Summative statement

The self-directed nature of the final year has been positive, I liked the freedom of getting on with briefs on my own, but knowing I could ask advice and seek reassurance from tutors if needed. I’ve taken their feedback forward as points to consider in future briefs.

Although I have enjoyed all briefs I have done, it was quite confusing and difficult at the start to know if the brief I decided to undertake would work out, if the ideas would be substantial, if they had the scope to really develop, and if they would be beneficial to my practice. This years brief have allowed me to develop my practice, I have a stronger ability now, from trying a variety of different subjects and outcomes, keeping my motivation on track, experimenting more with different elements of my practice taking the focal point.

I liked being able to tackle briefs that required different working strategies, ones with a  quick turnaround, or more research based projects that required more time, structure and organisation. I feel I have merged and developed techniques and used them in other briefs which has hopefully given me a strong connecting point, linking theory and practice in my work. This has enabled me to produce detailed and delicate work which makes reference to social contexts in an emotive manner, Elements I feel I have captured on an ongoing basis within my practice through the briefs I have experienced this year.

Project Report

Presentation boards of each Studio Brief

Studio Brief 1: Winston Churchill Design Competition

Studio Brief 2: Documenting Bradford

Studio Brief 3: 'The Dragon of Leanderland' - Children's book Illustrations

Studio Brief 4: Applied Wedding Illustrations.

Studio Brief 5: Tradesman Branding

Studio Brief 6: Appreciation of the elderly

Studio Brief 7: D&AD Amnesty international Competition

Statement of intent to date.

FINAL RESOLUTION BOARDS FOR STUDIO BRIEF 6: APPRECIATION OF THE ELDERLY

Creating the collage

creating the collages to begin with with quite overwhelming as i am not a natural sketchbook-er and i wanted the collages to be produced in that type of memorabilia/ scrap book style.

i initially intended to produce the collages on a huge piece of paper adding each illustration as i went on on top of collaged paper.
however, thinking about it, i realised this meant their was no room for error, and this scared me especially if i have spend a long time on one illustration, started on a new one next to it and it goes wrong!
i also don't trust myself with spelling and as i planned to add hand written quotes this would be a problem.

so... i decided to digitally produce the collage. scanning in each illustration, quotes and paper textures.

this was great as i was able to digitally enhance the quality of my illustrations.
and although i had already sketched out the placement of each illustration with quotes and papers before beginning, i was able to move and change their scale if the initial sketch composition wasn't working how i imagined.

however one thing i did find tricky was adding the quotes. it was hard to fathom the length of line to write the quote on which would fit in the place i wanted it  amongst the illustrations in the collage.

after having to rewrite a number of quotes because they wouldn't fit where i wanted them to without overlapping illustrations or overcomplicating a certain area, i discovered i could chop and change the quotes digitally.
i did this by selecting the certain words and moving them to create new lines to my preferred size. though this was also a timely process, it was quicker then writing out the quotes again and again to discover they were not quite right still!

something i also had to get used to was adding the collage paper to create texture, depth and interest amongst my illustrations.
i began my collages thinking i needed to fill as much negative space with more illustrations for it too look like a finished piece, but i discovered adding pieces of paper and tapes did this as it completed the piece but kept focus on the illustrated parts of the collage. it worked well as a framing tool. i had to make sure i found a good balance though and that i used a variety of different papers in different shapes to avoid repetitiveness.
i tried to stick to the same papers throughout all 3 of my collages - making this the constant theme on each as obviously each collage piece would consist of different drawings to communicate the different people.

Contacting Age uk in regards to potentially putting my work to use for an elderly campaign.

Firstname: Rebecca

Lastname: Williamson

Enquiry type: Miscellaneous enquiry

Message: Hello   I am studying Illustration at Leeds Collage of Art and complete my course in June.  The work you are doing to combat loneliness amongst the elderly generation is something close to my heart, and is what i am focusing my Final Major project on.  I am creating a number of portrait illustrations inspired by the elderly people I have met and talked to during this project, aiming to personalise and give each illustration an authentic, individualised tone of voice, representative of the person. I hope this will reinforce the interesting and diverse lives these people have had, and eliminate the common perception that all elderly people are the same.  Is their anything you are working on at the moment or in the future that my illustrative, documentary approach could be applied to?     i would love to show you some of ideas and illustrations.   here is my Website in the meantime.     www.rebeccawilliamsonillustration.com  Thanks for your time;   Rebecca

reply

Dear Miss Williamson,

Thank you very much for your email on the 19th April and please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to you. We are a small team and due to an increase in correspondence we have not been able to get back to you as quickly as we would have liked to.

Thank you very much for contacting us about your final project at Leeds College of Art looking at loneliness among those in later life. I’ve had a look at your work on your website and your illustrations are fantastic! It’s great to hear that you wish to incorporate your own work someone into Age UK. At the moment we don’t have anything that we could incorporate your illustrations into. We do have our ‘no one should have no one’ campaign but that focuses around Christmas time (you might have seen our advert with John Lewis). You can find out more info about it via this link: http://www.ageuk.org.uk/no-one/

You may also wish to have a read around our ‘Love Later Life’ work which highlights the diversity of the older community and celebrates all of their passions/love for later life. You can find some of their stories here:  http://www.ageuk.org.uk/love-later-life/fauja-singh/

I do think it would be best for you to contact your local Age UK to find out whether they could find a way to incorporate your work into their charity. I believe your local Age UK is Leeds, and I’ve included their details below:

Age UK Leeds

Bradbury Building/Mark Lane,

Leeds

LS2 8JA

Email: frontofhouse@ageukleeds.org.uk

Telephone: 0113 389 3000

I do apologise that we aren’t able to use your illustrations within our work, but I hope the information I’ve provided is of use to you. If you require any further assistance please contact us again using the address below, or at contact@ageuk.org.uk or on Freephone 0800 169 87 87. Lines are openMonday to Friday from 8.30am until 5.30pm.

I wish you the best of luck with your final project!

choosing background colours and adding hand rendered text for name titles

to emphasize the personal element to the portraits i tired to communicate the personalities and the atmosphere i encountered when meeting each elderly person be that through their facial expressions etc. however, i also thought i could add a specific colour that i felt resinated with their character and would also add to the overall visual interest of the piece. 

initially i used colour in my development pieces as i liked the way it differentiated the portrait from the background and gave them a focus, however i didn't think about the added message i could be adding with a colour. 

above i have played around with colours i thought represented hazel and the way she came across to me.

Hazel's colours  - happy, positive, polite, gentle : yellows, oranges (hair was ginger tint) earthy green tones - nature. 

Johns colours - vintage blues: young boy at heart, cheeky. 

Jean and roland - it was hard to think of a overall colour to sum up both of them as they both had their own. so i instead took influence from the colours they have in their house and the clothes they were wearing when i met them. 

changing type: i decided fairly late on to use hand written type to name the portraits. i made this decision as i felt that as the rest of my portraits are hand rendered (bar the added digital colour), even the text i have included is hand written, i felt using a digital text contradicted my whole aesthetic and looked out of place. 

Finished Portraits

Jean and Rolands illustrations

the watercolour badge with the watercolour hat i really dont think work together. i think the badge needs to be more bold and defined against the loose wash of colour on the hat.

for this portrait to stand out against the background and the other coloured illustrations i experimented with introducing white around or on top of the illustration to emphasized the pencil work. i think if i was just looking at this piece on its own, the subtle white line i have added to the image below around the outline of figures works well, adds depth and draws the eye. 

however, i think using a block of white over the image works best amongst the rest of the collage, it makes the collage look more visually interesting with a combination of subtle illustration blending in with the background, watercolour bursts and focal point white background illustrations like this one 

i decided not to include this piece in my collage. though it was a illustration that took me one of the longest times as i used a mixture of pencil and watercolour, i made the mistake of drawing on a antique colour paper to give it a rustic old feel like the photo i was working from. however made it hard for me to layer and add to the rest of the collage without it looking out of place. i also struggled to justify why i wanted to include it. though its a illustration of jean when she was a child with her only sister (who she is still close to and sees alot) i thought i had more vital information about jean i needed to communicate and i didn't want to over crowd the collages with too much.

i think this piece works best on its own, i felt by including it in the collage it would need a quote of more illustration to communicate that it is a picture of jean and her sister. i think it would just look random without. 

reasons for choosing to draw certain things to visualise story:

Firemans hat 
- Roland was a fireman for 20 years

street illustration (st Helens street)-
 where jean was born and where her and roland lived and brought up their children. also the same street her mum and sister lived on and the same street they owned their shop - 'Jeans General store' 

All saints church - 
where jean and roland god married and where most of their family members have been married, and christened etc

Dolly mixure sweets -
representing the vintage/pick and mix sweets they used to sell at the shop and also one of Rolands favourites.

Cols Crain -
what Roland used to drive when he was in the Services during ww2.

Lucini's (illustrated text) -
the Ice cream Company Roland used to work for delivering ice creams on his bike when he was a teenagers.

Polo's - 
Roland always carried Polo's with him in his jacket pocket.

scissors, measuring tape and knitting needles-
illustrating Jeans creative hobbies as a seamstress, creating floats for Cockermouth carnival out of crate paper each year along with the children's fancy dress outfits etc.

Old grey goat sign - where Jean used to sing and where they used to go dancing with friends.

jean on a piano - showing her love of performing. she loved to sing and play Piano and was in a number of pantomimes such as goody two shoes and dick Whittington along side her father who was a Tenor.

Johns Illustrations for Collage

Printing concertina's

when printing off my concertina at a small size to give me a more realistic idea of what it would look like, i like how the portrait on the front has a border, and think this needs to be present around the collage to tie the both sides together and keep it consistent. i like the idea that having a boarder frames the 'story'. 

i played around for ages on photoshop making sure the front and back of the concertina were aligned - this required me to alter the Hight (portrait) of the collage to fit onto the 200mm H x 800mm W concertina format for it to leave an equal width boarder that also matched the boarder around the portrait on the front of the concertina.

as the couples concertina was 1040mm wide, if i wanted each section to fold down to 200mmx260mm i would have to print on a a0 piece of paper. 

above is all the concertinas on an a0 piece of paper ready to print. 

Problems when printing:

• to start with i wasn't able to print the concertina out at A2 as any larger cannot print double sided.  - this was annoying as i worried the hand written text even illustrations would be too small to have a impact of understand. 

• As i had aligned the 2 sides of the concetina on one photoshop file it allowed me (james -Digital print technician) to hide and choose which layers to print at a time but make sure they stay in the same postition. unfortunatly one of the texted layers that  was for the outside of the concertina only was not hidden when printing the collage side of my concertina.  however, though this was a cost, it allowed me to practice cutting down and folding my concertina before the final ones were printed.  

                          

• some how the alignment was off!! this was really really annoying as i have spend so long fiddling and ,making sure they were aligned (even printing out small mock ups myself several times to make sure!) 
• TIME MANAGEMENT - luckily, i booked a back up print slot 3 days before the deadline incase i came across any mishaps like this. however, after speaking to Fred, these concertinas are essentially just mock-ups as i proposed concertinas that would be larger than what they have been printed out at anyways, so re-printing may not be necessary if i do not have enough time to sort out the files, as long as the concept and context i am proposing is clear. 

• because the paint the concertinas were printed out on wasn't entirely straight and aligned with what was printed this make it difficult to cut - using the guillotine.

i realised after a few attempts the guillotine was more hassle then it was worth so used a scalpel and ruler - this was more tricky as the pieces were very long and mistake were easily made but at-least it cut the exact shape of the concertina out. 

• folding the concertina. - as the size of them were no longer what i planed (200mmx200mm and 260mm x 200mm) the folding point had also changed so i had to work out the measurements of each fold. somehow i still managed to get one square longer then the other whihc made the folded concertina not accurate and equal.
• using the machine that indents the paper was really helpful but took a while to understand and get right - measurments again.. however if i print the concertinas out again i will be able to learn from all these mistake and print and fold them perfectly! (lets hope i haven't spoke to soon)  

OUIL603 project report - label.

tomorrow - print concertina(s)
portraits?


tuesday -
boards
wedding?
excess stuff i didnt get printed on friday


room 118 - (where submitted cop)
pdf of blog
body of work

11-1pm  submission
1.30pm de-briefing


PART 1:
hand in PRINT : statement of intent - revised statement of intent.

what is the list of briefs now (tweak and add) - at point of submission
map of module


PART 2:
digital boards
some physical if necessary
-wedding?
key development peices (drawings)

brief describtion of project and how it went under presentation board

PART 4 - project report
position statement
evaluation of module

what do they say about my practice as a whole

The last posts to your blog for OUIL603 Extended Practice  should be:

• A written 250 word Summative Statement (last post) This should clarify the rationale for your project work and articulate your aims and intentions relating to the synthesis of the practical and written elements of the module.
• Your Project report present as a PDF posted via ISSUU containing 
• An issue based pdf presentation (posted in ISSUU format) of your final resolutions/proposals or products for your studio briefs .
• A PDF version of your updated Statement of Intent posted via ISSUU

editorial layouts and context - possible outlet for project

i like the ides of being able to show my collage in the same format in have created the concertina in as it is appropriate to the concept of visually communicating the timeline story of a persons life.

however one thing i would change to the format would be the length, the length as it is means it only fits on a double page spread as big the size above which i think is maybe to small to be able to read the quotes i have included in the illustration collage.
i could alter the hight of the collage in order for them to take up more of the double page spread.
this might mean i will need to rearrange, space out, or add more illustrations to the collage to give the same effect. 

possible magazines/ news papers that would be appropriate for my project. 

My project illustrations, along with the interview documented from each elderly individual could be used for a ‘limited edition’ feature in Local Newspapers such as the Westmorland Gazette which has a section dedicated to lifestyle.  The feature could tell the ‘life stories’ of a different elderly person each week, demonstrating the diverse lives and interests the elderly generation has to share. 

printed version of postcards
a6,
300dpi
cmyk
tiff format

put it all in a folder
Thursday 9.30 assessment briefing  - does it makes sense as a project (boards etc)

propose and document process - evaluation why haven't gone any further etc (info /documentary video)


when did briefs turn into big briefs - how are they linked
link between briefs - how they informed each other


what i proposed in the first place - where they are now, how they make sense now.


hand drawn illustration -
part 1 -
part 2-
part 3-
part 4 (project report)

how my whole body of work has developed across this period of time.

how do i present and evaluate all the briefs in a away that you know what they are, what i got out of them, professional research, ability to analyse problems, visual quality. relation to my practice in professional industry - SOI
how each brief has made my practice.


PROJECT management skills -
maybe 3 massively developed briefs 2 half hearted

last post for each briefs - 3 or 4 boards

what brief is, how i conceptualized it - summary.
the outcomes, how i got to it, the brief



Physical submissions of work
- big project - everything coming in, physical, final drawings, boards.

if i feel you need to be able to feel the prints, touch the prints, open the print - ill beed to print them.

Dicussion with Fred.

After my tutorial with Fred about needing to tell the stories of each person across more then just one portrait, i spend the weekend developing the collages which i hoped would be the type of development necessary to accomplish this. 

i showed these to Fred, along with this layout that for a exhibition i am proposing the illustrations to exist in;

he suggested that instead of still thinking about them as wall hangings, to broaden the scope and context. though i had consider layout a lot in the collage designs - (linking them together like a tryptic, yet working as separate pieces as well) he suggesting thinking about their layout of the wall. 

so i have thought about creating a concertina book. though this means i need to alter the layout of the collages, i want to use the same technique and produce a continuum illustrated collage that works as separate pages on the concertina but when opens links together and exists as one long collage.

i think this idea works better as i feel it strengthens the concept of a journey - especially as i have decided to layout the collages starting with early memories and ending in more current life situations this layout will visually communicating the timeline of their life.

it allows me to incorporate the portrait illustrations as part of the concertina also. using the portraits as the front cover, with a few overlaying illustrations to communicate parts of their life as a taster of whats to come. i like how it will also introduce the viewer to the person, yet they will initially just think of them as just another elderly person - then they will learn about them, making them more interesting, hopefully influencing the viewer to interact more with elderly people, finding common connections and remembering they have had and still have interesting lives and stories to share.

Johns collage development

separate boards 

How they linked together

developing Hazels collage

Separate collage boards 

 

how they all link together

after discussion with Fred about how i am trying to cram everything i found out about each person in one portrait/one illustration piece i have thought about way i could spread out my experience with each person on more than one portrait. 

'think about it in terms of how many pages in a book you would beed to tell the story.'

David Fullarton 

i really like the reportage nature of this artist work, i think it communicates not just a person but gives you a background, atmosphere and personality. - something i want to capture in my illustrations. 

i really like the way he incorporates text as a way to communicate his message aswell. i think this makes people more inclined to engage with a piece. 

i liked the idea of making a a collage for each person which exist as separate square illustration boards but link together by overlapping an illustration on both boards - like a tryptic does. 

however, though i was branching out of the circumference of a single portrait to add and communicate the story of the person in the portrait, i still felt their was more elements of their lives i could draw that wouldn't fit into just 2 more pieces (without cramming again) 

so i have decided to produce 4 square illustration collage boards. 

all 4 will link together merging the one persons journey (as it is a continuum journey) but will be work as separate pieces. 

i have tried to add illustrations, quotes and life moments that happened at similar times in each square, starting from the early life memories and ending in more recent happenings.  

Tutorial with Ben jones

thouh i already have a porfolio, ben suggested i buy another one - he showed me some that he classed as industry standard now.
we looked at the box portfolio and a paged folder -
paged folder will present my work clearly from page to page, but a box will allow me to take out my work and spread it across the table to show clients at meetings etc.

selection of best 20. in portfolio

set of illustrations from children book, shows i can work works with spot illustration - editiorial using want spot illustration so good to show i can work like that.

Submission Tutorial Notes and Time table for this Point forward

Submission Tutorial notes: (all briefs) 

i need to present clearly the final resolutions of each brief i undertook as this is not clear - make sure the presentation on each is consistant

• briefs 2,6,7 are concept driven, play to strengths of my practice 
• briefs 3,4,5 don't reflect whats coming through conceptually and practically in terms of the process i have used in other briefs that demonstrate my practice. 

need to state in evaluation and presentation that these briefs were very much client driven, with specific processes demanded - therefore the high level of critical engagement was not as obvious, or the focus in the development of process of these briefs. 

Big Kahoona feedback: 

if i am thinking about it in terms of an exhibition piece - i need to think about the quantity of the pieces i am proposing - (i would have space for 10-12 drawings/ more than just one wall to fill) 

quantity needs to drive this project not how i am going to lay it out.

potentially got 6 people that i could communicate their stories

problem with work at the moment - i'm trying to cram all the information and the person into one illustration/portrait.

i need to create a number of images that will allow me to tell the story.

not cram the story into a number of images. 

think about it in terms of how many pages in a book you would beed to tell the story. 

portrait print of each person - then could have 4 or 5 more to tell their story.  

as a exhibition piece, you want to walk in and find out that this is john, this is hazel etc an introductory piece about then, then you'd have all these other things about them, their stories. as clear as you can be. 

with all this in mind, i have decided to made a time time of the weeks i have left until the deadline which will help me resolve and complete all of the above.