Assignment 4: Magazine illustration 'Lost'

Lost:

consciousness

the will to live

in translation

in space

a loved one

in France

in the wilderness

my place

my identity

my way

my nerve

at sea

in action

property

dog

my job

my grip on reality

my marbles

I was in bed with the flu around the time of the Oscars and heard a radio 4 programme (between being lost in bouts of fever fog) celebrating previous winners

 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qsph7, which is now no longer available to listen too on i-player)

They were talking about American Beauty (1999), one of my favourite films, and played an extract of the opening speech by the character Lester Burnham (played by Kevin Spacey):

‘Both my wife and daughter think I'm this gigantic loser. And they're right. I have lost something. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I know I didn't always feel this -- sedated.’

The full speech is available here http://www.filmsite.org/bestspeeches61.html

I have access to a beautiful set of old medical equipment, the instruments and medicines are packed away in neat, splendidly designed and crafted little metal boxes. I am particularly fascinated by the morphine administration kit, there’s something slightly sinister about it but comforting at the same time; a shift in dose and circumstance could make the difference between relief from a desperately painful experience, a smooth exit from a terminal condition, an untimely end at the hands of an unscrupulous practitioner or a descent into addiction. ‘Lost’; either permanently or temporarily.

I did another internet search, and thinking of Lester Burnham asked ‘is morphine a sedative?’

The answer came back from http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_morphine_a_sedative

‘No, morphine is an opioid analgesic. It is a narcotic used for pain control. Sedation is one of the expected side effects of this medication.’

On this same page people had also asked ‘how do you smoke morphine in pill form?’ and ‘what’s the street value for morphine?’ Again I had a little shiver of fascination at the potentially disastrous outcomes of their desire to get lost for a while.

http://www.drugs.com/morphine.html

Morphine is named after Morpheus, the god of dreams (dreaming, of course, relies on temporarily lost consciousness)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheus_(mythology)

Inspiration / ideas

The diagrams we had to draw of equipment set ups in chemistry classes at school, very flat, 2D on squared paper as a guide: ‘lost the third dimension’ ‘lost depth’ ‘lost form’

The white line drawings projected onto the ‘industrial’ (rough brick and concrete) backdrops in the BBC2 series ‘Science Club’ similar to those depicted in this cartoon

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/512xn/p012z3pf.jpg

I also like this image of a Thorens turntable from an old instruction manual which is very 2D, the block of colour over it exaggerates this loss of depth           

Objective 2D drawing on squared paper

Thumbnails of alternative views and another objective drawing

Tonal version

I cut out the white line-work from this tonal version and experimented layering it with different backgrounds:

A photo of poppies in a field, poppies being the source of opium from which morphine is derived

Red and green papers from my collection, these don’t really contribute to the ‘lost’ theme

Nevertheless, I printed the green one and applied a crackle glaze and stain to age it

An image from a magazine with the ‘industrial’ background texture I was after, which I manipulated in photoshop to make it unrecognisable and to give the idea of space, as in ‘lost in space’.

I took the ‘lost in space’ image, duplicated it in layers and experimented with distorting the upper layer using the free transform application, leading to a partial loss of the original form but re-introducing an element of the three dimensionality which is exaggerated by the distortion of the small squares.

I like these, especially the ‘spherical’ distortion which echoes the shape of the globe on which the box appears to balance. Do they add anything to the lost theme? Not sure.

Next I tried combining the tonal version with a map of Everest (a tool used to avoid getting lost) in photoshop layers, applying a gaussian blur to the map (lost focus) and reducing the opacity of the map layer (lost intensity)

I then adjusted the brightness, contrast, saturation and levels to produce a background that looked similar to the human vascular system, a reference to the administration route of morphine.

Then I rotated the top layer to add more tension in relation to the frame and introduced a question mark motif which I then multiplied and set in a circle representing a compass (lost direction)

I’m not sure these work, I would need to rough up the text somehow so that it sat better with the background. Also the shape of the original drawing is lost due to the lack of contrast.

I finally chose this image because I like the ethereal feel of the background- the way the world is only semi-recognisable, and I like the way the distortion of the top layer reflects the shape of the globe and that the tin could be seen as a vehicle with the catch pointing in the direction of travel, without knowing where that is.

I decided to ‘fog’ the edges to add to the lost theme

On reflection:

•       I like this image very much although I did lose confidence in at as an illustration for ‘lost’ towards the end, thinking that maybe my interpretation was a bit abstract and my reasoning tenuous
•       By that point I was so far along with it that I couldn't face starting again, maybe I was just having one of my cyclical lapses in confidence
•       I’m not entirely happy with the text, even on squared paper I didn't manage to draw the letters well and evenly spaced, although with the distortion it’s less noticeable
•       I’m still not sure what my style is or even if I want to aim to have just one...could that be a problem if I’m pitching for work?

Overall, I've enjoyed part 4 although it's taken me ages to complete. Some exercises were more of a struggle than others, which I think shows in the quality of the work. I find designing for a child audience the most difficult of all, I don't have much affinity for them but I would like to be able to capture the humour, looseness and sweetness that I admire in the work of children's illustrators...maybe it's just not my thing, anyway I'm not looking forward to the child related exercises in part 5 at all.

This sums up how lost I felt the other day

better now though.

2 days later
I've just had another go at the children's book cover exercise, following through on my urge to draw a different image in different materials after being inspired by telly credits has made me feel much more optimistic about tackling part 5.