Assignment 2

I started by making spider diagrams for summer fruit and veg, autumn fruit and veg and quality on the same page (to see how they might connect)

and checked out the following links for my favourite British supermarkets and healthy eating sites for extra ideas.

http://www.localfoods.org.uk/home

http://www.healthy-eating-made-easy.com/autumn-fruit-and-vegetables.html

http://www.healthy-eating-made-easy.com/summer-fruit-and-vegetables.html

Waitrose http://www.waitrose.com/home/inspiration/health_and_nutrition.html

waitrose apple heart http://www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/inspiration/health_and_nutrition/jcr%3acontent/par_top/headerandimageonetwothreecol_4.img.jpg/1309443559833.jpg

http://www.waitrose.com/home/inspiration/waitrose_lovelife.html

waitrose fruit image

http://www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/inspiration/waitrose_lovelife/_jcr_content/par_top/image.img.jpg/1327477156153.jpg

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=80943

M&S http://www.marksandspencer.com/Food-Wine/b/199646031

Sourcing http://www.marksandspencer.com/Our-Sourcing-About-Our-Food-MS-Foodhall-Food-Wine/b/56423031

http://www.marksandspencer.com/Fruit-Veg-Our-Sourcing-About-Our-Food-MS-Foodhall-Food-Wine/b/46530031?ie=UTF8&ie=UTF8?

ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=04YN6DV6W995GAZRYGBF&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=46524031&pf_rd_p=475115433&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/00/00/00/32/43/66/32436622._V192203024_.jpg

M&S food labelling image

http://health.marksandspencer.com/uploads/images/our_health_ranges/our_food-labelling.jpg

All of the food images on the websites are photographs, I particularly liked the images on the Waitrose site; there’s lots of stacking of items and brightly coloured backgrounds.

Summer Part 1

I had a pretty fixed idea of the image I was going to make- involving strawberries and Union Jacks (as a reference to local producers) but I wasn’t really happy with any of the strawberry images I made in my sketchbook and deep down I’m averse to flag waving. All the materials apart from guache and watercolour lacked the ‘lightness’ I wanted to convey the feelings of summer and freshness and I was not inspired to take these further.

I applied bleach spots with a dip pen over the watercolour strawberry in the seed positions expecting them to turn yellow, but it removed the colour completely. This could be a useful technique instead of using masking fluid, which I find unreliable and difficult to apply well.

I then played around with painting some watercolours of summer veg from life, and found these images much more effective so I decided to put them together as a salad, which has summery connotations.

I love patterns and had the idea to arrange the separate components like images on wall paper

I’m also fascinated by the exquisite drawings of Ernst Haeckel https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQkXrTxA3BAMkk_D6IC1MPsoo7LV71vuRaKgs2NY7rQMqiZf8bcYA

Then, by coincidence a friend sent me this link to the website Mad Pattern http://madpattern.com/ and I was off to experiment.

Having scanned the water colours, I used photoshop to cut out each object, enhance the colours and then I grouped them together again.

I started simply

And then made more complex patterns

And tried other colours

I’d show the client some colour ‘swatches’ at this stage and allow them to choose the combinations for the finished piece.

My favourite is the pepper/avocado/ spinach/ cucumber image on a black background, although it’s not a traditional colour choice for summer.

This was great fun and I definitely had a sense of the edibility of the images while I was manipulating them so they work for me in that sense. The images have a lightness and softness to them which I think makes them summery and the individual items look fresh but not perfectly symmetrical or over stylised which makes them more realistic.

They have the feel of botanical drawings and are elegant which I think gives an air of quality.

I think as well as the point of sale display these patterns could be applied to a range of napkins and table covers for barbeques and picnics.

Summer part 2

Since I made patterns I wanted to apply them to something summery...possibly:

· Sails on a boat

· Picnic blanket

· Table cloth

· Summer dress

· Fete bunting

I happened across the pin up style drawings of Lucy MacLeod www.lucymacleod.co.uk/ and was inspired to apply the vegetable patterns to a pin up style summer dress, having already made a series of pin up portraits of my friend Louise last year.

Louise also recently posted a picture of herself on facebook wearing a monster print dress which was further inspiration, and her surname is Pepper....

I made a summer/pin up moodboard using some of the following images, I particularly like the way that Natalie Pascoe http://www.nataliepascoe.co.uk/gallery.html uses pattern in a naive way on bunting and to clothe her buxom seadside ladies.

Girl on a fence: http://cemetarian.com/images/p157_Girl_on_Fence_1.jpg

50’s pin up 2 https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7hJ9TdptuYRjRE867WpEbv2Haz-EiQ22w56BkzXe81_ZOCq57jngtDTqUZ9YpaRfoLXaoRf-ljH6o9PdZ1qRi3jUx-EyiSozF4iCWmoDGzvV-wtJwDRrIL3eECL3gPQeMOLUfguxSkoC_/s400/50sPinup2.jpg

Fete https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTA1nxGNRonDdizVG_GQ9HVJ6fGnqE9kCUldaryJwK24tDcnkkeLg

Chase William Merrit at the seaside https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?

q=tbn:ANd9GcSKPmtonGn9xbZYWiOOUrbrISaM1rO_ZrGa5wVZ652oYcxWuLIu

Seaside bunting https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSj0p7AXdY_qE8mZpt8hdN5ZyPY9XyM5990p49wd1wp95PkAI1RWg

At the seaside https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS3-X0xgV4kJSWiMKBhqe4ovfwVdyP5AlPgp_qPl63IAfXZDyJmOw

Natalie Pascoe: seaside, patterns and bunting http://www.nataliepascoe.co.uk/gallery.html

How nice seaside pin up https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTTnGwDz95x-XPEqKrdsGkO-BsVX_K9yg9Y54SJn5zK56l1McKBpQ

Blue beach hut https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRNCy9m813SdENVtBSjU5pMTwxwyGVEEw0lQjzCHrCt6QeZSMBr

Picnic https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSfyIbbuDNazX9DsK34TLHTsX_3CGCoLnObVuuE1MahIWSr_9f-hQ

Picnic pin up https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSfyIbbuDNazX9DsK34TLHTsX_3CGCoLnObVuuE1MahIWSr_9f-hQ

I made a line tracing from a photo of Louise I had taken in preparation for the original pin up series and also took some photos of summery skies at the weekend and experimented with photoshop and illustrator to combine these with my vegetable images.

I did play about with the hat and sky, but in the end I went for simplicity and opted for a cloudless sky and a close cropped image, so the dress could be a swimming suit.

Autumn Part 1

I thought it best to continue with the same format for autumn so I started by making some watercolour sketches of veg, concentrating on squash and broccoli. I tried the bleach trick again on the squash skin but it didn’t remove the blue paint in the same way it had the red.

I manipulated the sketches in photoshop (as for summer) and played with some combinations:

And settled on the squash and broccoli combination as my favourite.

Autumn Part 2

I made a mood board for autumn, using the pin up idea again for continuity.

URLs for images used:

Autumn leaves http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRvRheHzlY0WO9FzIupkrtiW2JtT3ZGuWNHPiybWfH--5YKXGC_e1Yy4LKWtw

Autumn sky https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQOkkcsCcgRTWFWS2TjcwQUBgD8T57_1r-6I8QfcAPBrze9PQuB

Art nouveau https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSbTDnWkFi66GkKD-IgFvFf3r1CIXZS-pBDBgndf6sJAPykhZSb

Autumn cloudy day http://www.paintingsilove.com/image/show/171802

/autumn----windy-day-new-photo

Windy tree http://depositphotos.com/4190434/stock-photo-Abstract-colored-windy-autumn-tree.html

Windy day walk http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-2124091/stock-vector-taking-a-w

alk-on-a-windy-autumn-day.html

Autumn girl http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-60149725/stock-vector-girl-autumn-vector-illustration-over-white.html

I approached the autumn pin up in the same way as the summer one, but I also used illustrator to distort the squash image so that it was more beret shape and this is the image I came up with:

Something had been troubling me about the facial proportions while I was working on it but I didn't think to check it under my original paper trace until the end, when I saw that it had somehow been elongated so I corrected that in illustrator.

My final autumn image:

Reflection:

I got a bit carried away with the summer part so decided to rein things in a bit for autumn as my energy and enthusiasm were waning a bit. I think this shows in the quality of the work.

Of all the images I think the peas and butternut squash are probably least effective as I had trouble with the colours and, in one way I’m a bit disappointed that I opted for watercolour as usual but it did seem the most appropriate way to render the veg in a fresh way.

I had fun with this assignment; in fact I’ve lost my fear of the course work now, which is a relief!

I like combining hand drawn/painted and digital images; my photoshop and illustrator skills are improving as I’m doing some online tutorials and experimenting more with the techniques I know.

I don’t like the results of the live trace feature in Illustrator as much as hand tracing because the line is less smooth, but it’s quicker and maybe I just need to experiment with the settings more. I tried a different method (which I found in Digital Image magazine) for cutting out linework for the autumn illustration but it wasn’t entirely effective so I went back to live trace.

I think the final images work well; the curvy shapes of the fruit and veg are very feminine and in that way they sit well with the female form and I think both illustrations for summer and autumn are suggestive of health, freshness, vitality and confidence.

21st March 2013

Tutor feedback for the 'Autumn' image: the squash/brocolli motif could be warped in photoshop using the free transform tool to follow the contours of the woman's body.

I tried that and this is the result, I'm not sure I really pulled it off but I'm glad I had a go.