Principles and Practice of Illustration. Final Letterpressed Tickets.

Here is the collection of tickets I made for one of my final pieces. Like I said in my previous post I printed them on many different types of paper with lots of variations of colours. My favourite of the series of train tickets has to be the larger pink ones due to the fact they remind me of monopoly money.
Considering this was my very first time letter pressing I am very proud of how they have all turned out and feel like they contain the right amount of information for their purpose.

Principles and Practice of Illustration. Letterpress Tickets.

I started my lockup by picking out the type I was going to use for my ticket and then I started to pick out my ornaments to create the border and the small decorational pieces to fill in the spaces. By doing this I did come into some trouble with fitting them all into the boarded area but I feel like this was just because it was my first ever time doing letterpress and I was learning as well as creating my tickets.

Above is the ornament I decided to use at the top centre of the ticket. I feel like having a decorative piece (ornament) here was very important as it tied in with my research on the ticket to Hogwarts and it helped tie the final piece together. Having decorative designs was more common with things such as Disney Land tickets in the 1970s rather than train tickets but I wanted to incorporate it into my own design even if it wasn't completely factually correct. 

Above is the "Trans-Europe Express" which is one of the most important parts of the tickets as its the title of the song. To mark its importance I have used a bold type all in capital letters and used ornaments to under and overline the phrase.

The final lock up for my ticket. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and how well it printed. I used lots of different types and coloured paper like I had decided to from my ticket researched from Instagram.

As you can see I have dated the tickets for March 1970 which was when the Kraftwerk album was realised and the price of the ticket (£42.45) is actually the length of album. Adding subtle hints was something I wanted to do because it really ties all my research about tickets and the album together nicely.

Principles and Practice of Illustration. Secondary research: Ticket reserch.

I have used Instagram to find a large variety of different types of tickets from lots of different countries. I think having such a large catalogue of tickets to browse has really helped my project travel in the right direction. The tickets come in lots of different sizes and colours, having such a large range has been very helpful as I plan on now printing my letterpress lockup onto lots of different types of paper to see which one looks the best and is most appropriate for the context of the ticket.

Principles and Practice of Illustration. Secondary research: Hogwarts Ticket.

The idea to create my own train ticket actually came from the Hogwarts train ticket replica I have framed in my room. I brought this from the WB studio tour in London. There are other replica's that can be found on the internet but this is the design they used in the movies.
As you have seen from the sketchbook page I have previously uploaded into this blog I have taken much inspiration from this particular ticket. I wanted to create something that contained the same sort of feel as the Hogwarts tickets but could also look like it would have been used in the 1970s (when the album was realised). After looking into this ticket I decided to research other tickets styles before I drew up and started letter pressing my own.

Principles and Practice of Illustration. Sketchbook Pages 16 - 23

Left: This is the start of my ticket letter pressing, I had done my research by looking into tickets I currently had and my ticket to Hogwarts. This was my fist time doing letter press so I had to learn all about how to properly set the type and how to add the ornaments to create the ticket.

Right: Here you can see I started experimenting with different mark making techniques to get a rough idea for my poster. I created the skyline using the visual audio from the music piece. I have also placed one of the tickets I created on from letter pressing on this page. 

Life drawing with a twist.

Here are the drawings from our life drawing with a twist workshop. Different items such as toys and random objects where placed onto a projector and we had a few moments to draw what we saw. Having such a small time period to create images was challenging but something I enjoyed and I felt like I learnt a lot from  pushing myself not to be so precious about my sketchbook. 

Trying to create a narrative from life drawing with a twist. Using the same techniques as before but expanding on the images to try and see or create narrative within them.

This monoprint of Kraftwerk member Wolfgang Flür is the final piece that I worked into for a small task in the workshop. I have added blushing cheeks to tie it in with my research on an article from the magazine Jackie which was popular in the 1970s. I also added white acrylic paint to help separate Wolfgang from the background. This image was created to help connect my research and workshops.

Principles and Practice of Illustration. Textures and Monoprint

Here is a quick play around with one of my monoprint textures.

 Adding colour on photoshop to see what I can create quickly from textures I already had.

Principles and Practice of Illustration. Texture/Mark Making Via Photoshop.

Brushes created from our texture/mark making via photoshop workshop. After creating different marks on blank pieces of paper we scanned them in and then using the colour range and define brush preset tabs on photoshop we can now use these brushes to add texture to images easily.

Brush Pattern One

I used black acrylic paint pushed onto white paper with the end of the brush to create this texture. This texture has turned out very successful because of the intricate detail.

Brush Pattern Two.

This brush was created from a small image I found in my sketchbook. Unlike the other brushes I made in this tutorial, this particular one doesn't actually have much texture its more about the interesting shapes and patterns that it can create.

Brush Pattern 3
This brush pattern was created by roughly painting white card with some black acrylic paint with back and forth motions and then scanned in. One of the best qualities of this particular brush is as you can see from the examples above is that you can actually make a very light impression or bold texture using the same brush.

Principles and Practice of Illustration. Illustrating Sound.

Continuing from my sketchbook here are some of the other images I created in our illustrating sound workshop.  

Something I tried here was using a blue background to represent the more mellow tones in the music. I also tried to imitate the tones in the music by the direction of my mark making.

This workshop really pushed me out of my comfort zone because I didn't have time to work into the images I had to make the marks as soon as I heard the music. Doing tasks like this help me develop work without being too precious about the final outcomes.

Principles and Practice of Illustration. Sketchbook Pages 6 - 15

On the left, I have been trying to develop my skyline idea by drawing it out multiple times with different size fine liners. This was inspired by the album art of Joy Division (an English rock band formed in the 1970s).
To the right is the start of our illustrating sound workshop where we had to work very quickly to create different ways to illustrate the music being played for us. I tried to mark the different sounds using different types of lines, the sharper the notes were the more choppy and erratic my mark making became. If the music was mellow and calm I would use continuous and fluent lines.

More illustrating sound on the left.

On the right is my painterly screenprint ticket from my screenprint workshop. This is where I originally got my idea to create a train ticket. To create the screenprint I used different materials to create marks on the relief paper. Using relief paper when screenprinting really helps capture all of the details and texture that is created while drawing your print. 

After my screenprint ticket, I really wanted to create a ticket that could be realistic or look like it could have been a prop for a movie so I booked myself in for some letterpress one on ones and started to design my ticket ideas beforehand. For inspiration for the tickets, I looked at such things as old tickets I had lying around from different places I have been and other things like the Ticket to Hogwarts from the movie series Harry Potter all use lots of beautiful type and patterns something I felt was important to add to my own work.

Principles and Practice of Illustration. More Monoprinting workshops.

After researching Adam Higton I wanted to give monoprinting another go but this time I wanted to add more fine lines and more texture. The image above is of Wolfgang Flür who is one of the members of Kraftwerk, I have tried adding texture to his face with the monoprint technique. Lines and marks have been made with different tools such as pens, a roll of tape and a rubber.

More printing here, continuing with adding texture and lines.

Working closely with my Artist research (Adam Higtons) here I have added lots of fine lines to the whole image helping me experiment with different mark making. Something I really like about this piece apart from the strong connection to my research is that the combined white media with a stark black background you have got an instant contrast this helps create a more dynamic image.

This monoprint of Kraftwerk member Wolfgang Flür is the final piece that I worked into for a small task in the workshop. I have added blushing cheeks to tie it in with my research on an article from the magazine Jackie which was popular in the 1970s. I also added white acrylic paint to help separate Wolfgang from the background. This image was created to help connect my research and workshops.