Colour and Composition - Week 2

Composition Warm Up 

As an introduction to composition, we were tasked with creating abstract collages based upon six prompts, chosen to prove that to some extent, composition does come naturally. When it came to this task, initially I found starting to be a challenge, unsure on how to tackle the task, yet, once I began, I found it easier to produce pieces of work that somewhat conveyed the prompt we were given, whether through colours such as the bolder or softer colours, or whether it was shapes, either softer or harsher and pointier shapes for different prompts. All in all, I was generally happy with the outcomes, however, looking closer at composition in the following lecture, it became apparent that there was a few things that I would have done differently. One thing I would have changed was the placement of the light on 'Tokyo', as if I were to do it again, I would probably shift the yellow to be off centre, or add two to be off centre as it being completely centre is a little too jarring when looking back on the piece as a whole. 

Book Covers - The Tree 

For this week, we were tasked with creating three book covers based around, 'The Tree'; one being a children's book, one being a phycological horror, and one being a sci-fi based around three different artists. The first challenge I faced was trying to somewhat replicate the work of each artist, getting used to the materials they used and trying to recreate the feel of their works at the same time. 

​Anne Yvonne Gilbert - Coloured Pencils 

Anne Yvonne Gilbert works with coloured pencils, using them to create soft looking illustrations, that too hold a lot of detail within the pieces. When looking into her work, I initially tried to replicate the vivid colours seen within the piece to the right, even if I wasn't going to be using the use of fabric in my book covers. I then tried to apply it to vegetation, though found it to be far softer than the vivid colours of the fabrics. With that said, I was able to replicate the soft feel of Gilbert's pieces in my test samples, using various tones of brown and green to build up my examples. I found that it was harder to work on cartridge paper than watercolour board as I used for my final piece, due to the lack of texture on the paper. It was for this reason that I found doing the final piece easier than that of the test pieces and thumbnails. Looking back on my pieces, I could have built up the pieces further by applying more tones to my pieces, building them up more, even if that risked losing the softness of the piece.

                                Image by Anne Yvonne Gilbert, from AnneYvonneGilbert.com

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​Charles Keeping - Watercolour / Inks 

Charles Keeping's work was the second artist I decided to tackle. Keeping's illustrations are mainly made up of watercolour and inks. I particularly liked the look of his black and white illustrations due tot he themes we had to fit each cover into, and it was for this reason I decided to go with phycological horror for Keeping's work. To begin with, I began by trying to use the dripping and wispy aspects of Keeping's work, whist too trying to find a way to use white on black that wouldn't be too time consuming. With that said, I didn't want to just do a black and white piece, and so played around with giving the background a wash with a darker colour to convey a horror theme. 



                                           Image by Charles Keeping, from Aestronauts.com

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​Brad Holland - Acrylic 

Brad Holland's work was the final artist I looked at, using acrylic to give off a dry brush technique, building up colours in various layers and blending them by building them up. This was something I found difficult to do to begin with, as naturally I add quite a bit of water when painting. Once again, cartridge paper proved to be the wrong material for this technique after a while of building up colours, the paper below began to peel up with the dry brush. However, I was able to manage by keeping the layers to a minimum to ensure I didn't push the paper too far. I attempted to find the best colours for this piece, as this was far more colourful and unnatural than the two before it, and needed to find colours that didn't clash. In the end, I believe I chose the best colours, using the surrounding area to set apart any colours that may clash such as the planet in the left hand corner. 


                                 Image by Brad Holland, from Margarethe-Illustration.com

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Final Pieces

 In the end I decided to go with using Anne Yvonne Gilbert's style for the children's book as I believed the softness of her work would be best suited for it. Secondly, I decided to use the phycological horror prompt for Charles Keeping's work due to the muted and darker tones found in many of his works. And finally, I decided to apply the Sci-Fi cover to Brad Holland's work, as the dry brush technique gave an unusual and unnatural feel to the pieces. I found this task a little stressful when it came to initially replicating some of the artist's techniques as the way in which they worked weren't the way I was used to working in my own work. However,  all in all, I was happy with the way my final pieces came out, and believe that I was able to communicate the artist's techniques to some extent.