Assignment 3: A Poster
Assignment 3: A Poster
This assignment is wanting me to produce a poster for a music gig, I chose to create almost a festival. The title of the festival is, "Controlling the sheep" it will feature an array of experimental musicians all who are known for pushing boundaries and having a unique identity. The main front runner will be Kanye West.
The main thing I wanted to explore was how Hip Hop and Rap music has always had a connection with Art, whether it is art that is on the covers of albums or the production of posters and promotional materials. Because both art and music are so expressive they can go hand in hand.
The first place I explored was the UCA online library and searched for any books or articles on music festivals, it was a very niche subject but I found something. Art at the Music Festival: Blueprints and the Chronotope. The article was very interesting and kind of went over my head, but I did take away this idea of music festivals losing the carnivalesque aesthetics to them, they are less about the liveliness and excitement and more about convenience and commercialised packages. This did spark inspiration in my mind to push my artwork to be as exciting and lively as possible and less about being conventional.
One of the artists I got a lot of inspiration for my work for this assignment was Takashi Murakami, he is a Japanese contemporary artist. I chose Takashi because he has worked alongside Kanye a lot on multiple projects. His art is incredibly fun and colourful, I especially like his complex imagination, I haven't delved deep into the world of anime and manga like Takashi did to source a lot of his inspiration from. So I am not completely aware of everything that has brought Takashi to this point. My main focus is that he has worked with massive fashion houses and huge names. Such as Virgil Abloh and Marc Jacobs. It seems that Fashion art and music have all collaboratively joined together.
Here is a large selection of artwork I have sourced. One word I would use to describe Takashi's work is 'Wacky'. I think this type of energy really translates to my artistic style. My mind does have a lot of ideas and I think that this art style is an exciting way of getting that across visually. One thing I have been trying to do each day is draw something every day, today was the day I decided to just go for it. I found a website that offers prompts to help to inspire me, today was Loch Ness. I was all consumed by Takashis work so that was a big part of my inspiration for this drawing. I thought my Loch Ness was strange and exciting and has a wacky aesthetic. Takeshi's work is often described as 'psychedelic' I think that is very true, from what I have heard and seen when the brain enters a psychedelic state we begin to see vividly more colourful.
Ultimately the connection between this style of wacky artwork and the style of rap music that will feature at my festival is that both are different than the mainstream and beyond what people expect. True to life art is what people expect because it is usually the easiest to understand and respect, it is art that the viewer doesn't have to think deeper than if it looks like the thing the artist was drawing. Mainstream pop is music that is usually about generic topics so it is more accessible and reaches a wider audience, Rap music often discusses topics that are often deeper and have higher severity. These topics are woven in lyrically and creatively.
What I then went on to do was brainstorm ideas for what I was going to create. Now, this assignment tasked me with producing the poster for a music event. The main thing I wanted to do was to take the ideas and processes that the exercises up until now had taught me and to use those when producing the assignment, this way it would stop me from just using the same process that I normally do and to actually expand on that, for better or for worse. What I chose was to produce the poster and accompanying visuals for a Music Festival hosted by Kanye West. This festival would bring together a range of very creative individuals.
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| Moodboard |
As you can see from these sketches I have explored lots of different ideas and concepts. One thing I have been attempting to do more was to build on ideas. I try and get down lots of new ideas that I come up with, but I then tried to use this new idea to advance a previous idea I had and then build on it.
The two main ideas that I came out of this sketching process liking the most was, having the sheep as Tutankhamun and the sheep following a dangling set of flowers. I chose Tutankhamun as he was a really famous Egyptian Pharaoh and iconic. Having the sheep try and imitate and become him highlights the ideas behind the festival about having your own identity. The sheep following the flowers represent society telling us what we need to be valued and dangling it in our face, this is all noted down in my sketches.
Ultimately I decided on the flower concept, this one was my favourite. I thought this idea had strong links with my message and also I feel would be the most fun. The next thing I did was create a series of thumbnails around my final idea, this is where I could play around with composition and perspectives.
Whilst drawing these thumbnail images I had quite a few new ideas that would end up being part of my final piece. The first came to me whilst adjusting the perspective, I placed the flowers in front of the sheep, this would reference the carrot and the stick idea more. I also drew a flower crown on my sheep and wrote next to it. "Shows that they are following what they are told gives them worth (flowers) and even though they already have that thing (flower crown) they want more. The flowers are ultimately a stand-in for money, power and fame etc. The other idea I had whilst sketching was to utilise those flowers to display the date and venue of the event, just so in terms of composition they had more of a purpose.
The next thing I went and did was illustrate a series of three sheep on my iPad, originally these sheep would be used within the title of my festival. I wanted to make them seem more adult and less childish, I achieved this by giving them a sense of mystery darkness. They weren't all happy and bushy tailed. I thought this worked well.
I really have loved experimenting with my iPad, it allows me to utilise a whole range of tools, I am not just using a digital paintbrush, in procreate I can use chalks, different paints as well as more pencils than I can own. Also, I correct mistakes on the fly, if I ink a line and it is not straight I can then erase it and straighten it up. I can also zoom in and out of the image wherever and access really small details. There is also a huge advantage of already having the image digital, I can save it directly as a png and then use it within photoshop, whereas before when I would draw something in my sketchbook I would have to scan it in or take a photoshop, this loses quality and lighting can sometimes change the look.
After I had created my 3 digitally drawn sheep, I then went onto to create the main sheep inside my poster. To be more experimental, for this sheep I was traditional coloured pencils. I took this time to practise by watching a couple of youtube videos centred around coloured pencils.
This was my final coloured pencil drawing. I am really happy with this overall, I spent time lightly building up colour and using shading to add depth. After I had completed it, I went over with darker browns and oranges to create texture. Then using my black fineliner I further defined the areas of his body just so they have more depth and contrast.
This was then time for me to start developing my text and bringing the whole poster together. I watched a few youtube videos on effective poster design. I made a few notes on that.
- Utilise contrasting colours
- Keep the colour palette minimal
I used a website called 'coolors' to create my palette.
I then went onto illustrator to design the title for my festival. I wanted to have something bold that stood out. I decided on these two fonts. I used a bold font for the word control to reflect the controlling nature of society and how it's bold and in your face. The triangles and lines not only added detail but reflected how creativity is controlled and straightened out. The lines on top of the word control are wiggling and free, whereas after the word control they are straight and regimented.
I then went into photoshop to create my poster. There was just something about it that did not feel right. It didn't reflect the original feel I wanted to go for, it was lacking direction.
I had created on my ipad some flowers using the orange and blue colour palette, but they just did not feel right next to my pencilled drawing. Speaking of the pencil drawing, I started to feel that it didn't fit into the poster and It began to really stress me out. I then realised what was happening, I was unable to cut out work that I had spent so much time creating, I could see that it just didn't look right but instead of cutting it out, I kept trying to make it work, and who knows I could have reached that point but ultimately it was just causing more stress to build up and my focus was dropping.
One of the biggest creative inspirations in my life is my Dad, it was actually a big talk I had with him that really gave me my motivation back. He told me what I kind of already knew. We established the following things.
- The illustration doesn't work, the coloured pencils look childish
- I have strayed really far from my original vision
- The arrows on my title are causing my text to be lost
I feel like a lot of these criticisms were already inside of me as it was most of the time me that would come to that specific conclusion. So I then re considered my illustration. I went back into my mood board and folders of images to garner some inspiration. I knew I had to do two things, re draw my illustration and re draw it my concisely.
I went back to the cover of "Kids See Ghosts" it is an album created by Kanye West and Kid Cudi. The album art work was created by Takashi. It was painted using watercolour. I thought this would be a great medium to paint my illustration in. It was more adult than a coloured pencil and would better suit the audience. I also think it would be a better tool to highlight creativity amongst rap music.
That day I decided to take some time away from my work to experiment with watercolours, I had never owned any so it was actually my girlfriend's idea to go out and buy some. We bought some watercolours and painted outside.
It was the first time I had ever painted with watercolours before so this was my first time using them. It was more so to relax and chill out. I did, however, learn about how to paint with them and how it is all about building the colour up with layers.
I decided to paint my sheep on my iPad, I feel like it is the best way for me to do it, the brushes obey the same rules that normal traditional brushes do, however, because I am not confident with watercolours I would be able to make mistakes and then correct them. Also, the other big benefit of drawing on the iPad is the unlimited colour palette at your disposal.
I draw complete illustration. The sheep and the background together. I painted on the flower crown, previously with the pencil drawing I thought I would add the flowers on afterwards but when painting the second time I wanted to paint something more fleshed out.
After putting everything together and reworking the typography, this was my finalised poster.
Overall I think this has been the most complete Assignment I have undertaken and I will continue to tackle assignments like this one. I feel I have given myself more time to undertake research and to make creative adjustments. My Dad taught me something, it is a method called boxing, give yourself a time frame to experiment and be creative with an idea, if that idea doesn't grow into anything, box it up. Don't keep trying to make something work just because you may feel like you've failed.
This final poster is not quite like my original sketches intended it to be, I tried to add the strings and have the flowers hanging in front of the sheep's face, but visually this just became cluttered and the strings looked out of place. I decided to make better use of the space by having the flowers above the sheepshead, this would avoid having a large area of blank space and to help to make the poster flow better. I changed the title of my festival as well, I really didn't like the triangles and this was something that I discussed with my Dad. I adapted the text, this would give more focus to the typography instead. I made used of the wiggly and straight lines to help fill the gap between the words and to help the eye flow. The lineup for the festival didn't sit right landscape and certainly didn't make use of the orientation of the paper, having it portrait made more sense both in terms of composition and aesthetic.
Going back to my original research I believe that my finished poster feels fun and carnivalesque. It has a big focus on colour and illustration and brings some energy.
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| Mockup of poster |
Sources
Coloured Pencil Shading tips
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p73ii5pKz78
How to draw with coloured pencils like a pro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDOjvPykrJs&t=359s
Water Colour painting tips
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ltIgaytLM
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