Assignment 4 - Magazine Illustration

Lost and Lost again
I originally planned to work around the subject of Guilty Secret with a display of fruit and vegetables representing healthy diet, concealed amongst them a bar of chocolate. I got as far as setting out some variations in the placings and the position of the semi hidden chocolate bar.
I photographed the setting at different angles and distances.
However in considering where i could take the idea in terms of final piece I decided to change and selected LOST.
Firstly I looked up the word in a dictionary to confirm all the meanings of the term.

adj.

1. Unable to find one's way: a lost child.

2.

a. No longer in the possession, care, or control of someone or something: a lost pen.

b. No longer in existence; vanished or spent: lost youth.

c. No longer known or practiced: a lost art.

d. Beyond reach, communication, or influence: The expedition was lost to the world for two months.

3. Not used to one's benefit or advantage: a lost opportunity.

4. Having not been or unlikely to be won; unsuccessful: a lost battle; a lost cause.

5. Beyond recovery or redemption; fallen or destroyed: a lost soul.

6.

a. Completely involved or absorbed; rapt: lost in thought.

b. Bewildered or confused:

Definition courtesy of thefreedictionary.com
I hope doing this will stimulate my own interpretation.

My setting is centred around the money lost on betting. So consists of an open wallet some coins spread about, credit cards and some screwed up paper to represent spent betting slips. I had intended to include my laptop to indicate online betting, but deemed this as cumbersome so dropped the idea.
With all the screwed up paper to draw I feel I have made a rod etc..

When I drew a couple of thumbnails It became clear to me that it was difficult to keep a sense of what was being represented and in the act of covering the wallet in screwed up paper..

I thought about changing how I was interpreting the word.
My wallet was literally getting lost amongst the screwed up paper.
It was later, after an afternoon walk that a whole new image formed in my mind; how about just a lost wallet with a covering of leaves to indicate this. I collected a few leaves for the still life and proceeded to map out various settings.
This is my initial objective drawing

Then I made some further studies .. exploring angles and alternative placement of the leaves etc

Exploring interaction of form and shapes.
Or tone and angle for dramatic effect

Varying the framing of the image..

Part of the thought process whilst experimenting would be to consider how a narrative could be added to it without adversely affecting the overall look and feel.
Next I made a copy of my objective study and added some tone to it. I chose to use a drawing ink pen.

For a narrative I chose to keep it as simple as possible trying to add to the sense of the word. Just the silhouette of a person in the background without explanation this becomes the owner of the lost wallet.
Moving on to the visual

And then the final piece

I have purposely omitted any tonal value and much of the detail of the wallet; what I set out to convey by doing this was an added sense of lost, the wallet being absorbed by the surrounding environment. Conversly set out this way the figure also looks lost.

Later; I was trying to improve on the lighting of the piece to photograph when I started to zoom in and out of the view I took some extra images framed in this way and kind of liked the added dimension.

I noticed that framed like this the person seems nearer to the wallet and therefore the sense of loss the power of the word LOST diminishes.

Character development

I have to confess I was slightly confused by the term Character when asked to find examples. Did it mean people of character? I found images of Dizzy Rascal, Jose Mourinho and Anton Dubeck and a publicity shot of the cast of but perhaps it meant charicatures or drawn characters as we would be asked to create. Considering the predicament, I thought of ideas for a character to develop; I had two trains of thought a top hat and tails dance character and a 19th century Parisian novelist / painter inspired by a painting of Emile Zola by Cezzanne. Having little experience in drawing figures I did a bit of practice.

I found figures climbing steep slopes and playing football and sketched them substituting their atire with top hat and tails.

The idea being; the ballroom dancer in everyday settings.
At the moment the character has no facial features, my idea is to have a facial expression that is the same whatever situation. A couple of sketches...

Wow! more like Jack the ripper than Waltz wizzard. Second sketch is not too bad though. I had a rough go at a 360 view..

This is disappointing. I feel lacking in the vision and/or ability to craft my own facials. Looking at various examples on the web I decided to take a look at some Fred Astaire pictures.
From this one

curtesy of http://www.nndb.com/people I came up with

I try another 360 view

I am having real trouble adjusting the face to suit alternative angles. I need a re-think.
I revisit my idea based on the painting of Emile Zola ...

Courtesy of Saturday Telegraph review. I decide to concentrate on the aspect of adjusting the angle of view..with this in mind decide to make a sketch from the painting

And try and project from it a face on version. It seems moderately successful so I decide to work on the principle of a character representing 19th century / novelist painter.
In a funny kind of way I warm more to the idea of this character.
I sketch out each view surprisingly I had most trouble with the back view.
In the end I had an able assistant put on a jacket and sketched from her rear view.

I then used semi transparent paper to draw an outline. This was really to lose some of the detail to simplify the characterisation.

I then explored the characters face in various sketches.

Rather hopefully I believed this covered the exercise I could now launch myself into assignment 4. However reading through the exercise one last time reminded me that there was still more to do....
Create another character!!

I expect I could be accused of just creating caricatures of people rather than creating a character and developing it. But I am mindful of this and I am trying to extract facets of the reference face or whatever to assist the process.
Any way seeking inspiration I happen across a picture of Simone de Beauvoir, as you do. I create a quick line drawing from the photo in a magazine.
In an attempt to get to 'know' the face I sketched doodled and drew the face with out the reference image.

as with the previous character I experienced an inability to draft the face at a different angle, but in the end achieved a plausible version.

Excusing the wonky looking eye.

Flicking through one of the numerous clothing catalogues that are pushed through the door, I find a model in the yoga lotus position so base my character as yoga devotee.
I sketch out the pose and superimpose a copy of my head leaving it slightly oversized in comparison with the body.
Now all I need to do is project the image and create the other views to give the 360 degree perspective.
As per the previous character I sketch out a rough and then make line drawings on tracing paper.

I think the looseness of the lines adds to the character.
As to what makes the character,I think it depends to a certain extent on the context in which the character is used. It may be a one off where the impact is short lived, or repetitive where the viewer is required to get to #know the character in this case something instantly recognisable about the character is required. Features, expression that sort of thing.