RELIEF PRINTING!!! *screaming excitingly*

I am shifting a little bit from a timeline of this lovely term we just finished, but as I mentioned in the post below this one, I am hangovered and I just feel like presenting my lovely relief print works right now. 

So! 

I am really, really, really glad that I wasn't lazy this term as I was in the first year of my amazing Illustration course and joined the workshops of relief printing with Simon - cause possibly, the prints I made are the only thing I ever liked in my oeuvre. 

It went too easy - I've chosen a drawing scribbled with a fineliner on a train from Peckham to Streatham Common, carved it happily in a lino and boom! I have 5 really nice prints. 

I wish it could work like that every time - simply, I created absent-mindedly some of the quite cheaply looking eye-candies of mine and the process of relief printing just gave it another, much more sensitive and diverse look, almost blessed this worthless doodle, I would say so!

This is the Doodle. Simple - quite bold, but not obvious? I got obsessed with sad looking faces, as I just found out that I find (God, no more drinking for me) sadness much more sophisticated than happiness or joy. Am I having a depression? No....t yet. 

And here's the process!

(I liked it already at this point!)

(I swear to God, with linocuts you don't even have to print them - they look amazing as a <quite flat> 3D form!)

(first colour!)

(second colour!)

(First and second colour combined together!)

(Third colour!)

Finished! I skipped the fourth colour in my documentation, as I am simply a moron. The last one was black and it wonderfully emphasised the colours I used before.

That's the bad boy we printed with. 

That's me being pseudo-artistic social media whoooo... Person.

And now, lovely scanned, yet not cropped cause I hate doing this versions of my prints! 

I need to come to relief printing - I think me and this process like each other. It definitely adds to my a bit too conventional style, the one I've been said looks like - I knew how to draw those things for far too long and thus it's a bit predictable and boring. Relief kind of undo this feel! Therefore, see you (hopefully) soon, relief printing department! 

Some pictures from a really cool workshop with Jay.

During the duration (sounds stupid but I'm hangovered - I'm sorry Geoff) of People&Places project with Jay, he introduced us to a really cool workshop - he split one of Hieronim Bosch's painting, handed out a small piece to each member of the group and asked us to copy it in different media and with different speed.
It was amazing to see how accurate and inaccurate our drawings can be together! Sometimes the 'joints' between the puzzle pieces, like arms or trees were exactly in the same position with someone else's drawing - but very often they were in the completely wrong place too. If you walked away far enough and squinted your eyes quite heavily, you were able to see the painting as whole! And we loved it.

As usual, it was nice to train myself in the quick, natural and organically flowing type of drawing, as Jay gave us 20 minutes top to draw our piece - and believe me, it is definitely not enough to cope with Bosch's artworks, maniacally filled with people.

Let me share some pictures with you!

This one was the last - and among them all, best looking.  

The corner drawing is mine - and it's amazing, that the person above me put the hand of the drunk peasant exactly where it should be! 

There was another, even cooler workshop with Jay - and I'll post it soon! 

People&Places!

So, it's time to present the final piece for the Jay Cover's magnificent project called People&Places!

Like you know, I've chosen a coffee shop called:
BROOKS
&
GAO
and as I was drawing space around me, I realised I am pathologically shy and it is VERY difficult for me to draw the staff or the customers - especially after the barista said kindly 'your drawings are good!' - making me automatically hide in my shell of embarrassment, mumbling a thousand thank yous while the I was withdrawing quickly to my table.

So, I focused on the objects. I am also a magpie.
Yes, I DO know, that project was called
PEOPLE
and
PLACES
but as an insecure piece of nervous flesh I decided to find my solution in showing the places through the objects I found,
well,
AMAZING.

But first, the layout and very rough idea of the final piece:

So, firstly, I decided to interpret my favourite utensils, separately, in case to give them attention! Here they are:

And then, as the layout shows, I tried to glue that all together in the flat looking, no-perspective depiction of the table. 

Am I happy about the outcome? 

Maybe. 

After all this time, I think I should have get rid of that font. Why did I do that? Another one of unsolved mysteries of my creative process. Unfortunately, it's one of those final outcomes which I did and I do not really want to think about anymore. I used to make my illustrations in Photoshop a LOT, and when I came back to this kind of a process with the B&G illustration, I finished it with a really unpleasant after taste. I like my separately drawn objects more that I like this sh... stuff. 

Oh well. At least I learned that maybe I am not as good with Photoshop as I though I am?

Brooks&Gao, visual and scribbly research!

Our next project was called:

PEOPLE
&
PLACES
a.k.a.
REPORTAGE

And therefore, our primer and I would also say, a base of this project in general, was to choose a place in London, sit there for as much as we can, immerse ourselves in the surrounding and draw/scribble about everything see, to get as much information about the place as possible!

I've chosen Brooks&Gao - my little piece of East London in SouthWest London. I used to live in the trendy East for 1,5 year and B&G looks a bit like one of those hipster cafés they have there.

So, thereupon I am sharing with you some of the pages from my sketchbook which I tried to fill with notes and scribblings.

and some real pictures: 

Dante's Inferno and my messy interpretation!

Don't look at the date, please.
Whoever's going to ever have a closer look at this blog, in order to assess it for, let's say, final assessment of this term - don't. look. at. the. date.
I simply do not have enough time (or time-management skills, fairly speaking) to be up to date. But I'll do my best to catch up from now on!


So, after this short and pitiful introduction, let's start. First project of this year (welcomed with big smile! I was probably the only one who missed the uni the whole summer) was called

F
I
C
T
I
O
N
!!!


The task was very simple - well, in the terms of speaking. We were supposed to choose a book from the lovely list the tutors prepared for us and make 5 illustrations referring to the content of the book of preference.
Right.
So, I've chosen Dante's Inferno, due to the previous interest in the book, couple of Polish lessons I had back in the high school dedicated to this topic and a nerd love for fantasy creatures.
And the last one became my final idea for the illustrations.

But let's start with inspiration first!

Obviously, since the Dante's Inferno was such a bestseller since, like, hm, forever, the content of the book was already interpreted more than a thousand times and so the illustrators more than thousand times tried to depict Dante's incredible vision. Therefore, I found more than a thousand amazing artworks throughout the centuries to inspire me - let me present you some of them.

Visual chunks I like: I am just superficially in love with the depiction of incubus. It sits audaciously on the woman, making itself look truly sassy. Inspiration I found here: contrast. 

This image probably had subconsciously the biggest impact on my work, as I a bit unintentionally made my illustrations horror-like, sometimes to the point I am not proud of - the whining part coming up soon! However, as I saw this image I knew I want my illustration to be boldly screaming the hellish message from the underground as this painting is. I love the way how strong it is at the first sight. 

At this point I realised, that I want to take approach on the fantasy creatures. I love this image - if you think about harpies, then you would never imagine it looking like that - however it is truthful to the description - face of a female, body of a bird. 

(I just happily love that picture, however I do know, that it does not have nooooothing to do with Dante - yet I found this picture inspiring)

So, as the Dante's Inferno is a quite rich in content, motives, stories, backgrounds and contexts, I decided to choose the CREATURES - harpy, suicide trees, medusa, Cerberus and Lucifer himself.

My aim was to avoid formulaic ideas, already well known concepts, styles and compositions, I wanted my illustrations to be strong, straightforward and grim.

I started with a harpy! As harpies, usually, were depicted with a beautiful female features, like ideal faces (plus some sharp teeth) or sensual body shape (especially in the fantasy illustrations or games - it seems like this industry has always been ruled by men who like good breasts) I wanted to completely discard all of the stereotypes. Thereupon, I looked for a female face to inspire me - and I found gorgeous Sissy Spacek to become the diva of my illustrations.

Dante's Inferno + Sissy Spacek = Carrie - if you ask me. So I re-watched the movie and made some amazing screenshots.

So, somehow, I ended up using Sissy as the greatest inspiration for three out of five illustrations - suicide tree and the Medusa was also based on Sissy's face or body. Can't see the resemblance? I am not sure how does it really works - I just know, that I admired Sissy's beauty, so she was my starting point for those three illustrations. Cerberus was based on some pictures of greyhound, not very inspiring, but I can say, that owning a dog for such a long time makes you able to draw dogs at any form - therefore I used only those pictures to guide myself through the anatomy of a dog. The last one, Lucifer, my least favourite and probably just a disgusting piece of shredded paper - was not based and influenced by anything in particular. It is probably the reason why this one is the weakest illustration out of the set of 5. 

And finally, thereby I present... 

My final pieces! 

It was a new technique for me - collage and drawing all combined together, working with textures and layers. However, I am not glad of last two illustrations - I lost the freshness, I didn't know where to stop, while it seems like I've been in control with the first three. Cerberus probably need some recomposition, it's not the best in the shape as well - but I enjoyed creating that piece, just manually. Harpy and suicide tree were the outcome of the firstly made mistakes - but in general, they were just snapshots, they happened before I even noticed I am done - a pure shot of creativity. 

I am aiming to repeat that in the further projects!