Beryl

I was visiting my grand mother and I took some photos while i was there, she suffers form osteoporosis and struggles to walk and I wanted to document her feelings of frustration when she is unable to interact and move around like the rest of the family.

The photos are double exposure with a cooler filter to emphasise her sombreness. 

Some images I created using the previous photos.

I later used the these images to create some new designs, I was very pleased with the outcome but I did again feel that there was less meaning and that the pieces were far too self indulgent, where they really telling a story? I spoke to Merielle, Pete and Ceri, and they all agreed that they were far too focused towards personal interests. I still needed that window to allow the views in, I need broader context. 

Isolation

Prodigious (pro·di·gious) adj. Remarkably or impressively great in extent, size, or degree. “Her prodigious sales performance resulted in a promotion.”

On my gravestone it would say, ‘Prodigious Individual.’

I have continued down my avenue of focussing on patients and their health conditions. I was thinking that maybe my inclusion of images of individuals creates more of a personal tone to my artwork, by seeing the individual does it inject some sort of emotion, does it reel in the viewer?

I decided to experiment more with the images that I had, I took images of patents and tried to see what I could create just adjusting the photos slightly , whether that be with, contrast adjustments, repeats and overlays, I wanted to represent the mindset and sorrow of patients in distress. 

In sickness. 

In isolation.

The aforementioned images.

Hospital Doors

Insipid adj.  Lacking flavor or zest; not tasty. Lacking qualities that excite, stimulate, or interest; dull. “The insipid play caused many to walk out of the theater.”

I have felt that some if my images have been a little insipid recently.

After my visit to the hospital to collect pamphlets for research, Immediately started working on images of the elderly and tried to construct an image of a heart condition, of patients of medication. When I had visited the hospital I noticed the vast number of elderly patients wandering around the building. It made me think about what happened as we get old, and our bodily structures begin to fail us. I know this is a somewhat stereotypical view to have of the elderly but there is a sense of loneliness and sadness that I felt on that visit.

These are a collection of images I found that represented what I felt and envisioned on my visit to the hospital, I cropped and then merged them together to create a montage of hospital experience. 

I was also looking at the way that you can combine different images in a montage to create a sort of shutter speed of a scenario. As I had earlier seen in my first prints, something as simple as applying a similar tone to various images can unite them into a complete piece. I like that this image reads like changing shots in a film sequence, there is a sort of movement in a very static piece. It’s just a simple idea but its quite interesting to see how pictures can work with each other, through composure and relation.

More progression:


I then subsequently moved on to develop the images, partnering them with my drawings from my sketchbooks, as well as ideas of font choice:

These are some variants of my designs.

In these new images I wanted to contain this idea of the patient, that sense of personalizing what I was representing in the collages.

To ask the viewer to look at the man in the piece hopefully asks them to associate, to empathize and perhaps build a scenario of his suffering or condition or maybe he is happy? The image is almost open, but the ideas point to a sadder affair, The red the locates the illness in his heart, the pills, the washed out portrait and the Number, the counting of his heart beat, the seconds slipping away with his life.

Further progression, this time i was focussing the images towards coronary heart disease, hence 'CHD'

Heart Patterns

This was an idea that came from just a bit of experimentation, I don't think it will necessarily have a place in the project but it was a considered image in terms of placing of layers, again the meaning is not in the foreground but the colour and layout is something thought out. The black shape is an abstract drawing of a heart.

To the Doctors

Rapacious (ra·pa·cious) Adj Aggressively greedy or ravenous; plundering: “A rapacious salesman.”

I am rapacious for high marks. 

Today I went to the Hospital to find some leaflets/booklets, on different health conditions, ideally about the heart, I managed to find quite a few and am now going through them to find more details and information to help form more narrative/storytelling with in my work, and also to build new images.

This is the pile of information I took from the hospital. I laid it all   on my scanner bed, as I thought it was would a more interesting way of documenting my finds.

I enjoy how this images looks even if it is just a way of documentation. I like how you see a layering on shapes and colours and how as the piles continues the images fade into the back ground.

It makes me wonder what would happen if I was to scan some of my research drawings, maybe I will find something interesting, perhaps the foundations to a new image.

Nothing particularly exciting occurred but it was nice to what happened regardless

It nice to see things layered over but I don't feel this offers anything for me right now, ah well maybe something to consider again with some latter images.

Hexagons

Today I also was thinking about shapes and patterns to accompany images. I researched about the shape of the Hexagon as I remember watching a documentary where it discussed how the hexagon was ‘nature’s shape’. Maybe the hexagon could be shown or used somehow in my project? Investigating the Hexagon I also stumbled across this, interesting yet bizarrely terrifying video, celebrating the Hexagon in nature; It did make me chuckle, but I quite enjoyed it:

CLICK ME

Heart Book

Vociferous (vo·cif·er·ous) adj Characterized by vehemence, clamour, or noisiness: “A vociferous crowd.”

Im sure my work, when displayed in London, shall create a vociferous crowd!

This week I really began work on the heart book I had spoke of making. I had researched and discovered 36 facts about the human heart and decided to illustrate these, I looked at what each fact was saying and tried to represent these with a strong and bold visual style. I wanted to display what the facts were saying in a way the still contained the text but perhaps used the text as well to interact with the imagery.

I am quite happy with the images (this is not all of them by the way) and feel they have succeeded in creating the strong style i was looking for, I chose the red colour scheme to represent the colour of our blood and the heart itself, and also intended to screen print these images in hope that something exciting may be produced. 

However, after speaking with Pete Lloyd he suggested that although the images were well designed and contained careful layout, he commented how they were not really telling a story, or revealing on a deeper level. They were almost too graphic design driven, I was succeeding as a Designer but needed to focus on carrying this out as an illustrator. He asked me to look at pamphlets or of informative guides aimed at the public to educate about the body and the heart. This got me thinking about information about cancer and disease, things that attack an destroy the body. earlier I had constructed these images of the brain or the heart facing the threat of an ‘alien’ form and I think the use of pixilation in the previous images was strong, I shall venture forward with these ideas and carry out further research.

This is another take from my sketchbook, the design was focusing on the use of cells but also this idea of pixelation affecting the cells. The pixelation in this case has been created with pen, giving a slightly rawer feel, losing the artificialness of the computer halftone pixelation, although I still like both approaches.

Medical Journals

Capricious adj.  Characterized by or subject to whim; impulsive and unpredictable. “He’s such a capricious boss I never know how he’ll react.”

Good word. 

Today I looked at some old medical journals my mother had, I was fascinated by the covers and liked their graphical compositions,  I also had looked at these books because I wanted to see which particular fonts were used and then I would be able to incorporate into the designs in my work. Doing this would create a more complete tone to the work; everything for a reason and a reason for everything.

These are some examples of the journals I looked at.

Here is an example of the page fonts used. I realised it was a variation of 'Courier New' and I decided to use this in my work, to carry the idea of medical research