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

Self Indulgence

Nexus [nex·us] n.pl.  A means of connection; a link or tie: The nexus between the mob and gambling.  2. A connected series or group.  3. The core or center.

The brain is the nexus of our body and thus ourselves.

Yesterday I spoke with visiting lecturer: Mireille Fauchon who I had previously met in my second year. I Remember it being an important experience during my second year as I had found a Lecturer who shared similar fascinations that I held in terms of storytelling through image making, a fascination of hiding the truth or choosing to restrict what we tell our reader/viewer about our work; whether that be through challenging the way in which we create our images by making them abstract, or by using symbology or clues that asks the viewer to engage with the imagery in a much more active way then merely viewing it and saying ‘that’s nice’.

In regards to this project she was excited about what I seemed to be interested in, in terms of the images I have surrounded my self with. Such as:

But she worried where my work might be going, she suggested I may be beginning to slip into a state of creating work that was far too personal. This is something that I am all to aware of and has been probably my biggest obstacle to escape during my artistic education. However during the conversation I commented on how I feel I have managed to address this issue and subsequently create work with a more universal appeal far beyond the limits of self-indulgence, we discussed my previous project (which she had not seen) and was very positive about the results and we discussed how I needed to create a similar response into my current project of the body.

-I have felt in recent weeks that I have needed to expand further towards the final ‘products’ of my project but have seemingly been stuck on creating images. This not a total disaster as more work is being created, but I really need to start pin pointing it into a final direction. -

For now i shall progress with my heart book.

Veins and Arteries

Plagiarize [pla·gia·rize] v.  1. To use and pass off (the ideas or writings of another) as one's own.  2.To appropriate for use as one's own passages or ideas from another.

Im going to Plagiarize the life out of everyone

Recently at Uni Self Promotion has been the main focus: We are sending out work to Art Directors/Potential Employers to make them aware of our work and presence, I think its a great Idea and have really enjoyed doing it.

Final Major Project wise I have been really exploring the idea of the blood vessels in our body; the arteries and the veins. Im interested in how they are represented as red and blue (respectively) and this is a nice colour scheme to work with. Im thinking that as part of the ‘pack’ of images I suggested in my previous entry I would have perhaps a small book that kept to this colour scheme of red and blue and was a little book of the heart? Of course not in a lame namby pamby, sickly sweet way, but in an interesting and Nate Kitch way.

Just some rough ideas from my sketchbook working with the veins and arteries idea.

Talking to Jonny and further Pixelation

Prolific [pro·lif·ic] adj.  Producing abundant works or results: "A prolific writer."

I’m bloody Prolific.

Today I spoke to Jonny further about my ideas with the project and how it had evolved into this exploration of the body, he noticed that I carry a lot of my drawings around in a small plastic wallet and suggested this could be a way of displaying my images. I really like this idea and commented on how it would be like a ‘fun pack’ that one receives when they join a club or some sort of association. Of course this isn't what I want my project to be like because im not a complete Berk, but I would like to have a collection of images about the body. It would give me variations in size, shape and medium, I could have posters that fold out of the nervous system and small little books of cells and atoms. Scale will be interesting to play with, as well as the previous idea of layering: from skin to vein, artery to nervous system. 

“dem bones dem bones, dem dry bones” CLICK ME

I also looked back at some photos I had taken and wanted to explore further this idea of pixelating the images with colour halftones. 

I took this photo whist waiting for a train and I’ve always been fascinated by this building, I guess I like its cold and harsh modernist feel. But I decided to enlarge certain points and then bring in the use of the half-tone. It linked back to what I had done with my brain image. It identified areas and eludes to ideas like diagnosis and discovering areas of weakness, it targets sections and draws the you in.

I brought this process to an image of my hand, again its very basic but I wanted to see the effect it would bring when brought to an image of the human body. I had noticed a cut on my hand and I guess this made me think of photographing it, and so I did so, and placed a halftone square patch onto it. It created a similar affect as before, perhaps its could highlight an infected area. I then decided to create another, slightly smaller, patch on top of that one and repeated this process to create progressively smaller squares. What i noticed was that each time the coloration of the pixels went a step forward in the color chart: from red to orange to yellow. 

Interesting.

Hunterian

Embellish [em·bel·lish] tr.v.  1. To make beautiful, as by ornamentation; decorate.  2. To add fictitious details to exaggerate the truth: "A fanciful account that embellished the true story."

Can you embellish death?

On Wednesday I went on a trip with the course to London, on that trip I visited two places:

The John Sloane Museum

The Royal College of Surgeons- Hunterian Museum.

I really enjoyed both visits but what I saw at the Hunterian Museum truly fascinated me, as I am investigating into the human body as part of my project, I had always hoped it would deliver me with some inspiration. The Hunterian Museum is a collection of anatomical, pathological and zoological specimens collected by the surgeon, John Hunter.  The majority of these specimen are displayed in jars of formaldehyde to preserve their states, and this manner of displaying the items created an eerie effect, especially when it came to subjects such as human limbs, the partial face of a child and fully developed babies.

On my return home and on the next few days I was focussed on creating images of the brain, I continued my idea of layering as I carried out with the head layers,but I then took these images into photoshop to see what could be produced.  

I was thinking about the processes of the brain and what thinking an problem solving it carries out. The ABC.. represents this idea of thought, whilst the pixelated shape represent an outside/alien subject entering or attacking the brain, not only in a subjective sense, it also displays this visually.

I like the pixelation, it highlights an area; it seems like an alert.