Colour Workshops

Acrylic paint

Here we were using the colour wheel to explore different shades of colours. From the page at the bottom you can see that different colours fall on different places on the wheel. The sheet above was the work we did on colour bias. Basically, we used  colours such as French ultramarie and Cerulium blue on the top (the tube colour) and then added white underneath (tint to see the undertone). 

Here we mixed colours both by aligning the bias and by crossing the colour wheel. We found that by aligning the bias the colours produced were a lot more vibrant and had a stronger hue. Whereas, when crossing the colour wheel the outcome was a duller, less saturated colour.  

The aim of this was explore tone and try to get the tone the same as the colours already on the sheets, only using the three primary colours.

From what we had learnt about trying to match tone we then tried copying a picture of some lemons. We were only to use 3 colours: yellow, white and a mix of ultramarine and crimson red. It was more about matching tone rather than getting the colours exactly the same. Also, it helped to us to look for all of the different tones within a picture ( ie, it's not all exactly the same!)

Photoshop Blending Mode and Layer Styles

Retro boy poster 

Original  

I first changed the colour by altering the colour curves. Then, I added a solid purple layer on top of the image. I lowered the opacity and changed the layer style to make it just a hint of purple. 

I blurred the outer parts of the image by creating a new layer and adding a gauzian blur on top of it. I then erased the centre of the blurry layer so that the centre wasn't blurred

I added in some purple dots using a soft brush then lowered the opacity so they weren't so prominent. They are supposed to imitate the light exposure in an old photograph. To finish, I added a pattern overlay of crumpled paper to add some texture to the final image.

Shapes poster

Mountain poster 

1. Original 

2.  

• Added gradient 

 3. 

• Pattern overlay to add texture 
• Added circle-changed the opacity and blending mode to 'lighten'

4.

• Added textured background + put a lined pattern overlay over it

• Put a patterned overlay onto the text 

Layer styles

Original 

Added crumpled paper pattern overlay to the purple background

Added a thin dark purple stoke to the outside of the lettering

Added shadows to the text such as drop, inner and outer. The shadows make the text appear 3D and appears to stand off the page more 

Added gradient to the colour of the word 

Embossed and bevelled the word, plus added a pattern overlay to create texture

Shapes poster 

Here I've made the basic shapes using the marquee and lasso tool. Then using the colour replicator and fill tool in added the colour.  

Then I went on to add the little flower shapes. I made these by using the lasso tool and an elliptical marquee. After making on petal I just copied in numerous times and rotated them to make the finished flower.

All the shapes have been made, including the rainbow. This was made using circles and cropping them, and using strokes on the outside of the circles to create multiple rings.

Finished 

Original is on the left. I also add textures using pattern overlay to most of the shapes. These varied from crumpled paper to grunge. 

Badges

In this mini task I made 4 badges with cut + paste poems

We simply cut out interesting words from newspaper articles and stuck them onto paper, then sealed them in between transparent plastic and the badge back (adding pins at the end).
I also experimented a little with font, font size and the background images.

Zine

What is a zine?

A zine (an abbreviation of the word fanzine, or magazine; "zeen") is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. It is produced via photocopying and bound with staples and is often in black and white.

Most zines revolve around a music scene of some sort, but others are dedicated to artwork, poetry, cartoons, editorials and short stories. Because zines do not have any sort of corporate backing, they are very rugged, individualized, and much more charismatic than larger, more popular magazines whose content is often dictated by their advertisers.

My zine

Instead of choosing a specific theme for my zine I decided base it around some of my favourite things. This made it a lot more personal to me, while hopefully also intriguing to others. 

The only real reoccurring feature within my zine is that each double page consists of a "zoomed in" image and a "zoomed out" image on a linked subject. 

Front & back cover

Front                                                                                      

The letters on the cover are supposed to be representative of those used in a scrabble game, while the word 'THINK' purposely doesn't give any indication of what is contained within the document, thus making you open it up and have a look.

Back

This is obviously themed around my love of tea, while also taking inspiration from the "Keep Calm And Carry On" posters which were originally intended to be 'morale boosting posters' during World War Two.

Inside pages

Page 1

I chose to do a bookcase as it meant I could use lots of detail and also reading is one of my hobbies.

Page 2

Here is the 'zoomed in' aspect of the book theme, a page of Jane Eyre . Both pages were done with black fine-liner pencil.                                                            

Page 3

This silhouette of a dancer in the rain was first drawn in pencil then filled in a black marker pens.

Page 4

This is actually the score for a piece of music in a film I like. I drew it up on tracing paper to give the page more visible texture. This is the 'zoomed in' part of the music themed pages, and the dancer the 'zoomed out'. 

Page 5

For this page I scanned in a map and then drew a window frame on the image using black fine-liners. By doing this is breaks up the image and also makes it more unique.

Page 6

This is the 'zoomed in' aspect of the travel themed pages as, unlike the map, it is focused on one particular area- New York. This is significant to me as it's always been a place I've wanted to go. 

Making our own sketchbook

Instead of using a bought sketchbook to do our drawings in, we made one using:

• a hardback manual 
• thread
• an assortment of paper

Tools we used were things such as: 

• scalpels
• cutting mats
• bradawl
• steel rule
• a needle

The idea behind designing and making our own sketchbooks was so that the book itself was also a piece of art. It then becomes more personal and unique, while still teaching you the skills to create something practical and beneficial.

My finished sketchbook

 I used an old 70's annual for my front and back cover.

We made signatures (groups of 4 pieces of A4 folded in half) using assorted paper
such as scrap, card, envelopes and even old map pages. This will add variation to the
sketches drawn inside due to the varying backgrounds.

Here you can see the Coptic stitch I used to bind all the signatures and the covers together.


A brief history of Coptic binding

Coptic binding, named after the Copts (native Christian people in Egypt) is the earliest known bookbinding, which dates back as early as the 4th century. It began with textbooks made from papyrus or vellum sewn together with thread or thin chords.

The best known preserved example of Coptic binding:  Acts Of The Apostles which dates back to the 5th century. 

Small Press Analysis + John Porcellino Case Study

Mini comics

Mini comics are handmade and personal comics that are often an expression of the authour's life, opinions and interests ect. They are a common inexpensive way for those who want to make their own comics on a very small budget, and are often informally distributed. Also, compared with
mainstream comics, they are only cost a small amount. Mini-comics can be very simple or very elaborately produced. A folded piece of paper that is opened like a book can be a mini-comic, and so can a 132-page die-cut rounded-corner die-cut book with a hand stamp on every other page. Despite the name, size matters not at all. Even though many mini-comics are very small, others are quite large.


Small press

This is a term often used to describe small-time publishers who usually don't publish more than 10 titles per year. Instead of being focussed on profit they tend to be more about getting the more unique books and comics seen by comsumers. Unlike most publishers they are independent and are not part of a bigger publishing house, which further shows that their motives behind publishing an author's ork is usually down to the fact they actually believe in it and like it personally, as opposed to it fitting a certain criteria or target audience.

Fanzines

A fanzine is an unoffical, unproffesional, magazine handmade by a fan of a certain theme/show/cultural phenominen, that is made for the enjoyment of others who share the same interest in whatever it may be.

Most often fanzines are distributed free of charge and the anyone who contritibuted to it recieves no financial compensation. Of course, traditionally they didn't cost a lot to produce as they were hand-drawn then simply photocopied and stapled. Sometimes they are swapped with other's at events and some even send them by post. Fanzines can be only pretty much any subject, with the themes varying from horror to punk.



John Porcellino

Porcellino was born in Chicago, in 1968, and has been writing, drawing, and publishing minicomics, comics, and graphic novels for over twenty-five years. He is best known for his self-published series King-Cat Comics, which he releases four times a year. He started them when he was just a teenager and as he has grown and developed, his subject matter and drawing style have also evolved.

John Porcellino’s comics are often described as deceptively simple: spare, childlike drawings accompanied by straightforward block-lettered text. The deception, however, is that the moments he describes in words and pictures—hearing a song on the radio, tossing bread crumbs to birds—seem small and quotidian, but are in fact both deeply personal and reflective of some larger aspect of the human experience.

Examples of a front cover of one of his issues and an inside feature:

We then made our own mini-comics inspired by Porcellino's work.

The finished piece

As you can see I imitated Porcellino's work by keeping the layout simple and using the triadic page structure. Like his front page, I did add a little more detail particularly with the trees and path.  

For the page on the left I drew up a Top 40 of my favourite songs, films, programmes and just general encounters and things. On the right I did a comic, an annecdote form when I was younger, in Porcellino's style.

On the left the comic is continued and on the right I did a guide to surviving a hurricane from when I got stuck in NewYork with Sandy. It was inspired by a feature that Porcellino did once called 'Dr Abbot's Guide To Surviving Women'. 

For this double page I did another comic and a simple one box image on the left. It has lots of white space and the text used was a quote from a poem. The whole idea of this was to just provoke thought.

This is a close up of one of the comics I did. As you can see I tried to stick to Porcellio's drawing style as much as possible so the images are simplistic with lots of line use. Even though, the finished drawings appear minimal I actually found adapting to his style quite hard and I found that a lot of planning ahead, and drafting in pencil, was needed.

For my final page I wrote a small memoir-like piece. The biggest challenge with writing text throughout this comic was copying Porcellino's shifts between upper and lower case. At first it was very forced. but eventually it became easier to slip between upper and lower case.

Reading through each others work: