i'm excited to start a project with no final piece and LOTS of experimentation because i feel like final pieces restrict my brain FOR SOME REASON i get very nervous and my loosey-goosey style goes out the window. i think its because i feel like my style needs to be neater to be a final piece, but i think its more about having purpose and lots of experimentation and. research leading up to the final work that is important.
ANYWAYS i got cynicism this week which is all about living with the 'bare necessities' and return to nature. i though i would find these tasks great fun because i would love nothing more than to live in a hole like a rabbit and just live my life eating allotments. i tried these tasks and i got stressed out, i realised that almost everything i have is a luxury. i was lay in my bed without my phone trying to spend a hour doing nothing and letting myself get bored but i kept thinking about how my bed is a luxury, having a radiator is a luxury, having a thick quilt is a luxury. i got all up in my head about it all and thought a lot about whether i'd even be able to go back to basics and live without all these luxuries and whether i'd even be able to escape them.
soon as i finished my hour or two of just staring at my wall i was very angry, because i don't feel i'll every be able to escape the luxuries of my life personally, and because i feel like this isn't achievable for most people in western society, unless you're born into it or you're VERY rich. i feel like the idea of cynicism is fenced off from the majority of us and we can only look at it and dream to be that way. i follow lots of people on social media that have homesteads and chickens and live off the land, but the VAST majority of them have owned up to being from a lot of money and so are supported financially and can live only focusing on living off the basics. i made an angry mood board above about not being able to live like that even if i wanted to. i like making these they make more sense to me compared to spider maps. this is where i got the idea of the wire fence for the drawing below.
heres the poster inspired by the Tricontinental artworks Izzy showed us. i don't like it but i'm glad i made it, it was fun to use lots of flat colours and attempt at using a colour palette. it feels very urban outfitters to be that why i think i don't like it lol.
I enjoy posters I think it's because I like making singular illustrations rather than groups of illustrations with narratives mainly because of just work and that's literally all I do. I think that's why I'm naturally gravitate towards them and I think I'd enjoy making posters in the future because to me, it feels more like editorial illustration.
MONOPRINT TIME!!!! not going to lie i'm a bit of a monoprint hater and i have NO IDEA why because its messy and scruffy and you can't erase anything so its everything i love but monoprint confuses my brain. i think its because we had to think about the layers since we were riso-ing it but im going to keep trying to get better at it. Even though it hurt my brain i'm happy with what i magicked up and i'm excited to riso it next week!!! the thumbnails i came up with for the monoprinting inspired me to make the artwork underneath because i was in the mood for some pencil crayon and gouache mad time.
I AM FUTURE ELLA AND I HAVE NOW RISO-ED!!! not the biggest fan on the results but its all a learning curve WOO. i know using a lighter colour would have made the contrast more effective but i love the texture using the monoprint as a master has given :) it also takes away from the perfection that u feel pressured by with riso and takes the stress away (for me anyways!)
heres what i came up with :) i wanted to make a lovely forest dream paradise with the motif of the moon to link to how cynicism is about following the cycle of nature. i added the wire in procreate and messed around with some of the features i SWEAR to say i use procreate for uni and work i don't even know half the stuff it does. the first one is a scan of my book, i love how pencil looks on top of gouache its so creamy and i like how the gouache looks melted under the pencil its perfect. the middle one is my favourite because it looks like a dream world with the noise and saturation added. i'm really happy i just went with it and tried lots of different combos with this artwork. below are all the little combos of effects and colours i tried! my next step for this would maybe be making it into a lino? i think it'd look great simplified down and i desperately want to try a two colour lino!!
after talking with luke we thought it would be good to chop the moons off to simplify the original design before having a go at lino and im super happy i did it gets the atmosphere across better because the moons are distracting from the wire which to me is the most important bit !!! underneath is the lino i absolutely WINGED but i love it and my first print, i only had access to monoprinting ink on this day but i still like how it looks compared to standard block printing ink :)
(far right is using block ink that i printed in the christmas holibobs)
o YES its Declan Mckenna time. i had a couple of artists that i see as outsides like Mike Skinner, a couple of examples are Idles, Hozier, Jamie T, Cocteau Twins, Kate Bush. i chose Declan Mckenna because he makes very easy-to-digest pop-rock music but the lyrics almost read like he's written poetry at a protest
We've been held back for after-school meetings
They've got it in for me
For all it's worth
The key to life on Earth
Jokers, happy go xenophobe locals
Have got it in for me
For all I'm worth
The key to life on Earth
They've got it in for me
For all it's worth
The key to life on Earth
Jokers, happy go xenophobe locals
Have got it in for me
For all I'm worth
The key to life on Earth
British Bombs is another song of his that does this really well almost ALL of his songs are about current social issues its like having a lesson listening to his music. i think how his music sounds so happy and poppy works well with how i illustrate because its all very sparkly and colourful.
i think how his music sounds so happy and poppy works well with how i illustrate because its all very sparkly and colourful.
these thumbnails are ugly but i knew what i wanted to do straight away and Viv suggested i just GO for it.
heres what i came up with!! i'm really happy with them i would be even more happy if the printed hadn't broke but what can you do :') ill fix it on procreate later. i used wall paint and posca pen mixed with water and i love how it looks with and without the text! i was restricted with my colours because i forgot some of my supplies but i think it made me think harder because i was restricted. i think id i did it again i'd like to have a brighter lemon yellow for the middle of the sun like what i somehow made on the first piece and i have no idea how i got that colour but thats the fun of it!!
i think they look like the back and front cover of the album rather than two separate ideas. i used some grey to try and make them look more menacing in relation to the attacking lyrics. moving on from this, i'm going to see how it looks with maybe an extra layer on top of something like scratchy doodles or black lino motifs. i think a big scratchy black key would look great in one of the gaps in the paint.
these are all part of a group riso printing session at dizzy ink to make posters raising awareness of the palestinian genocide. im really proud of my poster and have joined a group of illustrators making these posters based in nottingham! i'm happy that i'm using my hobbies to make a difference if only a small one owt is better than nowt and the people of palestine's stories deserve to be heard.
over the christmas holidays i got more lino prints done using the barbed wire design! for christmas i did get some of my own block printing inks but before that i was trying lots of different combos of acrylic ink mixed with acrylic paint and gesso. obviously the block prints are more opaque and i love them to death especially the blue with green background, but the fluidity of the acrylic prints is fun and i like the messiness i think it looks like a grain photograph or a reflection on water.
i have another design i made when i was thinking about stoicism and meditation that i'd love to smack onto some lino and i think it would make a good flash design too :) i drew it talking to eve because she meditates and all that stuff and we had a very serious discussion about when you press your fingers together it feels nice on your brain and it feels like their joined up and HERE WE ARE! anything is inspiration and the mystical cogs that turn in eve's little derbyshire brain are high up on the inspiration list :)
i think this design will work really well as a lino print and i could print onto fabric too or turn it into a knitting chart why not :0 and if all else fails it would make a GREAT flash design.
this is a creepy little self portrait i did over christmas to try and getting into the 'flow' of something as one of the stoicism tasks i had the best time doing this absolutely winged it and was meant to be a quick sketch but i'm so happy with the colours and even though it doesn't look exactly like me i think it's got the ESSENCE and other than using my phone for the reference i never checked social media or got distracted once it was very lovely to be wrapped up in a task completely and i'm going to try and do one random painting a week seperate from uni as a meditation fun time. i genuinely felt better afterwards and it reminded me i do actually like making art so i think its a good practice for me to continue :)
in this briefing we got to do a little quiz about ourselves and i LOVE quizzes so i had a great little time!!! its nice to go inside your brain and find answers to stuff like your favourite holiday as a kid its something you don't think about often but when you do it brings back so many happy memories and its nice motivation before a workshop :) its also useful to reflect on what you want to achieve while at uni, for me its to try everything i have access to and take every opportunity im offered. remembering why you went to uni in the first place is 10/10 motivation to get you through a monday.
in this project weve talked alot about boredom and how alot of people my age feel theyre too busy to be bored. i ALWAYS feel like this especially with all the jobs and the illustrating i have to do in my free time for work. i would like to be bored more often though and i think its good for me as someone who doesn't get that time very often.
i went off on a tangent but i decided to paint a bath when thinking about boredom because i don't really like them, because you cant use your phone in the bath and i feel like a human stew. however i know some people love them and find them very relaxing. i painted how i feel when im in the bath, which is abit like im melting and like i should be enjoying myself more than i am. i'd like to explore this more because of the massive history behind baths and how they are still a vital part of communities in some cultures!
when im in lectures NOT THAT LECTURES BORE ME but because im forced to sit still and listen, i always doodle designs in my book which i then turn into flash like these!i also get the URGE to make things when i can't, so what i've been doing recently is when i go to my boyfriends, i take NO CREATIVE THINGS (ipad, knitting, sketchbook) and force myself to sit and watch a film and DO NOTHING ELSE obviously i enjoy the company of my boyfriend but STILL the boredom makes me desperate to draw and make, so it makes me excited for uni when i get to create. i also think of lots of new ideas for illustrations or work and write them down in my phone. its abit like meditation because it allows my brain to relax and be empty so that it can be busy when it needs to be.
Future Ella is here to say that some people have already have these designs and the bird with the oranges is on annalise everyone's favourite Floridian exchange student and the flail is on one of my friends but the rest are just people wanting these random designs that I drew in a lecture about Cuba which is fun and it makes me happy. I think it's good practice for me to be bored because it's good and it means that I can make stuff like this and that gets me money and I can survive and thrive from being bored.
this workshop was about collections!!! sorry if i seem much briefer when writing about this workshop i had already written everything about it and unfortunately my mac glitched and deleted it all :'( ANYWAYS i love collections and collecting things so i really enjoyed this workshop. i brought in lots of stuff, some random crap and some things that were very important to me and made a story from them. my story was about a pink crab that lives on brighton beach and drags all the things he finds in the sea out onto an old chip wrapper. i went in this VERY specific direction because of wanting to try and link my little collection to a geographical place, so with all the glitter and pink and tattoo machine, i thought brighton was a good place to go for! also, the newspaper was what led me to the whole crab character, and i only picked up the newspaper to move my objects around easier, so once i lay everything out on the paper i had the idea for the seaside animal story!!!
it was also really fun to see other peoples collections and what they enjoyed having, my fave was annies bagpuss and receipt collections what a strange girl :0 i found this workshop useful because one thing i struggle with when i get a brief is that i automatically go to drawing objects with specific connection to each other, but now i will atleast TRY to view briefs with a storytelling eye too, because it would be good for me to try, i think id enjoy it, and its much more immersive than a normal still life illustration. giving your work a story makes the characters, whether sentient or not, a personality and this draws people in and makes their feelings interact with your work!!! and there is nothing better than making people feel something when they experience what you've made :)
also i turned that sketch i did for stoicism into a flash design !! i personally like the far right one the best, i like that its wobbly because meditating and connecting to yourself is difficult and not all smooth and lovely. i think the shape of the fingers also looks reminisent of a VULVA woo woman power yayayayay! im going to lino print this at the weekend and probably release if for my next flash drop too :)
This is from future Ella no one ever got these flash designs, but I hold faith because it's almost summer and people get flash designs in summer so I will keep you updated.
RITUALS!!!! i loved the workshop on monday i think maybe we were all feeling a bit hyper but we got very excited when drawing on the A3 paper. it was hard to know what was a ritual and what was a habit luckily we had george who we bullied for his answers but they were all right oops :0 ive been really excited for this workshop since luke mentioned it because i LOVE learning about things like this like the weird parts of human nature and brains. i also loved talking about TATTOOS AS RITUALS o yes that means its my time to shine. tattoos are definitley a life ritual for alot of people. generally people get tattoos to celebrate a good time in their life or to commemorate a hard time, such as weddings or deaths. it also links people to communities, such as football tattoos or matching tattos you get with friends and family.
i wanted to talk about the things that i do that are a ritual, such as knitting, and how i feel being a part of other peoples rituals at work. knitting for me is very relaxing, i think of nothing else when i do it and my all time favourite thing to do is go on a walk and knit at the same time. It also feels like a ritual to me because it feels historic and medival and I feel like I'm doing something that people were also doing thousands of years ago and it makes me feel happy and it makes me feel connected to the world and I enjoy being able to look at something at the end and be able to wear something and use something and know that I have made it from scratch. all I was given was string and now I've made a jumper that will keep me warm it's very satisfying for me to make me feel good and it's an important part of ME
I think the drawing that I did of me tattooing with the pink background I reckon it could make a really good location or a profile picture at least I know its so much it I like the blue one the pink I like the eyes I like the coach Titian of talk to you that I've drawn instead of a normal one I love it so much I'm probably going to use it over the summer and 10 in something I think it looks really cool is a print or a knitting pattern so im going to try that.
"stencilling rocked my world i'm never doing anything else ever again." - Ella Rae Rowland
my favourites that I made in this workshop are all the ones with eyes. I like how changing the size of the pupils in the eyes change of the emotion because the third one looks scary and the first one looks slightly more friendly. The tears are a bit unnerving though I just love them all I think theyre so cool not to my own trumpet but delicious. I think I'm gonna have a go at editing them and change some parts and do some bits and bobs just a faff because I like them that much.
The best part about this project for me has been all the exploritory workshops I love stencilling it was so good it was so difficult and it's just perfect for me because it's like a mix of tedious fiddly tasks and then going mental with like a big sponge or brush I love that. I also like when I can make a shape and I can let it dry and then draw on top of it like that I was with that is I love the mix of the fine liner, or I just use a normal like writing pen from Bonington shop, and I like the fine liner opaque darkness of the line on the washy inkI love it so much. its DEFINITELY something out to try the future I think I'd like to try of coloured inks because its me and I want to make it c o l o u r f u l
I think I'd really like to try and make a bigger more complicated piece that had a lot more layers of different washes of grey or maybe monochromatic washes of blue all layered up. i think it would be really good for a landscape, Id really like to try that I don't know if I have time on this project was definitely something I want to do in the future. it might be something that I do in my free time or stencilling in a way that's like observational drawing, like I'll go out and find a landscape and then cut out my stencils and make it on the spot. I would love to do that.
Another fun little thing that I tried to do was make a new box breathing video!!! luke makes his watch this book box breathing video all the time and i aggravates me because it's so boring to look at and I don't like that it's a box I don't think breathing is pointy isnt 100% a circle or an oval with the dot going slower when you hold your breath and faster when you breathe in and breathe out :) anyway because I hate so much and because I was born without a lung I have the other one though so its okay and I'm not very good at doing it so I wish there was something that we could watch on the screen that was calming but didn't focus on a breathing so I made one YAY!!!
I used my code from the coding module and i fed meditation music on YouTube because it gets hungry and this is the sound-reactive visual it gave me however the black-and-white doesn't seem calming to me and it's a bit too sci-fi rave and it needs to be calming and like cosy like a bookshop with lamps on. Because I was aiming for bookshop with lumps on I downloaded it onto Premier rush and messed around with the effects and I like these ones are a lot better but I wanted something else visual in the background to make it more interesting so if you're if you have a shorter attention span and you need to keep your brain occupied even though we are calming down, we have the big circle in the middle going round and I want to add in some animations in the background.
and THIS is what I end up with I hate it I think it's horrible but it shows what I was trying to do I wanted preferably for the animation thats in the background smoothly go from one thing to another but I don't have anything that that can do that so i had to use the stop motion part on procreate and I don't like the colours are use the quality is really bad because I'll send it to procreate Premier rush to my computer and back but I think it's a good idea and I could definitely go more into this and this could be a whole project just creating a box preview video that didn't focus on breathing! it does do what I wanted it to do the circle does keep attention of people have a longer attention span where is the animations moving 90° after every complete round I think it's good for lower tension span.
now looking at it I think I prefer the dark blue background I think it's like a softer, version of the black-and-white and I think it would've gone better with the colours of the animation I choose I hate the colours that I picked I wish I do use complimentary colours to match the purple but just in the moment I was picking anything and now it looks a little bit like primary school work just pink blue green, but if I have more time in this project, I definitely want to explore this more. This is something I will enjoy and it has like a purpose and I know for a lot of people they would prefer this every box breathing, so I like that it can help people and people can use it.
Oh so managed to get the lino prints for the meditation hands that I made are used the one that I liked the most the one that was a wobbly it looks a bit like a Volvo and I did the star in the middle as well because it looks pretty and it to me looks like a little thought like your hands and meditating and protecting this little thought.
Because I got bought some block printing ink for Christmas I was able to do all these at home! i was able to print at different stages of cutting to the middle, when you see still has the border around the outside, that's just where I haven't cut away the excess and then the one on the right is just with the ink rolled straight over printed bish bash bosh and then the first one is where I have used a tissue and a Q-Tip to bring the lightness into it a bit like when you do etching or monoprinting.
I like the plain black ones I think it looks like the illustrations on old Grecian vases like the part in the form and Hercules really all start moving and I like where you can see all the tiny little bits of black run outside and on the inside of the hands where I haven't my new cook very well I think it adds nice texture and in real life there about a four size and you look really pretty and I'm really happy with them in this project I've definitely linocut more than I normally would I think it's just because we had so much space and time to experiment because lino cutting it so similar to tattooing enjoy it. I like lino cuttings it's so easy to create lots of presents with different colours and I like out opaque you can get the ink. I was like how many different ways of how to get the texture I like using ink there's a little bit drier and I like skimming the lino cut is just over the top so you get lots of tiny little really shallow lines they can like grass moving, that's my favourite part.
This project is been really interesting for me because I think it's the first one that I think probably didn't have a final piece and I never really thought I was one final pieces I thought it was that quite restrictive and unnecessary stress when installation well we're not getting paid for it and we don't need to pay for it can be all happy and fun and exciting but I think I found it quite hard to stay motivated I know what we're doing this project at the same time is the case today but I found it quite tricky to keep going I tried a lot of stuff and I tried lots of different techniques that I normally don't experiment with when doing the long project because I feel like I need to spend a lot of time making a final piece and I really really enjoyed it but I don't know whether the lack of staff harsh deadline and the lack of pressure makes me less motivated to work but I think it was a good project to have going on at the same time as the optional module and the case study I think it was a nice break from all the harsh deadlines and I feel like I should be able I should get better motivate myself purely by being able to explore and experiment with the motivating myself because I feel like I need to do really well and get a really good grade at the end of a big project
I don't know if id be able to do a project like this if I wasn't going into uni all the time doing workshops because the workshops were the most enjoyable part of this for me, but maybe that will get better in third year when we have smaller projects and they're a bit more repetitive and we have a little bit more choice of what kind of brief we do. However I think when if I ever get the chance to have a really long brief and a really friendly deadline Id love to be able to explore another project the same way as I've done this and just try as much as I can and do lots of different things and find a way to break out of my normal coloured pencil and paper and then scan it in and print it :0
I think a good solution for me would have beento set my own brief for this project so that I can have some sort of structure that I can have a lot of freedom with but I'm able to narrow down my brain towards the end and focus on one thing. even though that's not necessarily what this project wanted it does mean that i I know that if I needed to focus on something I need to make my own little brief and deadline to make sure i stick to the point of the project
I want to be able to animate and I want to be able to do lino printing and that's the best thing that I've probably got from this project is learning how to lino print more and experimenting with it. I love it and I really want to do a lot more of it in the summer and maybe sell some prints because it's so cheap and accessible and easy to do, and I think it's nice to try and stretch how creative you can be with simple materials :)