Butter Market mural cont. Coming together

As we finally had the panels cut to the right size after some confusion when ordering them, we managed to make all the pieces fit together to make the right sized rectangle that would fit in between Rhiannon and Georgia's two jigsaw like large panels, the panels that we used were off cuts from other larger pieces, luckily we had just what we needed. The next step was to put a white primer on the panels and then put the first base colour on. 

The yellow was taken from Rhiannon and Georgia's colour palette, as well as the red we used, Emma and i mixed the remaining blue colour, this was because we wanted there to be some continuation from their panels and ours, but we also wanted a blue that was slightly brighter and would stand out more. 

The small panels in the photo above are the detachable name plates of the stalls in the butter market, we were emailed all the names and were asked to incorporate these into our design. Emma has the best hand rendered typography out of the two of us, so we agreed she would create these to put on the other large panels. This should create a 3D element that the mayor seemed to be interested in, in hindsight it would have been nicer to have other 3D parts on the mural, perhaps in the actual illustrations, but this task seemed big enough and this would have taken much more time, of which we were running out of. 

The arrangement of  how we want to display the base panels and the small name panels, we mostly grouped them together because we wanted to create a blocky arrangement that would correspond with the design of the mural as a whole. 

One of the illustrations for a panel painted by me, i used masking tape to create straight lines so i could have a box to work with, i decided to make the fish shapes with negative space because it limited the number of colours i needed to use on this panel, we need to make this task as easy for ourselves as possible, and washing brushes takes up a lot of time in between painting, also i feel the negative space works in this one.

This is the only panel to feature people, and i think this was a good idea because it took along time to get the lines right, i found it difficult to 'draw' with a brush. But i like the way it turned out, perhaps i would have made it slightly busier if i'd have had more time. 

First finished panel. 

Hand drawn typography done by Emma, i think these will fit perfectly with the illustrations on the panels, they're the same kind of free hand quality. 

A couple of small illustrations i drew on the remaining small panels. 

Now that the panels are now fully illustrated and the name plates are completed, we only need to put them together, and then we need to varnish the front and back of the panels and finally touch up some parts of the back colour, all things considered i feel we have made good time so far. 

Hopefully we should have the panels completely finished and on their way to be put up in the Butter Market by next week. 

Butter Market wall murals cont.

The mayor of Hereford and his wife came to view our ideas for the murals inside the Butter Market, we had all presented pitches on foam board so they would be clearly visible and hopefully convey our intentions for the walls.
After they had viewed our artwork they then asked for other walls in the butter market to also be worked on, giving us a bigger area to work with. This is fortunate for us because it means that most of us will have a section to work on or at least be able to help with painting and organizing. This is also a great complement for us as a course, meaning we will have our collective work viewed from various different locations in the market.

Emma, Rhiannon, Georgia and myself will be working together to create a mural in the corridor towards the back of the market that leads to Maylord street.

Emma and i will work on the middle section of the mural, Emma will be creating typography for the panels and i will be painting some designs onto them, The Mayor mentioned he wanted names of the current stall owners and perhaps those of people how have previously worked in the market, we may not be able to fit all of the requested name onto the panels depending on space.

Time tables for the coming weeks in which the group will be working on the wall murals in the Butter Market.

Gathering Materials : Paints will need to be selected as a group, along with paint brushes, masking tape and other tools, Wooden panels will need to be cut on in college with the help of a technical demonstrator to reduce costs. 

Week 1 ( 10th to 14th November ): we will aim to have wooden panels cut to size and ready to be painted on by the end of this week.

Week 2 ( 17th to 21st November ): we will try to have 1, perhaps 1 and a half sections of the corridor mural complete .

Beyond this we will continue to work until the murals are completed to the best of our ability in the time we have been given. 

Butter Market Wall Mural Cont.

After the discussion in the group crit i continued to work on a simple, limited colour wall mural design, i decided to tone down the colours i had previously used and opted for a palette easier on the eyes. I also continued with the idea of putting simple design and type in boxes. I tried to develop this concept as far as i could but felt i hit a wall with it and couldn't think of anyway to further develop it, so i made a finished design based on the imagery i already had.

This is my final design that i will be pitching to the mayor along with another design i had made along side this one which has an entirely different direction. 

Here are my thumbnail designs for my alternate mural pitch to the mayor, i wanted to have something that i could relate myself as well as having a design which would appeal to others. This design is mainly focusing on the people of the Butter Market, those who work and shop there and how the market makes them happy. So i drew different kinds of people and how they would enjoy themselves at the market.

This is the Painted version of my thumbnails, some of these turned out better than others, but i feel they would still work well together. 

After i finished these i photo-copied them and played around with the composition of the panels. 

Here is my first design with some of the panels raised from the paper with foam board,i felt that adding an extra dimension to the design might give it a push when it comes to the pitch, also it could be interesting to play around with this idea in the future. 

Here is how my pitch presentation turned out, i put the most developed idea at the top, because i feel it is the most eye catching and detailed design, i also included a photo copy of my sketch book page detailing my second idea and below that the coloured panels for my second pitch idea.

Life drawing class 2

Butter Market Mural project meeting

This weeks group meeting was primarily centred around pitching ideas to each about the design, content, subject matter of the murals for the the walls in the butter market. 

Things that were generally agreed on: 

Bold block colours

• Limited colour palette
• Simple shapes 
• elements of pattern
• a motif using squares with separate designs within them

These were the main things that were suggested, there were other great ideas as well such a ornate patterns and art Deco visuals, which i hope can also be incorporated into the murals. 

Someone also suggested bringing in historical points about the market such as the glass roof the building used to have which some people are pushing to bring back.     

Here is an example of Gordo's idea for the mural, which i feel could be successful because of the bold and loud colours used, also i like the idea of incorporating building of Hereford. 

This design of Gilly's is a great starting point for all the points we talked about, it has a simple premise but has the potential for everyone to be involved and contribute to a few squares each. it's also useful to see an idea in this stage of design so we have an idea of what we could produce.  

This is a two page spread from Rhiannon's sketchbook, i love the use of oil pastels, it creates a lovely texture as well as providing strong vibrant colour, this design also incorporates the "Squares" idea which we so far like the idea of

My quick design i made after the group meeting, trying to keep in mind the points we talked about a used bold colours and shapes plus placing the designs inside boxes to separate them out. 

Things i need to work on this week:

• Create more typography on the theme of overheard conversations
• look around Hereford for motifs to be incorporate into "Tile" like designs
• Produce more colour mood boards
• 
  

Life drawing class

Recently i have stared a life drawing class at the courtyard in Hereford, i'm trying to get back int life drawing after having a long break from it, i found the class really fun and i had a good chance to experiment with some of my drawings as well by adding colour and ink. I really want to improve my life drawing skills so i can inform my illustration a bit better. 

Hereford Butter Market wall mural project

The third years have been tasked with producing 6 large wall murals to go in the Butter market, which is a old dairy and poultry market in the town center of Hereford, the murals are possibly going to go on wooden panels which will then fix to the walls which make up some of the stalls in the market. 
The first week back to uni we took a visit to the butter market so we could gather some information on the place in general, i took photos of mostly the old sign art and some of the stalls i found visually interesting. The place was certainly stuck in the past, but i felt that only added to it's charm, though i can see where and why it needed some work done. The mayor of Hereford who has requested the artwork intends to bring a younger group of people in the market to view the art and visit the stalls, as well as keeping the current patrons and stall owners happy, this won't be an easy task, the challenge will be finding a middle ground between contemporary and traditional values and visual language. 

A photo of one of the walls which will eventually be covered in a large mural, we will have to take into consideration the owners of the stalls around the walls who have some of their wares on the actual walls ( as seen in photo ) perhaps even incorporate them into the design? 

 Some examples of old sign typography, although stylistically the text looks old fashioned we learned that some of them where painted quite recently, which shows that traditional values are still very much favored in the market. I like the way these signs incorporate small illustrations around and within them.

 An overview of part of the market, some of the stalls are well spaced out and often leave large empty spaces between them, in the photo we are all standing in quite a large vacant space.

A sweet stall where the jars of sweet are all on display on shelves, making a very colourful and pleasant visual. i would like it some of the colours and sweet motifs made they're way into one of the murals.  

bric a brac stall. 

The fruit and vegetable stalls that where situated towards the back of the market had some very interesting colour combinations with the way they had arranged their produce, i am very keen to incorporate food into the murals because the essence and history of the market is food, people will go there primarily to buy food, from fish and meat to fruit and veg, so this i feel should be taken into account when planning and designing the murals. 

Some more examples of sign art, i particularly like the red and yellow "Hillman's" sign because it's interesting use of different typography styles and the way it have matched the colours, it's very striking. learning the history of this florists stall was very interesting also, it has had a place in the market for almost 100 years and most of the owners had worked there for a good chunk of their lives. i find it interesting to hear how the market is such a big part of some peoples lives and livelihood.

So this the main part of my first hand visual research in the market, i found it very useful to visit and look around for the first time in years, just to see how much has changed and what has stayed the same. 
These photos will be central in helping to inform me whist trying to generate ideas and producing images for these wall murals. 

Some summer things

Recently I've been trying to experiment with some different style which i'm not 100% comfortable with; mostly i drew things with pen or ink and then colour them later but now i'm able to work on this sort of thing I've been trying to create images with only block colour, or just a minimal use of line. 

 This one (above) is the first one i tried, i stared with a dark acrylic blue and built up the image from there using acrylics and inks, i enjoy doing one page comics with atmospheric feel, this one uses the lyrics from a song by Buck tick as the text.

 This is my second attempt at a one page comic having only tree panels and using block colour with no line. This one i painted digitally, which was a different feel entirely to using acrylic i also restricted my colour palette to just a few colours which i feel works for the atmosphere in the panels. As for using the tablet, i feel more at home with acrylic paints and can be a little more confident with them, even though digital painting is more convenient with switching colours and quick erasing. The next one i do will be in  Acrylic again.

 These silhouetted paintings are also part of my "no line" experiments, they are a combination of traditional and digital paintings, the theme for them is "ghosts of the forest" so i put in a lot of animal like spirits surrounding foliage and mushrooms etc. I liked doing the laying affect with the block colour, so it's almost looks like a cut out, if i am to use this style again i definitely want to use it on a bigger scale so i can add more going on in the scene of the painting.

Collections project final piece!

Below are my final monster designs which i coloured on Photoshop and printed out onto sticker paper, i printed them multiple times so i could keep one set as stickers and use the rest in two collages for the final piece of this project. 

To make the collages i first painted on a background of patterned craft paper and added embellishments like floral patterned paper and painted diamonds to add to the overall business of the pieces. 

I mounted these two on A2 foam board. 

I also created a zine to go along with my collages, it's purpose was to briefly show the world in which my monsters lived, i included a map, a short introduction from the monsters and  couple of extra illustrations 

I am quite please with the way these turned out.