Lots of it is visualisation stuff, that I have failed to provide any real explanation of. But the red lines and the dots are London, with art galleries mapped out onto it.

Today we took part in Darrens workshop on image making, we all took some photos and then combined them in a simple 3 colour digital collage. The point being to generate new ideas or to develop further into a final piece. This is so we can use all of the research images we collect.

The grass greener is from a letterpress poster done earlier in the year, the arrows were from darrens stuff, the elephant from the small elephant toy I own and took a photo of and the white shapes at the bottom are from an illustrator thing I was working on. Darren made a comparison to the ‘North by Northwest’ Saul Bass title sequence, looking now I can see the connection.

Here is the final version of the illustration, number 4. I decided to keep a lot of the energy and lines in this piece to reflect the energy of wasps. The image itself is the two women from the article, as wasps, eating masses of jam on its own.

Two old-women wasps eating at a table out of giant jars of jam

Originally I only posted the image above, but based on my feedback stating that I only posted one concept, I decided to post some of the other sketches (see below). I also have provided brief descriptions incase they are too rough.

Two wasps eating jam outside of cafe

Wasp eating jam on table

Wasp eating jam from table

Old woman showing jar of jam to wasp waitress, asking to be opened.

So here is the final result of the editorial illustration, I think it turned out okay, but not exactly what I was looking for. Maybe also a little time consuming to get to this level, especially if you were working on other projects.

The main reason I think it fails is that it doesnt really take a lot of content from the article, it merely represents the man in the story.

After a lot of toil, we finished the poster last week. Here it is in all its glory.

I still cant fully think in right way, but it was certainly enlightening.

Beautiful Losers

I have already posted a video to this below, but just wanted to re-iterate how good this documentary is. Very inspiring.

Meta-Graffiti

This is basically the next steps in graffiti, perhaps… Basically its a bunch of short films about graffiti in a whole load of different styles, qualities etc. It has kids Clean Bombing trains, people creating animation from graffiti and short narratives. Its pretty much about everything except normal graffiti.

Rash

This is an Australian graffiti documentary, about the scene in Melbourne. There is some very interesting work and also an interesting attitude taken by some of the councils. What I like here is that they cover stencils, stickers, tagging and graffiti, aswell people doing wilder stuff.

Piece By Piece

This is about the history of the San Francisco graffiti culture, very interesting stuff. It starts in about 1982 and goes up to 2004.

Graffiti Instincts

This is a straight up visuals thing, just sit back and enjoy while these guys create. This is a section taken from the DVD, not the full thing.

Brasil Inspired

This is a book on Brazilian art, some of it is street art, some of it graphic design. All quite fresh and interesting though.

New Skateboard Graphics

A book devoted to skateboard deck graphics, some interesting things in here. Perhaps a little light on text though.

Concrete to Canvas: Skateboarders Art

This is about the art that skateboarders create, some of it graffiti some of gallery pieces. All sorts of styles and influences here. This book is really quite relevant to what I am doing.

Sticker City

Although the title is sticker city, its mainly about large scale stickers or pasteups. It has smaller stuff, it has 3D stuff. This is an interesting look at a variety of artists spanning the world.

Paste Ups

This is basically a giant sticker, where you prepare it at home, go out and paste it around town. Sometimes they are hand drawn onto paper, then cut out and pasted. Some times designed on a computer and printed. Below is a variety of pastes for putting them up.

Wallpaper Paste

This is your standard wallpaper paste, it used to put up wallpaper all over the place. I dont think its that weather resistant.

www.wickes.co.uk/Powdered-Wallpaper-Adhesive/invt/610087

Cellulose Paste

This stuff you can buy fairly cheap,it is derived from plants and is odourless. I think one of the main advantages here is that you dont have to carry some premixed paste around with you in a bucket, all you need is the powder and a few bottles of water in your backpack, this can be in a squeezy bottle for ease of spraying.

www.homecrafts.co.uk/products-Cellulose-Paste-Powder_B276.htm

Wheat Paste

This is the standard as far as I can tell, its basically flour and water boiled up, there are different measures, techniques etc. I think this is the cheapest method, but perhaps not the most long lasting.

monumentlimited.com/tutorials/how-to-make-wheat-paste/

Terror Paste

This stuff doesnt sound that nice to make, you need ground glass,wood clue and wallpaper paste. Apparently it is very hard wearing though. The only thing is that you need to use it quite quickly.

www.cultdeadcow.com/cDc_files/cDc-0402.html

Stickers

Vinyl Cut Stickers

These are the stickers you see everywhere, from bands to giant corporations. They are quite cheap and they are very weather resistant.

www.diginate.com/

Label Stickers

This is where you use a laser printer to print onto those white labels you can buy in shops. I dont think these are that durable. Or you can pay for someone else to do it, but if doing this, why not just get vinyl.

www.diginate.com/

Graffiti

Traditional

This is where you sit and create a Burner or other piece on a wall, this can be as quick and simple as you like or as time consuming, some pieces taking several hours to complete.

Stencil

A quick and dirty method of graffiti production, its quick, cheap and easily repeatable. You can use one stencil many times over.

www.stencilrevolution.com

Tagging

One of the most basic forms of urban art, this is about getting your name out there as much as you can. Using spray paints, markers or stickers. Its just about “bombing” your name everywhere.

Debris & 3D

This is where you take found objects or buy objects and stick them places, creating sculpture on the street. So Invader uses small tiles to create retro space invader style mosaics on the side of buildings, others have used toys and stuck them to walls.

This has been extended even further by people like the Graffiti Research Lab, with projects like their LED based tagging and graffiti.

Not to mention their EyeWriter project. This is a piece of software built using Openframeworks, it detects eye movements and lets someone create graffiti without using their hands on a computer, this sounds in itself as slightly useless, until you watch the video. I found it very touching.

This was followed by the VCT session where we had to create collages, based on image and text, but with the theme of systems. Our group created five seperate pieces which we then combined together. We took the front page from five different newspapers, then cut out all pictures, text and headlines. This left us with the gutter from all of the collages, showing the grid structure. Then we placed them all on top of each other to compare. This created an interesting series of patterns, but it highlighted certain similarities.

Closeup

P Lets you see more of the environment of the picture

M Quite grainy

I Circle reflects shape of sphere

Wide Angel Horizontal

P Gives a dynamic angle

M Too close to the top

I Focuses on the cyclists

Narrow Angle Vertical

P Concentration on human aspect

M Quite clumsy looking

I Makes it look a bit like a holiday snap

Depersonalise

P Shows someone working hard

M Removing of boys expression

I Pink and white contrast

Abstract

P Concentration on visual elements

M No indication where it belongs

I Interesting shapes

Define

P Shows that the picture is about people moving in somewhere

M Doesnt give greater  context of where they might be

I Implication of motion

Distant

P Shows the village

M Human aspect removed

I Atmospheric perspective

Emotion

P The anger is shown in the man

M Loose context of car

I Face and arm on a level

Narrow Vertical

P Focuses on girl

M Removes some of the negative emotional impact

I Lots of verticals

Bold Exciting

P Could be a genuine shock

M No context of crowd

I Mobile taking photo

Discreet

P Looks as if we are spying on these people

M Cant see the mass of people

I Verticals are interesting