End of Module Evaluation

Creation of book

I am so Ill wiring this so i apologise for incoherency but it needs to be recorded:

FINAL WEEK TO MAKE BOOK

I added things into photoshop and began editing them, making them clean and enhancing the colours.

I realised that photoshop was no longer my enemy.

Found that i know how to enhance the black of the trees without altering the other areas, can enhance colours of the pastels in the background, have a favourite magic rubber tool which fixes everything, can easily chose colours as backgrounds.

Drew thousands of leaves as an a3 page to then scan in and photoshop coloured.

Found that I hadn't joined all of the lines up so the colourful wouldn't work well on all of the leaves.
I think it actually looks better not totally filled in...more like a pattern.

I also realised that I didn't really need to do an a3 page of leaves as I could reuse one section but i just know that if it was me looking at the book from an outsiders perspective I would check if they were the same leaves image and have a lot more respect for them if it wasn't... it did take me 3.5 hours to draw all of the leaves.

Then began choosing an order as a story board:

I thought that it was necessary to chop up the images so that they were in the halves of the page but it turns out that indesign does that for me...
I decided to start with the bright blue because it is a like a "hello!" and leave with the brown because it is more of a "goodbye".
I chose the front cover to be that mustard tone colour because 1) it is an interesting and unusual colour 2) it is a common theme running through the pastel in the book.
I also tried to alternate very yellow pages of the trees with more colourful ones to spread things out.
Also the first and second full page spreads are my favourite images.
I am aware that all of the trees follow a similar style through out and I hope they aren't boring but more each image is very atmospheric and beautiful.
They are also a contrasting style to the front page and the other photoshop pages but I think it works because there are almost 2 styles going on and it adds diversity to the book.
Learning on the book cover project mistake of printing the book cover backwards I made special care not to put the title on the wrong side of the book. However I messed up in a different way and first time made a typo in the title which re-reading I picked up on luckily or that would have been careless and unprofessional...something I do need to watch out for though with having dyslexia in future projects.

From this order no.4 is missing because I made a final mock up book with my images and realised that it either had to be a 16 or 20 page saddle stitch as I had 18 pages and it didn't fit so I had to draw on the first image I created in this style and bring it in. Because it is slightly different with a mix of fine liner and marker pen rather than calligraphy pen I put it in the middle of the book, where the bind is. Actually in retrospect it has its own quality to it and I think actually adds some nice contrast to the book.

Unfortunately because I chopped all of the images in half I saved some of them as JPEGS so actually lost the original photoshop versions which I know for future to be careful about- make sure I save 2 versions. However in the printing of my book this size it didn't affect the quality of the printing.

I managed my time so that I created all of the pages Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Then on Thursday I scanned everything in and edited everything on photoshop and did InDesign so that on Friday I could print everything off and dedicate a day to that. Then over the weekend I could Evaluate and blog the actually creation of the book. However I did not factor in getting very ill on the Friday... I really like my "to do lists" and breaking everything down into very small stages.

Before printing my book out on Friday in colour I decided to print a black and white copy out which surprisingly was very cheep-only 30p. This was very important to do because I needed to check that it was going to print double sided so I asked a technician to give me the heads up and he showed me how to do it. This was very useful because someone else in my class was about to print straight into colour and I showed her how to make sure it was double sided so she didn't waste money. This was a first because normally I am hopeless with technology and it felt good to not sit there useless and watch her mess up!
From printing out in black and white I noticed that not all of the pages lined up right... I was told this was most likely to be because the black and white printer prints double sided a bit differently than the colour and wasn't totally calibrated. Just in case, I added printer marks onto the document so that it showed me where to cut to get rid of the bleed I had added because they are full page images. I also used this mock up to add page numbers.

I was a little surprised at the size that the book printed at. It is the max size in the brief of 280mm by 200mm however I hadn't actually considered that that is practically an a4 page each side and therefore almost the same size as the originals. However after the initial surprise I think it adds to the power and strength that trees have as trees and woods are large, just like my book.

I then printed the document out in colour...very scary anticipation! However it all printed out nicely. I didn't book to use the print room because I felt that mine was a simple book and the paper wasn't extremely important and I wasn't including acetate or anything so other people would need it more than me. I was therefore happily surprised with the quality of paper in the coloured printer.

I discovered that all of the pages still weren't the exact same size and the technician told me that it was because I hadn't made the images the full size of the bleed on photoshop however I was very lucky in the fact that none of the pages were smaller than the actual page size. It just meant that they didn't all have a "bleed border".

I then decided to get a nice result for a final book I should go down to the print room and use the mechanical page folder machine to get a nice crease, then staple the book and then use the stapler.
It didn't even occur to me the print of more than one book and when I saw other people had done this I felt even more pressure to get it right. I also noticed how much smaller their book was to mine. Anyway, the "creaser" was fine and makes the first half of the book look really good but there is a bit of dis-alignment in the second half and I don't know if it is the to do with the staples because they aren't central nor evenly spread unfortunately...

LINE PICTURE
I had watched a friend trim his pages first, before doing these stages but decided it would have a nicer clean cut if I trimmed the edges afterwards, using the bleed marks on the front cover. I knew that this would work because I centralised the border on indesign before printing.

I decided to use the quote "Trees have roots in the ground and reach up to the sky, linking heaven to earth" which was from my book research. I think this sums up the book well because they are both very striking and important parts of trees. I have some images that focus on the branches and how they are up so high and in the sky that they look like they are untouchable and their shapes make them seem out of this world. They connect the earth and the sky down their branches. Also the colours of the images that I used are very beautiful together (pastel) and it brings a certain magical aura to it. There are also other images that focus on the trunks of the trees and the forrest looking up almost. However this is my opinion and I have realised that this whole book is quite subjective and different people will take from it different things, but that is my interpretation that I have gained from my experience of being in the woods. However my mum for example thinks that the book is more "Trees are special. They are bigger than us physically and metaphorically".

In retrospect I think that I probably should have got more feedback of different people as to which of my sketches they liked and where to go with them. I could ask people which things I should include/exclude as at the end of the day other people are the audience rather than me. Perhaps all of my images are of a too similar style. I feel that they are similar but that makes it a coherent book however my parents for example feedback that it was perhaps too similar and focused. I did have some feedback that I should focus in on a section of my photos and just look at a small section of the branches. I tired this and included it it as my first double page spread. I don't feel that it solved my solution of adding lots of different layers but it certainly created a pattern.

Henry Moore

SHEEP

Reflecting back on the direction of my book it has turned out that (like my editorials in the other module) I am capturing the beauty of nature through beautiful drawings... I don't have a problem with this however I wanted to try and expand my horizons and try some new things. Perhaps something with more of a narrative however this didn't happen for this brief.
However I have also realised that there is nothing wrong with doing studies of a subject for example Henry Moore did...but of sheep..
This is just a few but LOOK at the line qualities here...the depth created by the use and absence of line. They are all similar in the fact they are black and white focussing on line however they are different in their different ways (number of sheep, amount and thickness of the lines, composition, positioning)

Continuous Line Drawings

BAD DAY

I have been struggling to do work. I have found that if I am tired I cannot be creative and dont have patience to create things. This happened badly today and I wasnt happy with anything even though I knew exactly what I was doing and just COULD NOT WORK and that was stressing me out even more.

I decided that I should create some work but not be precious about it...so I decided continuous line drawings were the answer for this...

They have really interesting use of line and I enjoyed making them. 

 This one is from Copley Woods. I like the brick work and the tangly qualities of the tree. Once I had finished I was like "COLOUR, IM GOING TO COLOUR IT IN" but as soon as I started I realised that my chalk pastels distracted the attention from the line work so stopped before I ruined it even more...

I then made this but this is a lot busier and the line quality is not as good. SO from this I decided to go for a walk to clear my head before beginning some serious pages...

Start of pages

Latest plan for my book

I have decided that this style is THE ONE.

It has colour (which I plan to edit on photoshop and enhance) and doesnt seem like a sketch...

I like the line quality of these trees as I feel it enhances their strength.

Each image highlights a different area-season, colour, zoom in, trunks...

Today I had the dilema that I really only have 3 days to finish producing the different pages and my pens have run out!!! I have been using calligraphy pens because there are different line thinknesses. I had to make the decision to stop mid image because the running out pens were creating a faded/different line quality... SO tomorrow I am going to have to run to the shops before they close after uni because I MUST get these pens again!!!

Photoshop attempt

PHOTOSHOP

As an attempt to try and make my drawings less sketchy I thought I could turn to photoshop... However this didnt work out as simple a solution as I wished... I CANT USE PHOTOSHOP!!! What should have taken a few hours took a whooooole daaaaay and a lot of stress...

However these are my outcomes...

My first dilema was the simple task of using the selection tools to cut out the tree... I kept missing bits out and somehow it took a very long time and i gave up and asked for help... I listened very carefully to how my friend helped but as soon as she left I was hopeless once again...

This didnt go quite as planned... I wanted to get the blue texture as a background but for some reason only part of it came through even though I swear I had selected everything. 

This is more of what I had in mind however here I didnt know how to get the page portrait rather than landscape...I did google it and still didnt help...

Also I found that the background wasnt the kind of sky blue that I had in mind-event hough it is really interesting

Then I moved on to finding a deeper shade of blue but something happened to the tone of the black lines and they went more greeny and the white in the gaps became obvious

Then I decided to experiment on a busier background from the photos I had taken in the woods. This one works quite well because it is as tangly as the other trees however it does get lost in the background..

This one works well because it contrasts with the straight trees in the background...

Then I moved onto thinking it might work quite well to have it on the background of a wooden floor (showing the use of wood to humans) however it doesnt capture the atmosphere of being in the woods.

Then I thought it would be cool to see what it would look like with the wood in the lines of the tree...however I have decided that this totally destroys the line quality created from the ink and stick.

Then I moved onto looking at a different image. This is originally a pencil sketch but I thought it might look interesting to try it with different coloured line quality- brown.

Favourite Sketches

Reflection of favourite images

So from my reflecting on my sketches these are my favourites but what makes them my favourites?

They are all experimentation with black trees combining chalk pastel, fine liner and black ink. They have a limited colour palate of only autumnal colours. There are stronger branches in the forground and thinner lines in the background. A limited amount of colour is added which contrasts the strong black.

Tree sketches

Sketches of Trees

 Mainly from observation (some from reference)

What I found very striking about the oak trees when I was in the woods was their strength. Therefore I felt it was necessary to accentuate and try capture this through darker lines in the "strong" places. I found that the contrast of the maker pen and then fine liner works well. I also think that the fine liner captures the texture of the bark well. 

 Here I further experimented with the marker pen but building on what I had discovered with the fine liner (that not filling the shape but using lines builds texture like the bark). I also added colour to this image with very dry acrylic paint which is not a solid dot so therefore creates texture and the effect of leaves with light coming through?

What I also discovered from this was that where the marker pen seaped into the back of the page this created a very unusual image which I didnt intend on. The line quality in this is something which would be difficult to capture from the front of the page because as it has seaped through the paper it was accumilated a smoother/softer line. I think that this looks really cool and it rather excited me because some of the most interesting things form out of "mistakes"/unplanned events.

Here I wanted to incorporate colour into the image so again I used dry acrylic to try and create texture. Furthermore I added fine liner to try and add contrasting detail into the image and even more create bark.

 Here I was trying to create a forground and a background. I did this by having darker and stronger colours and lines in the front. I wanted to make it busier but I didnt think that this was very sucessfull.

 I wanted to focus in on the curvy branches. This is a very important part of the woods and especially striking for oak trees. I went back to my fine liner/marker pen drawings.

 I thought I would try using pencils and used the light and dark and lack of lines. There is a reasonable amount of cross over in this which adds perspective to the image.

 I dug out my chalk and charcoal and started using this. This time I used smaller almost layered lines to create the texture of the bark.

 I thought it would be interesting to try combining totally different medias- oil pastel and felt tip pen. The felt tip doesnt blend at all but had an interesting effect to it and more detailed than the thicker oil pastel.

 I really like this image. I am normally not a fan of pastel and hate the feel of it under my finger nails however I think this is sucessful. This was an image from reference and i interpreted the tree to black with yellowy light but I really like the way it has blended. I also like the layered tones on the guys jumper and hair which I think looks really effective and was rather unexpected. Because of the colour tones I think it works even better because the colours are very similar and it really looks like he is falling out of the tree. I also like the contrast of the thinner lines to represent the branches of the trees in the background. It is also nice how loose they are in comparrason to the block colours. Again the sky is white and although this adds light to the image, in contrast to the very dark tree, it is just white... Also to improve i would do something with the green because it is a different colour palate to the rest of the image...

 This is an interesting image. It is quite eary I guess because of the use of chalk pastels and the greyness with resonates throughout. It was very strange being in the woods at this time because there was green light shining through the trees so I tried to capture this. When I was in the woods the light wasnt scary and creepy however this image seems very atmospheric partly due to the cold colours but it is also aesthetically pleasing.

 Again I was capturing the strength of the trees and I ended up accentuating the curviness of the branches. I then added the chalk pastels in by using the side of the pastel to try and capture the autumn leaves on the floor.

 This was fully chalk pastel and also very atmospheric. I think this is an unsual media because of the way that it blends together. Also in this image I was trying to capture the lumps and bumps of the landscape but not in detail, just to give the impression. It needed to be less detailed than the trees but it really picked up the tooth of the paper.

 I went back to my maker thick black drawings again however used a calligraphy black pen instead which meant that I could use thinner and thick lines but them still rather be strong. In the background I wanted to make it denser but I found that drawing rough trees in the background looked really child like and stupid so thought I could strip it down to just lines. More prominantly this was an experiment with gold leaf. I added it to the sections where there was light because sometimes light is so bright it is hard to see and does glow gold. It is a medium that I could not make be detailed but this jagged effect actually is more effective because it is less perfect and like flickering light.

 This was visualising a story that Ruth told me in her interview about 2 brothers falling out over a cherry tree. It is quite a bring and simple image, not relative to oak trees, but it portrays a narrative... I also gave a background wash here.

 This was experimentation with watercolour... in comparrason to the pastel drawings it is very plain and bland (lacking of tone) however again I mixed media with the dog burrying a slipper. However with the paint it was possible to create a whispy, dry texture towards the end of the branches.

I then decided that a4 wasnt large enough. I was looking through my photographs and getting frustrated that I couldnt capture the depth and intensity of being in the woods and the amount that is going on there so thought I would use my reference imagery to collage this. I wanted to try and keep the light in same direction so the top right hand corner was light and the bottom left was dark. To further do this I wanted the leaves to be at the bottom (towards the darker left hand corner). I cut out some of the trees with a scalple but also left some uncut. I printed out the tree photos on a4 and was collaging a3 so found that the trees were either floating or stopped in the middle of a branch. Overall however i think it is an effective woodland collage and definitely captures a sense of place.

 Post my tutorial it was suggested that I should take a segment of one of my photos (really zoomed in) and this would be in order to almost create a pattern and then build up layers by having a very compact and concentrated branches image... still dont feel i managed that. Also the different shades of green are interesting and not all natural looking but it adds a surrealness to it. I also shaded the background with pastel to try and create density but it just looks really feeble.

I looked at a photo which was very colourful (before all of the leaves had fallen off) and so I tried to capture this through pastel shading in the background to represent the leaves. On top I added black in without water which became quite textural to try and capture the business and dominance of the branches. The texture of the ink running out on the brush is really interesting and I mixed thick and thin lines.

 I quite like this image also. I added colour back in again through pastel in the background but reverted to the black line work however this time also through painted ink which adds a smoother and more beautiful, natural and free flowing...less rigid. I also added in some branches in the background in fine liner which gives the impression of more twigs and branches. When i cropped the image I framed it with a tree in the corner of the image and it had very open bark so I thought I would experiment with using chalk pastel again but the whole width/lenth of the pastel rather than just the point. I think it was effective but just not with this image.

 Furthermore with ink I decided to do an ink and stick (i think it is called-with the end of the paintbush image). The line quality of this is unreal! There are some areas which are really dry and whispy and other areas that are solid black. It was really nice to create the whispy thin lines still in an oak tree fashion. This looks a lot more like a scary bare winter tree. There is a really nice balance of light and dark in this image.

The problem which I am having with all of these images is that I dont think that they are finished enough to be a page in my saddle stitchbook. I think the reason for this is partly because there is so much white in the background. This is not something you see when you are in the woods as there is always something complex going on and I am really struggling to find a solution to this.

One a different note, I have found that reflecting on my work has become a lot easier even in the space of once term. I feel that I now have an understanding of things like line quality and can use them and reflect on them rather than the techniques just being happy coincidents...