Ant can lift up to 50x their body weight (weightlifting ants?), exclusively female (feminism?) still playing with ideas and narrative

Unfortunately although I took many notes on this talk, I used the same canvas on procreate for my visuals and changed the canvas size to fit the smaller specifications, thus delating most of my notes. Thankfully it is all on moodle.

This was a very basic plan of an idea I was developing but did not commit to because it didn’t inspire me. Maybe I can show how the tunnels are underground? Some overground design?

These brief sketches were draw and painted in my sketchbook as I wanted the free, calming element of watercolours, and I, unusually, I was reaching for more traditional ways of working that day. These images too around 30 mins to do, and it was quite a nice change to use something other than digital.

Unfortunately i don’t have any lakes around me so I wasn’t able to take pictures for the lake scene.

I first wanted to draw a can to show big vs. small but I felt this was a weak narrative so I changed to the working ant getting food.

I wasn’t sure on the narrative at this point so I continued drawing when I felt inspired in the hope that the narrative would come eventually.

After drawing the apple, ant ladybird I thought about the story of a hard working ant and fun loving ladybird, and how their lives intertwine (I then changed to a snail because I felt the slower pace of a snail worked better with the narrative).

I also used this print to expose what I need to work on to make the image better.

I felt more inclined to the arts connect and anorak at this time, but decided on anorak due to my want to illustrate a children’s book for the next project. I feel that a professional connection would help this, and the feedback/ practice would be beneficial.

When looking at these images I wanted to use a vibrant colour pallet and be playful in the hope it would inspire some more idea about my illustration. This workshop helped to allow my creativity flow when it comes to colour, because a lot of the images I took were quite industrial. It forces me to find joy and novelty in the mundane which I this is very important for my theme of finding happiness in the small things.

Number 1/10 we were given 30 mins to create non linear, randomised imagery on postcards. By removing the use of chronological working, I was able to be more loose and creative with my mark making/ colour use. However, I found this activity very difficult as I consistently seem to have a critical mindset toward my work, and like to spend more time on one thing at a time, getting out of that mindset was the most challenging part of this exercise. I feel the middle collage is the most successful as it has a cohesive narrative and colour pallet, the line work is clearer than the rest. The collage I liked the least is the blue and yellow, I think it is obvious I was struggling with creative flow and it feels too jumbled and random (although this exercise was to practice this and forgo the perfectionist mindset).

I will add the poem and more depth and see where it goes, the idea is to keep adding and subtracting until I am happy to show the client.

Exhibiting a paragraph describing our work, designs, narrative work and our outcome, we got feedback via post it notes and from the client. I felt happy about what I was showing and was hoping for good feedback to help me decide what to do next/ how to better my work.

I was very happy to get so much helpful and supportive feedback from my peers, their insight is always something I look forward to. I was glad to know they overall enjoyed my illustration and the poem, but I was told that the general colour gave a melancholy feel to the image which was not what I was going for. I will be working on this to create a more fun and joyful feel as well.

The print was not a vibrant as I would have liked as it muted the colour and made it colder compared to my digital version. Net time I will text the prints and be more conscientious of this.

I really appreciated getting Cathy’s feedback and was glad that t]she seemed to like the narrative and colour palette. As my peers said, the colours seemed too cold and it overwhelmed the image making it too dark and quite lifeless.

I spoke to Cathy afterwards and she told me she liked the character designs and wanted me to add more into the work as it wasn’t enough for the final print, I will work on structuring my image more in regards to the text as well.

Overall, I’m glad I got feedback from everyone, and felt inspired by the beautiful illustrations from others as well, but felt a bias disheartened that Cathy didn’t like my work as much as I’d hoped. This being said, I feel that even if my work isn’t cohesive with Anorak’s vision, I am still enjoying the process and it is valuable experience.

As stated, I find it very important to improve my work based on other feedback. And from the feedback I got, i made iterations of my illustration.

I worry though I have spent too much time and attention on the Ant and Snail illustration and not enough on the Lake scene.

In hindsight i feel i left the text too late, and found the process quite stressful due to deadlines.

I played with the position of the text, font and colour a few times on the Ant and Snail image before realising it made more sense to split the poem in half and add another sentence onto the Lake scene, making both cohesive together. I struggled a lot finding the right words to end the poem so my tutor helped me, and afterwards it felt more balanced and true to the narrative.

I feel that I work best under pressure most of the time, and it usually work out for me, but these last minute decisions can also be make or break for the piece Im working on. I will be using my time more wisely next project as this is not a productive way to work for me and i need to be more aware of all aspects of the illustration i am doing. Maybe I will make more lists and callenders to keep track of this in the future

At last minute a felt the two pieces weren’t visually cohesive due to the colour pallet i was using, so i changed the tones on this piece to be more similar to each other. I feel this helped the piece come together and gave it a more whimsical appeal, but i would add flecks of light in the foreground if I were to continue working on it as the Ant and Snail image has this effect, and it would make them appear more as one story not two separate art pieces.

If i were to continue with this piece i would have added more texture and definition to he leaves and cucumber, and perhaps change the colour of the snails to be similar to the lake scene snail. Overall i am happy with Ohio’s this turned out, but think I prioritised this piece over the other too much, it is quite apparent to me the time difference i spent on both. This piece overall took me about 40 hours to complete.