Lighting, Composition, Texture (individual)

For this project I have to use a digital camera to produce images for each of the following subjects...

Outdoor Observational (reference)

1.Six faces in the environment.

2. Six textures that can be used in other media

3.Six continuous letters of the alphabet

4. Six architectural details that tell a story.

Studio (lighting)

1.a charater portrait in a low key lighting

2. a character portrait in high key lighting

3. a charcter posing in contre jour

I haven't done the studio part yet but have completed the Outdoor Observational. Here they are..

Six Faces in the Environment

This one is from a rusty pole. The big blob is the mouth and there are 2 little dots above and somewhere in between is a tiny nose.

This one was decoration on a fance lamp post. Thise one is very easy to make out with the 2 eyes being the large squarish forms, the nose coming down from between them and them the mouth directly underneath.

This face was on a tree, it looks like its yelling! The open mouth is at the bottom, the line up from it is it's nose and then there are 2 drooping eyes above that.

This one reminds me of a dog because of the nose. The sad, shut mouth is at the bottom, the nose isn't too far up from that and then if you go quite far up you can see two eyes.

I saw this one on a bench, its of bits that have fallen from a tree. This face is a very sad face!

I think this is the most exciting one and is by far my favourite! It looks like an evil monster!

Overall I was very pleased with the faces I found.

Textures that can be Used in Other Media

This one is of leather on a leather chair I found

This on is of the bottom of an old saucepan

This texture is from a concrete wall that had been rendered roughly

This is bark from a tree

This one is more obvious than others..it is grass with some moss.

And finally, this one is a path.

I was very happy with my textures although if I did it again I would try and find more of a range of colours as I have a lot of greys and green.

Six Continuous Letters In the Environment

I love the colours in this photo. I started off at the beginning of the alphabet with an A. I found this on part of a decorative metal thing hanging on a wall in town. 

This is my B, It is the Christmas lights in town, I love it as I find it quite quirky.

This is my C, this was a decoration pattern on a street light. I love its boldness and the tones that defines its form.

This is my D, this is my least favourite as I find it a lot more boring than the others.. there's not a lot to it and there's too much going on it the background.

This is my E, I found this on the corner of a building. Again like the C I love the boldness of it.

And finally this is my F, I love the bluey grey against the redness of the brick. 

Overall I am happy with my letters as I feel they are easy to read and understand. The letters are shown clearly.

Six Architectural Details With A Story

Is is my first one, as you can see this building was originally built to be a bank and was established in 1833 and still to this day is a bank.The photo wasn't great but was hard to play with because of a limited amount of angles being on the ground that that high up. 

I love this one, I love the contrasting colours of the red and green. I also love it because of the simple shapes and forms.

This is of the sides of a bridge going over a railway track. I loved the roughness of it and the contrast of the red rust against the green running along the bottom.

This is the weakest of them all. The quality isn't very good..mainly because I had to zoom in so much and because I get a good angle..purely for the same reason of my first (I was down below it and it was very high up). However I liked the story..i like how the building had plants growing out of it.

I would have liked to have got closer to this one but was unable to because I was so far away again. There for the quality also isn't great.

I love the simpleness of the colour palette in this one. This is part of a church gate and I like how it subtle that its old but still obvious.

Overall I am happy with the majority but not all of them, I would redo some if the chance was given.

Low Key Lighting

This is my low lighting photo, I am quite pleased with it although I would have liked to be able to see both of her eyes clearly.

High Key Lighting

I'm not too happy with this one..its really blurry and has a few shadows behind him.

Contre Jour

I'm not too happy with this. The edges are all funny and isn't a clear simple silhouette. 

Overall I'm not happy with any of the studio photo's, I didn't get on with this at all but love to try it again to try and get it right. Half of it was because I didn't understand the camera I was using. 

 

Mood Boards

For my project during Study week I had a project where I had to watch 2 films and then create a mood board on them (all the colours used in that film). This one was my most favourite of the projects so far and was very excited about it (so much so I completed it within 1 day of getting it). The films I chose were 'Alien' and 'Ice Age'. I chose these not only because I could easily get hold of them but I also enjoy watching them. I used magazines to get my colours..this was a challenge finding the right shades but fun non the less! These are my mood boards..

This one was 'Alien', although the cover for the DVD was mainly Green and Black the actual film was Black and Dark Blues. It had a little bit of Green and some Bright white. Other than that the rest was dark greys.

This one was 'Ice Ages', this film was mainly whites and light icy blues. It had the ocasional purples and tans but other than that there were the lovely shades of brown from the animals. I found it quite interesting actaully because the background was mainly blues but it was contrasted by the animals as their fur was either a reddy brown or a yellowy brown. You can tell that it is a film aimed at children as the 3 main primary colours are used!

I was very happy with the outcome of my moodboards, I feel they work really well and are true to the films.

Observational Drawings for Design: Final Drawings

These are my final drawings for this project (My second). They are displayed in order or the storyboard...

This was my first shot (Establishing Shot) of the 50p.

This is a Long Shot of a corridor and you can see that there is a small object on right hand side near the door on the floor, this is the 50p.

This is a mid long shot of a woman coming through the dor and sees the 50p on the floor.

Next is a close up of a hand (presumably the womans) picking up the coin.

Then you see the woman in a shopping centre (I made it easy to know this as I made her top orange, this is the one bit of colour I used in the storyboard). This is a long shot.

Next is a mid shot of the lady at the till with a close up of the back of the womans head.

A close up of the coin being exchanged.

Another mid shot showing the lady's facial expression.

And finally back to a close up of the coin having reached another destination.

Was was really happy with most of the drawings, some I feel I could have done better and observed alot more. The story was pretty boring and I could have made it alot more exciting, however this allowed me to play with the drawings. And there were a coupld of shot types that weren't right, for example instead of doing a close up as I should have for the facial expression I did a mid shot. Overall I was happy with it.

Observational Drawings for Design: Some Drawings

Here are some drawings I did that I may use for the final outcome...

This is an extreme close up of a fifty pence piece. Its very simply but I feel is very effective!

This is in Eagles Meadow, Wrexham. Some of the people I think are out of proportion and it looks quite flat.

This is of a hand picking up the coin. I love this one, I think it's very effective and the shadow has been done nicely. It gives the image a nice sense of depth.

This was a rough/quick drawing of a hallway in halls of residence. Although the lines are quite wobbly I think the perspective is quite good. I may add a little shadow to give it a bit of depth.

This isn't from observation...it's just a quick drawing to work out the composition of how I want the shot to look. I used the drawing I did of the hall to help me with this.

This is of a hand holding the coin, there isn't something quite right about the shape of the coin that I may have to look at and revisit it. I am very pleased with the hand.

This is another drawing of a hand holding the coin, just in a differnt position and at a different angle. I am happy with this one, the coin looks fine and the hand is good.

This is of a hand being held out (supposedly wait for the coin to be placed in it). I was also very happy with this one.

This is another drawing of Eagles Meadow but closer up to a shop and alot more detailed. I love this but I feel the composition isn't very good for what I need to display.

Again, this is another drawing of the hall.

And finally I played around with the hand drawings on 'Macromedia Fireworks' and came up with this. This is what I am hoping one of my shots will look like! 

Overall I am very happy with all of the drawings I have done and should be able to do some interesting shots from them. And of course there are still more drawings that I need to do in order to get all of the desired shot types!

Observational Drawing for Design: Story Ideas

I felt that I should start the project by making a story, of course it needs to be a realistic one to be able to do observational drawings, here goes.....

I think I'll try and think of something that relates to me first, maybe one of those stories that Nan used to tell me when little...no that wouldn't be possible to do. I would need an orchard and I don't know where one is, I would need an actual house to draw from and I don't have one of those...oh and a horse and some fairies.....hmmm. Ok maybe not!
Something realistic... I miss driving. Maybe something to do with a car...and man and his car go everywhere together, the shops, cinema, football stadiums. The man loves his car so much that he washes it alot...it's always really clean and sparkling! then one day he goes to the garage to have an MOT but his car fails...and the man is very sad, very sad indeed! There's nothing he can do to make it better! His car has to go to the scrapyard.

What would I need to be able to do this story...a footbal stadium (not a problem), shops (got plenty of those), garage (I'm sure I can find one), a car....I haven't got, that will be a problem.
Another problem that I have worked out is that I would need more than nine shots to be able to show the story clearly. Maybe try and thing of another story, a simpler one....

...A ha! I've got it...."The Journey of a..." I could do a story on a journey of an object, something that travels and is passed around alot. I got this idea from two of the required shots... CU of hand holding an object and another CU of something being exchanged. It's very simple but that way I can develop or play with it which ever way I wish!I just need to decide what the object will be..the first thing that comes to mind is a coin. It is an object that is very commonly moving from place to place and person to person. If I can't think of anything else that would be relavant I will go with it. 

So this  is what my storyboard sequence will be...

1) ES- An extreme closeup of the object
2) LS - Drawing of a location with the object in it
3) MLS - Person entering a doorway, spots the object on the floor
4) CU - Object being held b a hand (picking up object)
5) LS - Another location with the person who picked the object up in it
6) Extra - Person standing opposite shop keeper near a till
7) CU - Person exchanges the object with shop keeper
8) MS - Face of happy shop keeper
9) Final Closing shot- yet to be determined

Observational Drawing for Design

This Monday (11th October) we were set our next project, mine was "Observational Drawing for Design".

"Drawing is an essential tool in the communiation process because of its immediacy and economical way of producing design solutions. A sketch or drawing is more communicative than words in ensuring that everyone involved with a project knows your design intensions. Few people can draw well just from memory, most use reference. This assignment is about finding the objects and locations to fit your categories and drawing them to represent your story. The objective is to develop the use of bservational drawing within the design process and in communication an effective solution.  

Produce pencil drawings to visualise the following scenes using the appropriate shot types. You can place the images in any order to create a story.

1) CU- Hand holding an object

2) LS- Perspective drawing of a street/corridor/station

3) MLS- Person enters a doorway

4) CU- Something is exchanged

5) MS - Face registering emotion

6) LS- Street/corridor/station, different viewpoint

7) Final/closing shot

8) ES Establishing shot

9) Extra Shot (your choice)

Work realistically using yourself, other people and locations to create drawings, (9:16 ratio). You will need to create a story based on the images and can place them in any order to achieve this. 

See my next post to see my work for this assignment..

Out and About

On the 10th October (Sunday) I went out with a friend around Wrexham and did some drawings of buildings...

This one is of Waterworld at Wrexham. It's not all of the building as I couldn't see the bottom half but you can get the idea of it! I found it quite an interesting building to draw as it has some interesting shapes and angles!

This building is of the police station...it's got to be the ugliest building in Wrexham! However like Waterworld it was very interesting to draw...even more so when we went round to the other side of it...

....it started to look quite pretty to me the more I drew it, looking at the complexity of its shape and form. I think I fell in love with it in the end! I drew this one landscape in my book as if it was on a Tv sceen or computer,unlike the last.

Then we went to the Old Brewery. This had quite alot of different parts to it. I loved the buildings charcter. The part on the left went wrong as it all became out of proportion as to how it actually is. But I think it looks ok.

Overall I found the day fun and really enjoyed drawing the different buildings, at times it was challenging but I like a good challenge!