Evaluation

From the beginning of the final major project, my intention has been to produce a logo design, tickets and advertising poster to go along with it, for a fruit and vegetable festival called 'Fresh Festival' which will be held on Parker's Piece, Cambridge. This was going to be created using Illustrator for the initial design of the logo and structural areas of the pieces and then Photoshop to create more detailed pieces for example ticket final adjustments and poster adjustments. I decided I would be designing my logo from the way that the fruit is set out and positioned in my images and also by looking at the shapes in the fruit and colours, this way the viewer can enjoy looking at the logo.

To create my tickets and my poster I needed a bold logo design to put on them, which I created first. My selections were based on my observational drawings of fruit and veg and my images. I selected a strawberry because I believe it's one of the most famous pieces of fruit you can find because of the unique shape and texture and colourways that go with it. I decided this would fit my brief and also fit the purpose I was looking for which is to show a fresh and unique design using a combination of colour and shape and this is exactly what a strawberry does.

My technical understanding informed creative decisions by me along the way of this project by using my knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator to my advantage, so that I could create visually pleasing pieces. For example I used my understanding of Illustrator to change the colourway of different designs by creating variations of my chosen logo design to chose a final design. This was a good task to test my understanding and technical knowledge by making quick thinking decisions for new ideas to build on my logo design to make it stronger and stronger until the logo design was the most visually pleasing and ticketed all the right boxes in order to suffice with my briefs.

I have now completely my final work. I have designed my logo design, along with tickets, poster designs and also I have had a t shirt and hoodie printed with my logo on for the festival. These all have been created by working my way towards the final outcomes, using practical ways to work:

My observational drawings gave me my first insight into the way I can visually describe the fruit and vegetables. I did this by experimenting with line, shape, tone and in some cases colour which gave the pieces more of a detailed quality to them. I really enjoyed this way of working at the beginning of my project because of the way I can start expressing my first ideas and thoughts and get them onto the paper. This also set me up for later things like referring back to my first drawings to look at the simple shapes and structure of the fruit and veg I have used which helped in my design ideas, to the lead up of creating a simple logo.

Poster Design

My next objective was to create the poster design for the 'Fresh Festival'. For the poster I had four objectives I wanted to use to create the best outcome as possible. The first was creating a simple design, I did this by firstly displaying the main information on the page along with the logo design, so that I was able to move two blocks around the page to create the perfect setup to start from. To the left is the way I did this and my first steps of creating the poster. My final selection for the placement is the piece with the tick on, I chose this design because of the way the viewer can start at the top of the page and work their eye down while they take in the right information about the festival.
This then took me onto the next of my objectives which is clear information and messages. I did this by making the rectangle block of text so that it makes it easier to read.

The colours I have used for the design have come from the background, which is Parker's Piece, where the festival will take place. This then transfers into the text which makes up the fourth objective which is to make the whole piece fluid linking into the theme and the logo design. I believe that this poster has been a success because of the information it shows the customer however still has the same artist influences that I have been inspired by the 'smooth festival' and also artists like Micahel English with the smooth colours in the bottom of the poster.

Merchandise

In my client brief it shows that I will be designing hoodies and t shirts for the festivals merchandise, these will be made for customers and visitors to purchase at the event. After this festival in 2014 there will be one every year and the logo will stay the same however the colourways shall change to suit the year and time of the year.
The hoodie and t shirt to the left here have been Photo shopped to show what they will look like once printed.
I decided to use a plain white garment so that the logo stands out more, the logo become bright and powerful to the viewer. I chose a hoodie and t shirt becuase it shows a small variety of garments and items that could be printed. I would also see balloons, mugs, fruit baskets and stickers to be printed for the festival as well.    

Ticket Designs

Once I had created the final logo design, I carried creating the pieces that were highlighted in my client brief and developing the Fresh Festival to new levels.
To the left is my first designs of the tickets created for the festival, the customer has three options and exclusive activities to choose from but selecting an appropriate ticket. These are: Saver, Standard and Vip, all offering different types of options for the customer. In my ticket designs I really wanted to show the difference in tickets and display different colourways for the different tickets.
As you can see I have put together three independent tickets using my visual understanding on different qualities, for example I decided to use a bright yellow colour for the Vip ticket to dominate the rest and stand out the most as it's the most expensive ticket on sale.
I believe that the background colour and the colour of the logo overlapping it are right and work really well together. However I believe that the information and layout of the tickets need revising to create the best possible design to show off the sharpness and information displayed, this will make the ticket more simple and will also make it bold by changing the colours. For example I will be looking at the title of the ticket because on the saver ticket the black title does not appear to rule over the background and can see to become lost with in it.

Here is my revised and improved final ticket designs, on this design I have made a lot of changes from my previous designs, the main changes have been the colourways on the tickets, the same as the variations on my logo, I wanted to make sure that the atmosphere was not lost in a world of information and text, this was done by me making the information as discreet and subtle as possible by changing the size of the title and making sure all of the text was the right size so that it does not detract away from the main focal point.
For each ticket I changed the the colour of some of the main and important information and used the background as a contrasting piece to make the information glow on top so that the viewer looks at the information rather than the background, another option for getting this response from the viewer is to change the opacity down on the background so then it does not come across as visible, however then you could get an unclear effect that could confuse and distract the viewer from the main objects. I believe that this ticket design shows all of the correct factors of the festival by being clear and fresh, without making the piece too confusing and powerful as this piece does not have to be the main attraction to all of the creations for the festival however still go along with the theme of 'freshness' vibes throughout the whole project.

Final Logo Design

My exciting and fresh logo design that I have been working towards to produce the best outcome as possible has been created on Illustrator. Firstly I chose to work with Illustrator because of the wide variety of tools I can use to create the best shapes and colours. As my logo is of a strawberry, I wanted to reveal the sense of identity in my design by using shapes, Illustrator enabled me to do this by me creating the correct shapes for the right areas, the design was based on and image that I took and selected, I selected this angle because I wanted to give a different perspective on how a strawberry is usually seen as a 'natural' placement, so that this logo became interesting because of this new and exciting way of visually describing the well known fruit.
I decided to chose this colourway because I feel it's bursting with energy and at an artistic view point it has all of the qualities I need to create an 'interesting' piece of work. I made one small change from my last blog looking at the variations, this change was to do with the typography on the logo, I decided that it needed more attention, as it takes center stage in my piece, I made the 'FRESH' bigger and the 'FESTIVAL' smaller. I did this because I wanted something to strike out towards the viewer and be powerful enough to be the focal point, this was also achieved by changing the text colour to a solid white to enhance these qualities.

After completing the main logo design, I then decided that it may need more information with it, so that the viewer can identify what the festival is with a limited amount of information.
The content of this information consists of three things, where, what and when. I decided to use the three things because of the simplicity it holds, the benefit of this is that, at a glance the viewer can quickly see the information without ready a long sentence of paragraph.
Once I had decided of the content I then had to make a judgement on what visual qualities I wanted to display. These qualities were inspired by the 'Smooth Festival' logo and the way they linked the information with the logo, they did this using a solid and straight line as a barrier between the logo and information. However I did not want to make a barrier, instead I wanted to make the whole thing one piece. I used and transferred the same font and boldness of the font, and then added colour, for example the red of the '2014' has been colour picked from the main logo, and the green for the grass has been taken for the stalk. This then makes the whole thing one united piece and does not detract from the simplicity and confuse the viewer.

Variation On Chosen Design Idea

For my chosen design, I decided I needed to express the true atmosphere of the festival, I believe I could do this by changing the visual appearance with the bold colour to my advantage. I have been taking inspiration from the 'Smooth Festival' logo and the way that the logo's text transfers to the shapes by being smooth festival, by showing this with the smooth shapes.
Considering my festival is called 'Fresh Festival' I thought that the colours chosen should reflect this, at the top of my variation ideas is my initial colourway, which I felt needed changing so that the viewer did not have to know much about the festival however still have an idea of how the festival will be and what the atmospheric values will be.
Looking at the second one down I decided to use bright but natural colours to compliment the freshness of the festival. The natural colours consisted of reds, oranges, pinks and then tones of green of the stalk of the strawberry.
The third logo down gives a softer feel to the design, by using a darker red but contrasting the colours by using a brighter pinks and oranges. This also clarifies the fresh feel to the festival, however I feel the colourways in this third design may still come across too 'dull' and I feel that the design will all have to be bright and not have a combination of bright and dull. which I will be expressing in my next three designs.    
 

This second three of variations holds a new style of linking contrasting colours up to make colourways that represent the feel and atmosphere of the festival.
The top design shows off this technique to produce an interesting logo using a wide variety of colours. For example I have used unnatural colours in the first logo by using bright blues, greens, yellow, reds, pinks and then with all of the overlapped the middle of the piece becomes a dark grey that makes the text stand out more. However this does not fully translate the true message of the festival.
The next change I wanted to complete is the contrast between the stalk and the main fruit, I wanted to to create this because I liked the way that the strawberry in it's natural form makes the strawberry look so bold and I really wanted to add this detail and feature into my logo design.
As I am intending to be putting this logo design on lots of things like posters, tickets and merchandise, I decided that I will need a balance of colours to support the colours in the other pieces, with the last design I have tried to add this balance into my work, by adding colours that might not feel as bold and striking as the other colours I have used in the logo designs before this one however after creating this colourway, I re accessed the balance and came to the conclusion that this may not be what I was looking for, my reason behind this is because I need the whole logo to be bright and powerful otherwise I do not think it will stand out enough.
After evaluating all of the logo variations I came to the final conclusion to which variation I would go for and use for my final logo design. This would be the bright and bold colours of the second design with the subtle hint of blue in one of the stalks for example the third one down, I decided this because I thought that the design will still need to be eye catching but also have something more to look at and the stalk colour would give the balance that I need for the logo to be successful.

Design Ideas

Here is my first logo design idea, out of all of my images that I have taken I decided to use the strawberry, I decided this because I thought that the shapes are very identifiable and easy to visualise, as a logo. To the left is my first idea, this was build from looking at one of my photographs of my strawberries, this idea has come from the strawberry on the right. I created this piece in illustrator by making the shapes and using the pixilated image for my colour ways. I then copied the shape three times and changed the colours and overlapped them by using the multiply tool, so that the colours shine through each other which makes it a exciting piece to look at. I then did the same with the stalk. I used Pt Sans as the font because I liked the boldness and thought that if I was to use a different font from my font selection the font will be lost in the piece of art and would not be as striking as this font is.

Here is my second design idea for my logo, this has been created by looking at the strawberry at a different and exciting angle. This maybe completely different to the first design however I believe that I need to make the fruit look more interesting and use the right shapes for the festival title and font to fit in perfectly. I have used PT Sans for the font of the title this influence has come from the smooth festival logo and I really want to keep it simple.
In the right bottom corner of my design 2 page you can see a lined structured piece to show the shapes I have used for this design. It also shows where I have positioned the text in relation to the shape of the fruit. If you look at the vertical lines they are clustered together to the right, I thought that if I decided to put my text there the whole piece would become too over crowded and will detract away from the simple design.
Overall I really like my second design because of the interesting shape of the strawberry. At first If I thought in my head what if I use this strawberry shape in my logo I would think it would not look right and will be hard to understand what it is.
However I feel that the interesting shape keeps the viewer looking and it can also be understandable from the colour as well. So I believe I will use design 2 for my final logo, however I will be changing the look of it as I go along and perfecting it.

Seeds or No Seeds:

Here I have been looking whether I should add seeds into my logo design, so I tried it onto my basic design using my basic colours from the pixilated image that I took. I decided to add all of the seeds in the same size so they were not too complicated, however I still thought that the logo will look better without them, that way the viewer can try and investigate more into the logo and try and work out what it is. If I have seeds on it would then become too easy for them and I would like to try and put a little bit of the identity of the fruit just by using the colours.

Fonts:

Statement of Intent for Final Solution

My client brief is to produce a logo design, ticket design and make an advertising poster for a Fruit and Veg festival in Cambridge. Throughout my project I have been progressing to my design ideas which will hold my ideas and thoughts on where I would like to go with this project. These design ideas have come from my photos and my observational drawings, I have used my observational drawings as a stepping stone towards my designs. For example I have been documenting what I believe the advantages and disadvantages of each piece that I have created to put together a structure to create my logo designs. I have also been taking my own photographs of fruit and vegetables, which show a big variety of colour and shape that I will be using in my final designs.
The artists and designers that have influenced me have been the logo designers I have looked at in the later stage of the project, these have put an effect on me and a way of which I will like my own logo to turn out. In my design ideas I have been focusing on the way logos use shape and colour to show their ideas and messages to the viewer. My favorite logo out of these two ideas is the Smooth Festival logo, I like this because of the simple font to go with the technical colour ways, this is what I would like to communicate in my own.
The colours I would like to use will be the ones shown in the images I will be working with, I will then open the image up in Photoshop and pixelate it to display the colours in a simple box. I will then put that on illustrator with my designs and use the colour picker to add these colours onto my designs. Then I can create the perfect combination for my piece. The brilliant thing about doing this is that I may change one colour, but that will change how all of the colours come across.
The fruit that I will be focusing on for my logo design will be strawberries. The main piece the I will be taking most of my information about shapes and colours will be the line drawing that I created and also the image the I took. This I feel will help me create the natural shapes of the strawberry and not making it look too staged and perfect. This will then also make the logo more exciting and visually pleasing the the viewer.

Adrian Knopik

Smooth festival is a modern music festival with stars like Macy Gray, Chambao, Maria Mena, Lura together with Polish artists. We prepared complete key visual for Smooth Festival, which took place in Poland in May 2009. The agency (Darkstone & Cardinal) was responsible for creating logo, billboards, posters and press advertisements. The festival itself was held for the first time in Poland and immediately became a big success.

Adrian Knopik has used Photoshop and illustrator to create this festival logo design. He has used these because of the colours that you can mix and the technique, which can only work on illustrator. Also on Illustrator, if you keep it on there the work will be vectored so that the printing company can print the work out at a large size for posters and other important advertising and still keep the same crispness, however with Photoshop this theory does not work as the work is created with pixels, the same as in a photograph. 

The artwork consists of three distorted triangles with smooth sides layered on top of each other; it then has two small single distorted circles with one solid colour. The logo then has typography over the top, which is a solid white colour, the ‘SMOOTH’ writing is in bold so that this is the piece of writing that the viewer first sees and then the eye is drawn down to the festival which was in the same font and italic however this was not in bold.

The colours used have been layered over the top of each other to create other colours. The first main colours were pink, yellow and blue and the he put them on top of each other to make different colour ways.

I feel that I thing that makes this piece so successful as a logo design is the way the the shapes are so simple to create an overlay which brings free shapes together to form one unique piece. I also really like the way that they have used this new technique that I have never seen before. This technique is using three main colours and then layering them up so that the colours shine through eachother to create lots of new colours. For example the yellow and the green together make the blue. In my own work I would like to communicate my logo through using colour and shapes and I think this a really good example of showing this.

Personally I feel that the festival title and the logo are in sync with each other and work really well, I think this because of the font used. In my transcription I have used PT Sans because I believe this was the closest font I could find and match up with the original. The designer has kept this title simple so its bold, however does not attract away from the logo colours and design and I would really like to add something like this into my own work and the design will defiantly have a strong influence on it.  

Original Logo:

My Transcription:

http://www.behance.net/RARRFC

Market Research

In order to investigate further into my logo designs I believe I need to identify my target audience and see who will be viewing my piece so that I can make it fit into this age group as well as possible.

Location

• Cambridge Parkers Piece

People in the area

• Students
• Academics
• Tourists
• Visitors
• Local people

I am basing my facts and figures of the age and area population from the Cambridge City Council website and sourced for Research Group Cambridgeshire county Council - 2011…

Above is the information I feel I need for my logo design ideas, I think this because it gives me a true amount of the population in cambridge and also gives me a sense of what types of people might be passing by or deciding to buy a ticket. In Cambridge there are 14 wards which are shown above, Parkers Piece is in the Market, the market area in Cambridge is not the most populated however it's in the middle of all of them so that it holds a strong impact on the population and it will be important for me to create my logo design using these statistics.

My Target Audience

• 25-44
• I believe that this is the best possible target audience to use for my logo design, as this will be the age group that will most likely be going to the festival.

Health and Safety

Health and Safety at work Act 1974

• The Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 (Re-interpreted in 1997)
• The Management of Health and Safety at work regulations 1999 (The Management Regs)
• The Provision and Use of Work Equipment regulations 1998 (Puwer)
• The Personal Protective Equipment Regulations 1992 (PPE Regs)
• The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH Regs).

All of these regulations and Management's are in place for a very valid reason. By law we should do everything reasonably practical to protect people from harm, we identify what is harmful by completing risk assessments, these are produced in 5 steps to ensure that we have made the most detailed response to the activities that we are planning to carry out to protect us. These 5 steps are listed below:

Step 1 - Identify the hazard 

• Look
• Check instructions
• Check COSHH

Step 2 - Identify who might be harmed and how?

• How severe could and injury be?
• What is the likelihood of any injury occurring? (Probability)
• Multiply the two figures to get a Risk Value

Step 3 - Evaluate the risk

• Decide on precautions, can I get rid of the hazard altogether?
• If No:  
• Try a less risky option, different chemical
• Prevent access
• Reduce exposure
• P.P.E
• Provide welfare facillities e.g Hand washing/ First aid

Step 4 - Record findings

Step 5 - Review and update risk assessments as necessary

COSHH ACT

• COSHH is the law that requires employers to control substances that are hazardous to health. You can prevent or reduce workers exposure to hazardous substances by:
• Finding out what the health hazards are
• Deciding how to prevent harm to health (risk assessments)
• Providing control measures to reduce harm to health
• Making sure they are used
• Keeping all control measures in good working order 
• Providing information, instruction and training for employees and others
• Providing monitoring and health surveillance in appropriate cases
• Planning for emergencies

Most businesses use substances, or products that are mixtures of substances. Some processes create substances. These could cause harm to employees, contractors and other people. Sometimes substances are easily recognized as harmful. Common substances such as paint, bleach or dust from natural materials may also be harmful.

Logo Research

Below are some logo designs I have sourced off the internet, I am using these for research leading up to my own logo design. I wanted to look at the way logo designs are created in the real world and how I can create my own to fit in with the trends at the moment to draw people towards my festival.

I feel that this logo has some of the qualities that I would like to see in my own design, the font plays the key role as it has been created to have a clean finish which makes the company more appealing.       

I really like this piece because of the strong outlines outside of the shapes, this then shows what shapes the text is in and also makes it easier to read the words that are most important. I also really like the colours used as they all contrast each other well. Also this logo design is celebrating the 26th year of running the Hanover Beer Festival, in order to fit the logo with this occasion they have used old text and backgrounds and also the colours used are old and dark to link in with the theme. 

Here is a logo design that is on a cooking oil bottle. I feel that is design flows really well, i believe this because I think when the customer looks at the product the firstly look at the top and then their eyes are drawn down, the gold tree on the black background helps this a lot and makes it easier for the customer to get the important information and take it in. I feel that for my own posters and tickets I will have to take this into consideration. 

This logo shows the way that you can communicate your logo design in big powerful letters as shown on this piece. I also think that the letters are so bright and bold because of the small white outline and the overlapping of the letters. 

To the left is a funfair logo, this piece is the closest to my festival brief as it is an event where people visit and there is possibility of a ticket design to go with this logo, I think this is successful because of the colours used and the way they have used their target audience for the funfair of the younger ages to impact on the bright colours of the logo. 

Project Review

My client brief is to create logo design, ticket design and advertising posters for a Cambridge Fruit and Vegetable festival, which is taking place on Parkers Piece Cambridge. The subject matter and content for my client brief will be the fruit and vegetables, as I will be taking pictures of only the interesting fruit where I will then be creating different manipulations from observational drawings and also creating pieces straight off the computer, for example logo designs and ticket designs.

The developmental work that is required to go forward with my project and designs is that I need to explore more artists that relate more to my work and the pieces I would like to produce. So that then I can gain influence and inspiration for my own logo designs.

I believe that my strengths for my final major work are my practical pieces and specialist techniques, as I believe that I am good at looking and analyzing artist work by finding out the true reason behind the work. Then I use the techniques that I have learnt from the artist and put this into my own work. A good example from this is the artist Michael English that I analysed. This helped me discover the way that colours play a big part in art, as then I went onto creating my Photoshop pieces focusing on colour which was a success.

My opportunities for my project are to explore new ways of experimenting with logo design on illustrator and looking at new ways to produce what I want and make it look professional. My weaknesses are my imagery, I need to take more images of a variety of fruit and veg and also i need to zoom in more to the detailed areas tat make them so unique and interesting.

I would like to focus on a few main things to create a good logo design, as I feel if I focus on the shapes and colours I can create a simple logo the will grab the viewers attention which is exactly what I would like to communicate. 

Gallery Visit - Taylor Wessing

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2013is a 
unique opportunity to see sixty new portraits by some of the most exciting contemporary photographers from around the world.
Through editorial, advertising and fine art prints, the exhibition explores a range of themes, styles and approaches to the photographic portrait, from formal commissioned 
images of famous faces to more spontaneous and intimate 
moments capturing friends and family.
The gallery has four main prizes for the photography work that has been submitted into the National Portrait Gallery, below is an image of the first prize winner by Spencer Murphy Called Katie Walsh. And below that is a picture of all the top four photographs.

As I walked past the ticket man I was smacked with the first amazing photography which was a large A1 piece, as this was my first time at the taylor wessing prize event, the atmosphere was clean and basic with great big pieces on the wall surrounding me, I didn't know where to look first.

The first prize was awarded to Spencer Murphy for his interesting piece of the jokey rider called Katie Walsh.The 35-year-old grew up in Kent and studied at the Kent Institute of Art and Design before getting a BA in photography at Falmouth College of Arts. I have chosen this image because it is the most important photograph in the room as it got 1st prize. The most important thing and the most impressive thing that makes this image so incredible is the detail that has been captured with the digital camera. There photographer has used this technique with using a normal shutter speed shows the detail and makes the picture look motionless. 

In this image you can see the jokey rider Katie Walsh with a confused emotion. The viewers eye is firstly draw to the eyes of the rider and then taken down the page with the tiny detailed pieces of mud. Then the colours of the clothes are bright and capture your eye. As a jokey rider the way that people identify them is by the colour of their clothes. For example Katie Walsh wears a burgundy top with white stripes. This shows part of her identity and also shows part of her story. This then gets the viewer thinking about what the photographer is trying to say. 

I believe that the environment that this photograph has been taken in was just after a race, as after a jokey race the rider has a lot of emotion on how the race has gone and how they have performed. I believe that this is a really good time to take the image as you can get a lot of emotion in the image and it can mean a lot more than a staged photo shoot. 

Also I feel the the dirt of her face and clothes make the piece so alive because of the way that it shows a realistic feel to the piece and the way it feels like she has just got off the horse.
  

I feel that this gallery has a very good atmosphere and has so great photograph and the best in the country, I also feel that it is a great gallery to visit because if you are an artist like myself you can get useful ideas on the photographs and also add some of the ideas into your own work and outcomes.

Although this is photography and I am doing graphic design for my final piece I still feel that I can take something away with me to my own work. I believe that this piece by Spencer Murphy has shown true emotion well and built up an image that shows the true picture. In order to do this in my own work I think I will need to work with shapes because I want the viewer to know what shape I am showing however still have that interesting part to it and make it something that you cant stop looking at. 

Kam Tang Artist Research and Transcription

Photoshop

After completing the first black and white line drawing, the same as the fine liner I decided I needed to add colour into the piece to make it more exciting and make it so that it grabs the viewers attention and is detailed enough. I only used 5 colours in this because I didn't want to over complicate the piece I used realistic colours by looking at the fruit in front of me. The line involved is still there, however I have added the solid blocks of colour to create a more 3D piece and make it look more realistic.

This is another line drawing that I have created. This piece is of a kiwi that I was looking at. I have used continuous line and solid colours. I also have added 7 seeds on top of this because I wanted to make it look as realistic as possible however by keeping it very simple a basic. I have varied the line movements I have used to create different and exciting areas so that the viewer can be taken on a journey around the page.

Here is my last line drawing of a strawberry, this is my favorite piece because of the contrast between the colours, for example the way the the red and green are so bright they compliment each other. When creating this piece I wanted to find a way to divide the colours up on the main red of the strawberry. I decided to use directional lines to show visible areas so that the darker areas and lighter areas are easier to show which makes the piece more 3D. The strawberry piece compared to the pomegranate piece has some strong differences. The main difference and the most important one I feel is the shape of the fruit and the way that the lines are different, for example in the pomegranate piece shows soft and round lines, but the strawberry has strong and sharp lines which shows a different quality to the fruit. In my final logo I would like to focus of the shapes involved in the fruit as I believe this is the best way to communicate to the audience.  

Photoshop

After completing my observational drawings and prints I then went onto complete specialist technique studies. My specialist technique was digital and computer art by using the computer with Photoshop and Illustrator. To the left is one of my first digital manipulation I created using Photoshop. I created this by scanning one of my observational drawings of the pomegranate, that I drew using fine liner and wash. Once I had scanned this into the computer and opened up in Photoshop, I decided I wanted to add more colour into the piece as there were just small tints of blue and purple from where the wash had mixed with the fine liner. I added the colour by using a wacom tablet. This helped me because then I could determine the pressure that I put on the page so that the colours flow into each other. When manipulating this I decided to have the pomegranate by the side of me so that I could pick out the right colours to make it as realistic as possible. I really like this technique of creating a Photoshop layer over my original piece because then I can get the piece showing through behind the strong colours.

Once I had created my manipulation from my drawings I then went onto creating pieces straight off the computer. I created this by using Photoshop and I used a wacom tablet to perform the lines. This line drawing has been created from inspiration by Paul Klee the inspiration from this came from when Paul Klee said drawing is just like taking a line for a walk. I took this quote literally. I created this using the wacom tablet, however when I was drawing I did not take the pressure off the page making the piece a continuous line drawing. I really enjoyed drawing this as I could draw the detail into the middle edge where the seeds are.

Paul Klee

Bio

Or The Mocker Mocked, 1930, oil on canvas, 17 x 20 5/8 inches (43.2 x 52.4 cm), Museum of Modern Art, NY.

Paul Klee was a painter born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered to be a German-Swiss. Movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism influenced his highly individual style.

Printing

Here are some more of my printing pieces I have created, to the left is a piece that was made by direct observation from a pomegranate. I chose this fruit to do my printing from because of the complicated shapes involved inside when you cute the fruit in half, which I enjoyed looking at because of the little seeds and harsh shapes that the viewers eye is drawn to and taken around the fruit. This printing piece I have created is an etching. This was created by looking at the object and drawing onto the etching plastic with a nail creating grooves into the plastic so that once I had finished the piece and added the ink onto the surface the ink would go into the cracks and then I wiped the excess ink off so the the lines would become clearer once been through the printing press. With this first one I just used plain card to print onto, with this card I had to damp the page so the the ink would stick onto the card and show.

This is the same printing piece as before however the thing that I has changed is the surface I have printed onto. I have used a fabric which has had emulsion painted over the top of to create a bumpy surface so that the ink that has been printed goes into the grooves of the fabric. With this print I have made sure I used less ink, as I thought that my first effort had a lot of areas where the ink had smudged. This was mainly because of the dampness of the paper. With the fabric, I did not have to dampen it because the fabric absorbs the ink well.

Here is another relief print. This piece is also from direct observation of a very rare fruit called a persimmon. The relief print works really well with a detailed fruit. This is using the same technique that I used when I was drawing the kiwi fruit. However I used more ink because I wanted to try and add some block colour in the piece. After looking at my first creation from the kiwi, I thought that the lines were very basic and I needed to add more solid colour to it so then the piece looks more 3D and realistic. I made the solid black areas by using a different tool, I cut a small piece of thick card up to push over the top of the drawing, although you can't see this with the pen drawing once I pulled the piece of paper off you can see the areas that I used a lot of pressure with the card which I think brings a different quality to the print that I like a lot.

Printing

This is my first printing piece that I created, I used the technique of printing with relief, this was done by using a A5 piece of etching plastic underneath a piece of paper. Then I used a pen to draw the kiwi from direct observation, this then put pressure onto the page to be applied where the pen marks are. I really enjoyed this way of printing as I could see the drawing with then pen, however when you turn the page over the drawing is transformed into a detailed and solid piece with the strong black lines and areas of the excess ink that had been left behind from when the paper was on top of the plastic. I believe that the kiwi was a great fruit to work with when I was creating this piece as it has brilliant shapes that are simple enough to be picked out and to work with my pen. The piece is one colour but does not have to come across this way when looking at it, as the viewer can identify the fruit and use their imagination to show where the colour should be. However if I would do this piece again and refine it I would make sure that I do not leave as much ink residue around the background of the piece so that it looks a lot more simple.

Here is another printing technique called reduction. This is called reduction because you are reducing the amount of ink there is on the etching plastic. Firstly I cover the whole area of the etching plastic with printing ink and then use different tools to take away the ink by drawing and moving the surface. Once I have done this, I take the plastic to the printing press, I damp my paper and put it through. Once out you can see to the left that the ink is left behind and there is not ink where you have moved the layer. This is a really good way of creating a printed piece because of the way that you can position the ink however you want it and also if you make a mistake then you can re apply the ink. The difference that I feel is the most important difference between the relief method is the thick lines you can create if this, however you can only draw strong and sharp lines with the pen for the relief method.

Observational Drawings

There are three observational drawings on this blog, these three were most probably my best, as they are so bright and vivid. This is because of the media and technique I have used. On this piece to the left I have firstly drawn on an A5 piece of card with a sharpie and other pens to get really strong and bold colours and shapes, that show the viewer what the piece is meant to represent, which is what the fruit is truly like. Once the sharpie had dried I then covered the whole page in quink ink, then I used bleach to take away the quink ink and reveal through to see the bright colours from the sharpie. I really like this because you can't see the whole picture and what is underneath completely, which is a really nice effect. 

Here is another piece using sharpies, however with this one I decided to not use the quink ink and bleach, because when I was  creating the last piece I was worried about ruining the first piece when I added the quink ink, because I thought that the bold colours from the sharpie made the piece look very exciting and different to what I had produced before and that the brights colours work well with the pomegranate.

To the left is another one of my studies and one of the last observational drawings. The media I have used for this is fine liner and water, I firstly drew the fine liner on by drawing the dark tonal areas and the detailed areas. Then I applied the wash onto the piece of card using a small brush to control the areas that the wash will cover, for example in the dark tonal areas I have used more fine liner and more wash to make the area darker. When the wash hits the fin liner ink the ink automatically turns blue and purple because of the pigment in the ink. I really like this effect because of the small tint of colour involved and it adds a new layer over the just black and white drawing.

Observational Drawings

Here are two more observational pieces of the pomegranate I had, the one to the left has been created using inks and watercolours on a surface that I made with masking tape over a piece of card. I decided to use this material because I wanted the inks and water to go into the small cracks and be stored to show darker areas of the ink. I used bold colours to show the bright and exciting inside of the fruit and also because of my pieces before these were basic colours and I wanted to add these in to show a true representation of the real pomegranate. I have used line strongly here as I firstly drew the basic outline of the seeds inside and then I filled the areas in with different water colours that match the real thing. I really liked using this piece, as this is my first coloured piece and I wanted to add colour into my work so I could move on with my work.

This piece has been created using lots of different techniques, for example the surface that I was working on was just the normal card and nothing else, as I wanted to get a smooth base to work on with my ink and ink and also then I could control where the ink was going and be able to prevent it spilling to other places, so that I could keep the circle form of the pomegranate. Once I had added the ink onto the page and it had dried I then added biro qualities onto the page to show the interesting shapes and areas, so that the viewer can be taken on a journey around the page.

Observational Drawings

To the left is my first observational drawing piece, the object I was working from was a pomegranate. I firstly used a 2b pencil to drawing the small drawing in the bottom corner. I used a 2b because I wanted small detailed lines to communicate the structure of the pomegranate seeds. In the top corner I created a small fluid piece using the juices from the pomegranate to get a sense of colour but by keeping the black and white drawing separate. I drew this piece when I first opened the pomegranate, so the fruit was still quiet hard and white inside, I used the pencil really softly over these areas so that I could create strong and sharp edges around them to direct the viewers eye towards the seeds inside.

Here is another pencil drawing of mine, however this one is of another object, this is inside of a red cabbage, I cut into the vegetable to discover these interesting and bold lines. 
I added these lines in as close to the real thing as possible, I picked this one small section, because I really liked the way that the lines fed to a focal point which was a lot more exciting this focal point was the left hand side in the middle, the viewers eye should be caught on the top right corner and then led a journey towards a change in angle to this focal area. I used the juices again for this piece to show the colours, as I thought that the play a key role in making this vegetable very exciting, however I did not want it to detract from the basic pencil drawing so there were only small subtle hints.

Michael English

Bio

Michael English (born in Bicester, Oxfordshire, September 5, 1941- died in London September 25, 2009) was a British artist known for poster designs he created in the 1960s with Nigel Waymouth and the design company they established Hapshash and the Coloured Coat and for several series of Hyper Realist paintings in the 1970s and 1980s. His early childhood was spent moving around England with long holidays spent in the South West of Ireland where his mother came from. Throughout his childhood, he developed a fascination with drawing, often technical subjects such as aeroplanes and trains both of which remained a fascination throughout his life.