Narrative - (Text and Image) Jenny Jiao Hsia: Prototyping Personal Experience

I tried to document my day trip out to the V&A Gallery in my sketchbook, a story to storytelling and narrative in my work.


Something I found very compelling about the Video Games Exhibition currently showing at the V & A Gallary in London. In her progress and content, she uses a lot of personal issues and personal life experiences to create her prototype for her games, using personal experience helps her be more intimate with her audience. Hsia uses basic game making techniques married with her signature style throughout her game making process.

Narrative - (Text and Image) Letterpress

Looking into letterpressing for this particular module is something that I have found very beneficial, it has been very important for me to have a large range of different texts and typography to research. Reinventing Letterpress has been very helpful due to the large range of practitioners and their different techniques.

Hammerpress has used ornamental letterpress to create the type.
"The design is quite simple and basic, but what makes this piece interesting is all is the intricate detail work." The Poster was printed in three colors on a Vandercook press.
C. Rivers, Reinventing Letterpress: Inspirational Pieces by Contemporary Practitioners, Switzerland, RotoVision SA, 2010, P36

Sergi Diaz, London UK
These posters were created by Sergi Diaz during a letterpress workshop held at the London College of Communication.
Something to note about these posters is the use of colour, its what caught my attention when researching letterpress with Reinventing Letterpress. The poster is titled Klang, named after the type it features.
C. Rivers, Reinventing Letterpress: Inspirational Pieces by Contemporary Practitioners, Switzerland, RotoVision SA, 2010, P61

Now to something exciting, this is a postcard I got when travelling around America two years ago, at the time I didn't realise it was actually made with letterpress until I recently found it and actually looked at the back.
One of the best parts of owning this and getting to actually physically hold it is seeing the indent of the letters made by the press. I am going to experiment with letterpress and try out lots of different types and colours and see if I can start making my narrative from there.

Narrative - (Text and Image) Diana Sudyka. Artist Research

Here I have uploaded some of Diana Sudyka's personal illustrations, her worked was originally often created with the printing technique of screen printing, something I have only personally ever used once. Sudyka now works mainly in gouache, ink and watercolour, with a subject matter of the animals. Her strong use of text is something I was interested in. In the illustrations, I have included in this blog post Sudkya has used free hand to create the type and I feel like its perfect for the illustrations, the hand type gives it a whimsical feel and ties in very appropriately to the image itself.

Something I want from my own project is to be able to use the right text in my illustrations. I am going to be experimenting with letterpress (after some more research) so that will be my next blog post. 

Narrative - (Text and Image) Evan Cohen. Artist Research.

Evan Cohan portrays a strong use of narrative in his work. His use of minimal colours is one of the most eye-catching things about his work and really draws the viewer in. Something I have taken for looking into Cohen's work is the use of colour, as someone that normally works in a lot of black and white especially while printing I thought it would be nice to take a risk and use as much colour as I can or at least experiment with colour in my sketchbook. 

Narrative - (Text and Image) Ms Saffaa, Artist research

Ms Saffaa's work is emblematic of the movement protesting against Saudi Arabia’s guardianship laws.

Ms Saffa uses her art to project her feelings and protest in what she believes in. This is something that  I want to reflect into my own work. Elements that are very striking about these illustrations are the strong riotous mix of calligraphy, graffiti and portraits featuring the women’s rights activists Samar Badawi and Manal Al-Sharif.
Saffaa admitted that "I Am My Own Guardian" was never meant to be a movement or even a campaign but the Saudi Government didn't realise how powerful art can be and her art was just created to so she could protest, in a very quiet way.

Narrative - (Text and Image) Hand Job: A Catalog of Type: Michael Perry

"In this digital age of computer - Generated graphs and typography, it's refreshing to see a small subset of typographers who still believe in working by hand"

Perry, M. (2007). A Catalog of Type Hand Job. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. 

"Once upon a time, graphic designers would've been expected to have a decent number of lettering skills even if it were just to work up an initial layout. Then the computer completely removed the need for these skills by rendering hand lettering absolute, the computer strips it of its previous obligations and imbues the very act of lettering with a level of meaning that it has not had. Now I use my hands because I want mistakes, quirks, and imperfections- those qualities that give my work warmth."
Perry, M. (2007). A Catalog of Type Hand Job. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, pp 14.

"I would go as far as to say that a lot of people working by hand are directly inspired by seeing work done by others using the same medium and believing in it."
Perry, M. (2007). A Catalog of Type Hand Job. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, pp 14.

As text is a massive part of this project I feel like it has been very important to research different types of text and different ways of rendering the text. Going forward I am planning on experimenting with hand rendering my own but also using the letterpress facilities at University to help push forward the "fight the power" idea for this project. I plan on documenting everything in my sketchbook and on this blog.

Narrative - (Text and Image) Monoprinting

Using my Heroes workshop from two weeks ago I have decided to use monoprinting as a technique to help develop my project within my sketchbook. One of the things I loved about the monoprinting I created is how fast pasted creating the prints is. Because the ink I used is water based you have to work fast before the ink dries and the paper gets stuck, this has helped me continue to try and be less precious about the work I am creating, something that was mentioned in my feedback and is something I am continuing to work on and develop.

The images I choose to work in monoprint with are photos of my mother, a simple eye symbol and myself holding my own artificial eye. They all play a significant part in my project and story so it felt only right to try out different printing techniques with them.
The heroes workshop has really shaped my entire project so far and is still continuing to do because my family hero is one of the leading roles in my story.

Narrative - (Text and Image) Protest Banner Workshop

Experimental protest banner creating.

We took aspects of our project and what we are passionate about to create appropriate protest banners. I started by planning out my banner in my sketchbook and created different slogans, this is something I really concentrated on throughout this workshop. As my project is currently very personal I thought it would be appropriate to insert myself into my sketchbook holding the protest banners.

Narrative - (Text and Image) Experimental Narrative Illustration

I started by making notes of things I wanted to try about put across in my illustration. I felt like it was important to incorporate my heroes and values and how they have shaped my story.

My narrative idea for this module is under the theme of diversity. I picked diversity so I could link it with disabled diversity and make the project personal to me and my story.
I was born with Microphthalmos. Microphthalmos is a developmental disorder of the eye in which one (like in my case) or both eyes are abnormally small and have anatomic malformations.
My mum fought for me to get an artificial eye to make my life as normal as possible and its something I am very grateful for. For this project, I'm not sure if I want to tell my story or create something that will make others aware of medical conditions like this but this is the path I am going down. I feel like being able to talk openly about it is something I find hard in my everyday life so instead, I wanted to use my visual communication skills to tell the story for me.

Things I need to research from this point on include

• How I going to tell my story?
• How I want to present my work?
• Who is my audience?

Narrative - (Text and Image) Collage workshop

Today's workshop was to try and help us with the first of the four D's. We started by making a collage and manipulating images to help try and inspire our current projects. Using different techniques like this at the start when the project is still very open is helpful as it can help us be quick and loose with our work, spark ideas and create inspiration. 

 Here I used my values and story from the heroes workshop to find different images from various magazines and arrange them in this particular way. Something I have noticed in my own work during this task is my use of the hand-cut lettering, this is all heavily inspired by Rob Ryan's narrative work and is something I am looking into to taking further and developing throughout this project.

As my narrative piece for this module is all about my own story of my artificial eye I have used a lot of collage work that relates to this. First I used a  big blue C that I had letterpressed and transformed it into an eye. After I used an advertisement from a magazine and cut the eye out of the woman's face and gave her long eyelashes to exaggerate this.

My last two sketchbook pages from the collage workshop I continued to work on my letter cutting and values. I used Be Brave because it's always something I wanted to be but have struggled with my whole life. The lettering is made from wrapping paper placed over blue watercolours. The colour blue has positive effects on the mind and the body so by using this I was trying to exaggerate the Be Brave message as something positive.

Narrative - (Text and Image) Women Power Protest

Coutts, M. (2001). For the Fallen. [Wood, suede and padding]. Birmingham: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

One of the first pieces of work you see when you enter the exhibition is For the Fallen by Marian Coutts. Out of all of the pieces here, this is the one I connect with the most. Fall the Fallen turns the subject subtly altering the PE vaulting horse into a memorial due to engraved words ' For the Fallen'. As I stated I connected to this one due to memories of humiliation from childhood in the hands of a  figure of authority.

Rhys- James, S. (1997).Caught in the Mirror. [Oil on Canvas]. Birmingham: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Bonnell, A. (2018). TWAT (subversive stitching). [Various polyester fabric paint, cotton embroidery thread. Sharpie, alcohol, acetate]. Birmingham: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.Another piece of work I really enjoyed and felt it was very relevant and made me think of the case in which Lindsay Armstrong the rape victim who took her own life after being forced to hold up her underwear in court. I feel like all of the handmade stitches and time spent making them strongly represents the passion behind this piece and its message.

I took my sketchbook to the Women Power Protest to document some of the art pieces, the surrounding area and the atmosphere inside the exhibition.
Using the colour themes of orange and green in my sketchbook to represent excitement, enthusiasm and growth I made sketches from Expressing Breasts, 2017 which is all about how we view breasts, for example, big breasts are something to be desired but a mother breastfeeding in public is seen as inappropriate. I also tried to capture the atmosphere around Climbing Around My Room, 1993. This piece was inspired after lying on top of shelves she was building and considering how it changed her perception of a familiar room.

Narrative - (Text and Image) Lisa Congdon Artist Research

Lisa Congdon

Lisa Congdon uses clear text and bright bold colours against the contrasting background to use her voice in this illustration. The tiger I believe is used to represent a loud roar or shout of the words "Protect the vulnerable". The placement and colours really make the text an important part and the central feature of the illustration. She has used clear text and image to represent her voice and opinion, this is something I want to incorporate into my own development work throughout this module.

Narrative - (Text and Image) Rob Ryan Artist Research

Something I want to note about Rob Ryan's work is all the detail that is created by hand. All these pieces contain small stories not only with the text but the story is actually in all of the detail too. Being able to create detailed and intricate pieces is one of the things I want to take from Rob Ryans work and incorporate it into my own storytelling and narrative.

After seeing these images I wanted to try and create my own using the heroes workshop we did in class. Like Rob Ryan, I am really interested in the idea of hand rendering my text in this module. Rob Ryan uses the text in this work to create a narrative which is something I am trying to incorporate into my own work and as you can see below I have drawn a rough idea in my notebook to hand cut myself. 

 After the heroes workshop, I decided to try and create some narrative based images from my chosen heroes and the values that choosing them say about me. After some thought, I really think what I value is emotional strength. Ludwig creating the artificial eye and my mother's support make me feel more confident and comfortable with having a disability.

I have chosen to cut out an eye in my image to represent my artificial eye and to help combine my heroes, values, story and research together.

Narrative - (Text and Image) Starting point and Heroes Workshop

Looking through the brief and picking out key points and elements I want to incorporate within my project. I found doing this very helpful and good way to record my ideas and development work.

One of the learning outcomes for this project is to create an experimental visual narrative in response to the given theme. This is something I feel like I really need to try and expand on but also take elements from the workshops in the last module when we did "life drawing with a twist" and had to create a narrative from the mark making.

 Above and below are the mind maps for each theme, creating a mind map of all four themes has helped me think about them all and not just choose a theme on a whim.

Heroes Workshop:

My hero from History is Ludwig Muller Uri who was an important figure in the history of artificial eyes. This is something very personal to me as I wear an artificial eye in the right socket from being born with microphthalmia which in greek means small eye. Microphthalmos is a developmental disorder of the eye in which one (like in my case) or both eyes are abnormally small and have anatomic malformations.

My living personal hero is Dame Julie Andrews, I have always loved Julie Andrews as I grew up watching such films as The sound of music, The Princess Diaries and my all time favourite film Mary Poppins.

For a hero from my family, I have chosen my mother, she has always been supportive, kind and sympathetic, encouraging, nurturing and reassuring.

Using found imagery from this task that represents my heroes I need to illustrate a short story about my personal values which I will record in a separate blog post and in my sketchbook.

Discourse Lecture Notes: Perspectives - Appropriation.

Some important notes from our Perspectives and Appropriation lecture. By documenting keys things such as different pieces by artist relating to surrealism, postmodernism and the uncanny its given me the opportunity to research these again in greater detail at a later date, which I plan on doing and documenting on my blog.