Drawing in the Style of Gipi

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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.

Squaring Up

Objective
To strengthen your ability to recognise tonal gradation.
To dissect and reconstruct your subject matter into tonal values.
To broaden your palette of image making techniques.
To complete another page for your book.

Task
Look at your book plan and choose another page. It will work best for portraits.
Find a photograph from the web that has a range of tones in it—from white to black.

Make a new Photoshop doc—size WxH 8x11cm.

Place the photograph in the new doc and resize it (cmd T / hold Shift) to fit the frame of the doc.

Print it off in black and white—keep the size 8x11cm.
Mark every 5mm around the edge—lightly, and in pencil, join them together to form a grid.
Outside the box, write numbers 1-16 across the top edge and A-V down the side.

Go to a new spread in your sketchbook and draw a 16x22cm box, central on the right hand page.

Mark centimetres around the edge—lightly, and in pencil, join them together to form a grid.
Outside the box, write numbers 1-16 across the top edge and A-V down the side. See below.

This is the important bit:
Look closely at your photograph—study each square carefully.  
Your job is to find the dominant tone in each square and translate that tone into the corresponding tone on the larger empty grid—shade the whole square in that tone only, use no detail.
Begin with the darkest tones.

Presentation

Take progress shots as you go along—aprox 5, photograph the finished drawing.

Checklist for assessment

Neat and parallel grids, attention to detail when looking at tones.

Deadline

tbc

Six Basic Photo Edits in Photoshop

Objective

To improve your skills when editing photos in Photoshop.

Task

Look on your book plan and choose another image. Using one sourced from the web one of your own images, complete the six 'basic photo edit' tutorials below.

Presentation

In one post, put jpegs of your six finished Photoshop examples. State underneath each, which process was used.

Checklist for assessment

Examples should be visually interesting and not just done for the sake of getting them on your blog.

Deadline

tbc

Cover lesson task, Wednesday the 18th of Dec

Objective

To improve drawing skills  

To encourage an alternative method for starting work

To provide a different way of presenting work

To encourage a worry-free drawing experience

Task

Take a good look at your research page.  In your sketchbook, you are going to be drawing from the images that you have collected. You will also be using some different methods to kickstart your drawings.

Below is a list of ways that you can approach the (often daunting) white page.

Tip1: work smallish. Try to make your drawings absolutely no bigger than the palm of your hand...smaller if possible.

Draw with a continuous line.

Draw with your left hand - continuous line.

Draw from memory.

Draw with the papers upside down.

Draw with a shortening time limit.

Extras...

Draw the reverse of the subject.

Draw the 'negative space' only.

Draw by the dice.

Draw the altered scale.

Presentation

Photographed pages of your sketchbook.

Checklist for assessment 

All methods have bee attempted with enthusiasm and retried when things don;t go to plan.

Don't rip pages from your book, they may come in handy at a later date.

Deadline
Whatever is not completed in class, please ensure is done either at home or during lunch session. This work must be posted up by Wed the 8th of January 2014.

Research hwk - for Wednesday the 18th of Dec

Objectives

Prepare for the next page in the lyrics book

Improve drawing skills

Task

Choose another page from your plan. Look at your Pinterest research (and do some more) and select interesting images connected with the subject of the page.

My subject was a cigarette packet; I've allowed the search to offer up other interesting options like the hare smoking and the figure with a smoking head.

Select 4 or 5 (or like me...9) and paste them onto an A4 sheet.

If you can use Photoshop, make a new A4 and paste them onto that. 
Print it off in B&W.

Take to lesson on Wednesday the 18th of Dec.

Presentation

Post to your blog and Print in black and white.

Checklist for assessment

Interesting images.

Time needed

20 mins

Deadline

Wednesday the 18th of Dec