Contemporary Artists - Jackie Parsons

Jackie Parsons

 

Jackie Parsons creates handmade graphic imagery combining collage, print and photography. Situated in the South coast of England, Jackie has been commissioned worldwide for packaging book covers and brand development and has also won critical acclaim in the Best of British Illustration annuals.

 

 

 

Contempory Artists - Ross Crawford

Ross Crawford

 

Ross Crawford is an award winning illustrator that happily experiments with the visual aspects of illustrations, graphic design and typography a range that has brought this experience to numerous fashion and advertising projects at home and aboard.

 

 

The first image by this artist has a theme of music festivals with the different images which are linked to music; for example there’s a person playing a guitar as well as a lady singing which a hand gesture beside her which makes me think of rock music, plus different aspects such as drink, food, speakers and flowers. I quite like how the images blend in with each other well as sticking to the same theme which makes it easier to understand and could be could be easily used for an advertising poster for a festival. This image has given me and idea to maybe create my own montage of images but using the theme of the aquarium, maybe including different activities there are to do there as well as a variety of different fish to give the image more depth. Overall I think this is a good collage and like how all the images relate to one theme which makes the image work better, as well as having images that are all colour so that one image doesn’t take the attention away from the whole image which I think makes it more presentable.

 

 

 

Another image I have chosen to look at by Ross Crawford is one made out of paper using different colours and mediums. I think this piece is based around a story with how the woman is running through a forest and also the engraved initials on a tree which could suggest that maybe she has broken up with her partner and trying to run away from the drama. It also reminds me of a fairy-tale story with all of the bright colours as well as the sparkles on the persons dress and the trees that overlap each other creating an arch shape. I think this sort of image would be good to be used on a book cover because it has an inviting feel to which makes you want to see what the story is about. Overall I really like this image and how is has quite an enchanting feel to it and think it would be good to promote it as a book cover or even as a theatre poster with all the creative aspects of it that makes it appealing.



Portfolio Prep

 

Portfolio Piece One

 

 

I have decided to include this final piece from one of my photography projects because I think it shows that I have experimented with a variety of techiniques and mediums, and also shows that I can use different forms of technology for example using a camera to take the image, and then editing it on the computer using photoshop creating a magazine style image with a range of typography and effects.

 

Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein was born on the 27^th of October 1923, and died on the 29^th of September 1997, he was an American pop artist. During the 1960’s along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and many others became a leading figure in the new art movement. Favouring the comic strip as this main inspiration, he produced hard-edged, precise compositions that was well known while often being mocked in a tongue in cheek manner. His work was majorly influenced by both popular advertising and the comic book styles, but describes pop art as “not American painting but actually industrial painting”

I wanted to included this artist into my blog because I like how he has created images that don't necessarily have much detail to them but portrays a message through each image describing and showing the different emotional troubles the character face in their life.

 

 

 

 

Experimenting With Different Photoshop Effects

Normal Image

 

This is the image that I have chosen to experiment with in Photoshop; I wanted to use this specific one because it has a range of different elements such as shadows, tones, colours etc which could make the experimented effects more effective and make them stand out more.

 

Curves

The first effect I have used is called curves, this is where you can change the way the image is represented as in increasing the contrast of the image to highlight different aspects of the image. Here I have chosen to make the image darker and create an effect which makes it look like the sun is setting which the different shadows in the image.

 

Hue & Saturation

 

The effect which I experimented with next is called Hue and Saturation; this is where you can go in and alter the colours of an image. Hue - allows to erich or dull colours, Saturation - enables you to lighten and darken colours and last of all Lighness - can help you create a colour cast in the image. After applying this to the image I think it gives it a hippy vibe, with the rich colours of voilet and green which clash together creating a very vibrant image.

 



Invert

 

The next stage of experimenting with different photoshop techniques was applying the Invert tool to my image. Inverting the makes the opposite to what they were originally; for example black will become white, white will become black etc. After trying this effect out I'm not too sure whether it works for this specific image as it looks like it was taken at night with the night vision effect.





 

Filter

 

The final effect I experimented with is the Filter's effect this is where you can add certain effects to make your image more effective for example here I used the warming filter, which in my opinion makes the image look like it was photographed in the morning where it looks like the sun is rising.

Promote Us Brief - Graphics

Based on research I have completed over the summer holidays looking at different designers and their design style, I should consider the graphic assignment I would like to take from the following options; choose one scenario from those listed and produce a poster/advertisments:

 

1) Promote a festival of locally grown made organic food and drink.

2) Promote a new local fashion store called 'Coastal' aimed at the 15-25 age group.

3) Promote the use of bicyles and a healthy lifestyle to teenagers.

4) Promotion is need for a new aquarium opening in the South West next year.

 

The scenarios are my starting point and may be developed further through discussion, but I will need to produce an advertisment/poster. The assignment will lead into other design problems, for example; a flyer, a magazine layout, a book layout, a point of sale, packaging design, a web design, signage, corporate identity, or illustrations as part of the next brief and Unit. 

 

Produce a design for both landscape and portrait media and apply your design to a professional and realistic client based finish.

 

After much thought of what assignment to choose I have chosen to create my project around the Aquarium theme because I feel that in previous specialisms I have already explored some of the themes included in this brief and thought it would be good to explore other aspects so that I can have a range of work based around different themes instead of having lots of pieces based around similiar themes, and also to show that I can also produce work around different areas in the art and design field.