Exercise: Abstract Illustration

Music

• Freddy Freeloader by Miles Davis

Materials

·         Chalk

·         Charcoal

·         Guache applied with a feather

·         Gold paint applied with fingers

·         Red handmade paper

·         300g watercolour paper painted with black gloss

I tried to get the layered texture of the music down by listening to the track repeatedly and concentrating on a different instrument each time and using a different material.

I decided to photograph the pieces instead of scanning them, positioning them differently with relation to the sun and the shadow of leaves and using different camera settings to see what effects I would get.

These are the best pictures of the whole pieces:

rhythmic

skippy

Now, for some reason, although I’ve selected square sections that I like, 

and I’ve manipulated them in photoshop,

I feel enormous resistance to the task of reproducing them by hand. I think it’s because I already did it once and can’t see the point of repeating it, or perhaps it seems forced to rework something that came about quite spontaneously.

This is my chosen square, which I think would work quite well as a CD cover design for the music; I’m going to leave it for now and try to come back to it another day.