed in some of my animal studies, done at Burford wildlife park; and also my journey drawings in Cheltenham.

New drawings:

Old Drawings:

I think my shading has greatly improved, my understanding of form and foreshortening as well. My newer drawings look less stiff, and I think this comes from doing all those loose gesture drawings. I think my drawings look cleaner also.

Compared to the drawing exercise we did at the start of first year, these studies of Cheltenham are so much better. I feel I've done a much better job of capturing the subject matter.

I want to continue doing both fast and longer more detailed observations. I like trying to record an object with as few lines as possible, to see if I can capture the gesture. However longer more detailed observations feel more real, and produce a more complete image. I want to continue doing more observation from life and studying movement.

The above drawings I feel showcase how I've been able to make my drawings look more animated. They don't look as stiff, like some of my older drawings look.

I've also been able to add some colour to my work this year, something I usually don't do.

However I have also identified several weaknesses in my practice. I tend to not draw buildings, and detailed observations of objects. I feel this limits me in my visual language. For instance when I come to draw a building or an interior they often look bland an un-detailed, because I haven't taken the time to observe there real life counterparts. I also tend to only work in pencil and occasionally Photoshop, I want to try an expand the types of media I use, more charcoal, and colour.

I need to continue drawing building details, and figures interacting with environments and objects.

I feel like I deserve a low B grade. I feel I have shown improvement in my work, and have consulted a variety of books to try and improve my practice. In particular Andrew Loomis's book 'Figure Drawing for all it's Worth'. I've attempted to develop some of my ideas and take them further, trying to apply them in other areas of my practice. For example my animal studies helped me develop my drawings for the children s book module.

For my final major project I want to create something very abstract and dream like. I want it to both confuse and intrigue the viewer. To do this I want to look at a variety of styles and artists to inform the end product.

I want my final major project to be a dream like sequence, either presented as an animation, or a sequence of images but I ultimately want it to convey a narrative. I want to use imagery and symbolism to communicate ideas about philosophy and psychology. I would also like to experiment with multiple endings, to further interest and involve the viewer. I want to make use of optical illusions to engage the audience and create a sense of wonder. I want to use a combination of different visual languages to express my work. I want to incorporate elements from different artistic fields including films, comics, novels and paintings to help achieve this goal.

For my research project, I want to focus more on the optical illusion aspect, especially anamorphic illusions and forced perspective as this is an area that really interests me, and I think it creates excellent art that confuses and entices the viewer. I would like to create a sequence of images, possibly that could intertwine with my major research project.

Artists like Salvador Dalí and MC Escher are 2 of my favourite surreal artists. Dali’s work is full of rich symbolism and is heavily inspired by dreams. He takes real life objects and morphs them to give them a more significant meaning. The image below called ‘Dream caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a second before awakening’ contains plenty of subjective imagery. The two tigers represent the body of the bee (yellow with black stripes) and the bayonet its stinger. The elephant is a distorted version of the "Pulcino della Minerva" sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini facing the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. It has also been suggested that the painting is "a surrealist interpretation of the Theory of Evolution." It’s full of so much imagery it could mean anything to anyone, I like that kind of art where the meaning is necessarily always heavily inferred, the audience is left to make up their own mind, just like a dream.

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MC Escher is another great example of the surreal and abstract in art. The great thing about Escher is you are always trying to work out and decipher his images. He plays of the rules of perspective, line and shape to create something that our brains struggle to understand. His works are like optical illusions and are just a lot of fun to look at. It links back to the ideas of dreams, most of the time they make no sense to you. It’s great though, it’s like trying to solve a puzzle, and you feel engaged.

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Another great area of art I’m fascinated with is 3D and optical illusions. They are designed to confuse your brain, and you end up staring at them for way to long trying to uncover what is actually going on.

There is a great 3D illusionist and illustrator called Ramon Bruin, a self-taught artist from the Netherlands. I find his work really awesome, and just enjoy looking at them and trying to uncover how he has made a particular piece.

He often uses anamorphic illusions to great effect, and it’s something I really want to try and replicate, in my research project. I think it’s such a great way to engage the audience as they have to move around the piece and view from different angles to see how the illusion works.

Ramon even puts familiar props in some of his works to engage the view further, and strengthen the illusion. (See below)

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I want to focus on film, especially since I’m considering creating an animation, even if I choose to use sequential images instead, film contains lots of useful elements that I want to incorporate into my own work. I want to focus on cinematography, mise-en-scene, iconography, and lighting, particularly Chiaroscuro.

Also films contain some great subject matter concerning dreams; some of my favourite scenes from films are dream sequences. They are a great opportunity for a director to use more interesting stylistic choices then they normal would.

There is a great film called ‘Take Shelter’ directed by Jeff Nichols and this film is filled with dream sequences, none are particularly abstract, but are very unsettling, with some great cinematography and some great use of point of view shots. The film is an excellent metaphor for a man that is losing his sanity as he prepares for a coming storm, and the audience is constantly questioning what is real or a dream.

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another dream sequence from 'Take Shelter':

http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ptryzelaar/clips/take_shelter-5th-dream-desktop.m4v/view [6]

Another film that heavily revolves around dreams is Inception, directed by Christopher Nolan. This film also blends elements of MC Escher’s work into the visual style.

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It’s such a great camera trick and really intrigues the viewer. Inception is full of interesting shots and in camera special effect tricks that had audiences asking how they achieved it, and leaving them amazed and entertained. I find these sorts of illusion really inspiring and intriguing, and would love to include something similar into my work.

Larry Smith is a great English cinematographer, one of his best known works is only god forgives, another film rich imagery and symbolism. Although I didn’t particularly enjoy the film as a whole, it looks absolutely gorgeous, the cinematography especially.

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The use of parallel lines in the above shot is great, very reminiscent of some of Stanley Kubrick’s films. The way the character is framed in the shot is great also; he is turned slightly to the side, so you can’t tell if the path lies ahead of him or behind him. And the reddish glow contrasts the grey blue. I want to use very carefully planned shots, and storyboards, to help the audience infer meaning.

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Double indemnity is a classic piece of film making and makes heavy use of chiaroscuro lighting. Being a film noir it contains the classic venetian blinds (see below), a great trick that symbolises entrapment, and or a lack of foresight. This is the kind of imagery I want to use in my work to help me infer meaning into my work, using subtle imagery and iconography to hint at the view what I’m trying to achieve or what the message is I’m trying to convey. I find film-noir very interesting, I especially like how it implies emotion without the use of strong colour, I find using strong contrasting colours against each other detracts from the views experience, I find this especially evident with Pedro Almodóvar’s work. His work is too obvious and very in your face. I much prefer muted colours, or the use of one strong colour. This is the type of colour scheme I want to use for my final projects, a film-noir palette.

Books are another great source of inspiration for me. Philip K. Dick’s great novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ It’s a book that uses the sci-fi genre to explore the issue of what it is to be human. The protagonist probes the existence of defining qualities that separate humans from robots. Its full of surreal ideas, and poses some excellent questions that make the reader pause and think.

I want to try and use narrative, interwoven with imagery and symbolism to pose interesting philosophical ideas and questions. Sigmund Freud’s ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ is an interesting read, and contains lots of interesting ideas on the meaning of dreams and why we have them. Freud concludes that dreams are an arena in which the unconscious mind expresses itself, and that they are primarily concocted to represent the fulfilment of a wish, Freud wondered, why is the wish so poorly articulated, so wrapped up in strange symbols and images? It’s an interesting question and one that has inspired me to address the theme of dreams as the subject for my final project.

Unknown. (2011) Don’t make a Scene: Double Indemnity. Available at: http://letsnottalkaboutmovies.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/dont-make-scene-double-indemnity.html (Accessed on: 28^th March 2014)

Dali Gallery. (Unknown) Dali Gallery. Available at: http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/galleries/painting16.htm (Accessed on: 28^th March 2014)

Unknown. (2014) MC Escher. Available at: http://www.mcescher.com/gallery/most-popular/up-and-down/ (Accessed on 29^th March 2014)

Unknown. (2011) Paradoxical Architecture. Available at: http://wenhanarch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/penrose-stairs-illustration-of-paradox.html (Accessed on: 30^th March 2014)

Popcorn Taxi. (2013) Review. Available at: http://www.popcorntaxi.com.au/2013/06/events/only-god-forgives-special-event-screening-qa-live-with-nicolas-winding-refn/ (Accessed on 30^th March 2014)

Rogoff. S. (Unknown) Take Shelter, Fifth Dream. Available at: http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ptryzelaar/clips/take_shelter-5th-dream-desktop.m4v/view (Accessed on: 30^th March 2014)

B7Johnston. (2011) Take Shelter: Bad Dream. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wKT48NyipI (Accessed on: 30^th March 2014)

Daily News Dig Admin. (2013) Awesome 3D Pencil Drawing Pictures That Will Amaze You. Available at: http://dailynewsdig.com/3d-pencil-drawing-pictures-will-amaze-you/ (Accessed on 30^th March 2014)

Vsauce. (2013) Moving Illusions. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw8idyw_N6Q (Accessed on: 31^st March 2014)