Painting in the style of Gipi

Objective

To improve your understanding of the process involved in watercolour.

To introduce the work of relevant practitioners.

Info

Gipi often paints a set of panels that feature variations on two colours. He may use one colour as the more dominant hue, and use the other for creating tone and texture. This is called using a 'limited palette'.
Look at the image below, he also employs an scheme with low saturation.
A good reason for utilising a 2 colour palette is that the colour scheme will more likely achieve unity. (see the basic Principles on the class wall.) This is also the reason why I have limited the colours available in the watercolours by removing all but the dark earths and the primaries. 

Task
Mix a muted dominant colour that you can use for your iconography. Don't
worry too much about achieving local colour. Lay the paint on the drawing and allow it to gather in pools. !! Ensure that you leave the white of the paper for the lightest areas !!

Repeat for each of your drawings.

When this is completely dry—use the hairdryer—mix up a good amount of mid tone blue/brown mix. Tone can be adjusted by the amount of water added.

Use this mix to add shadow. Enjoy laying it partly over the previous colour—you   now have 4 colors at play in your image.

Mix up a dark tone using the blue / brown—us this for the really dark tones in
your image.

Presentation

Take a photo of your pages and post to the blog.

Checklist for assessment

Loose painting style / layering of paint / white paper left for highest value.

Time needed

40 mins.

s

Drawing in the Style of Gipi

q

Objective

To improve your understanding of the process involved in line and watercolour.

To introduce the work of relevant practitioners.

To partly address assessment objective 2 & 3 'experiment' and 'record'. 

Task

Gather 4 examples of relevant iconography (subject matter).

Draw them in the style of the graphic artist Gipi—his work is shown below.

  Gipi's drawing style is loose. He has a wandering, broken line that is partly a 

  result of holding the pen further up the shaft. (I have included a video of 

  drawing of shoes executed in the same manner.)

Fill a spread (or A3 page) with examples of iconography from your book.

Presentation

Take a photo of your pages and post to the blog.

Checklist for assessment

Loose but accurate drawing style with a wandering, broken line.

Time needed

40 mins.

s WQ

“The ceramics teacher announced that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”. At grading time, a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”

- Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland

Repeating a pattern tile in Adobe Illustrator

Creating a pattern tile using Adobe Illustrator

Objective

To introduce Adobe Illustrator as a potential design tool.

To complete another page in your lyrics book.

To create a repeating pattern.

Task

To get to this stage you first need to draw various items to do with your subject matter.

Focussing on another page in your book, choose 5 items related to your subject matter. 

e.g. if subject matter is Fruit = images of fruit stickers would be an interesting choice.

Use any medium (pencil, fineliner, ink) and work small. Fill your page line drawings - try not to become disheartened if you think they look bad - just keep going and fill your page.

Done?

Scan in your page and open Adobe Illustrator and follow the tutorial above.

Presentation

Photo of your sketchbook book page.

3 work in progress shots - whole screen

Jpeg of final design.

Checklist for assessment

Full page of confident drawings / full tile completed in illustrator / consideration given to layout of tile.

Deadline

tbc

Extension task 1: attempt this same process using colour.

Extension task 2: attempt this same process using photos.