Leeds 1st year, outcomes, semester 1

With my second year soon to start, I thought I'd show some first year stuff. Here are some outcomes from semester 1.


a) Envelope project, to send something in the post and get a reply. I asked completely random people about their thoughts on why mankind exists. I only got a couple of replies unfortunately.





b) City book project. A group project...we had a short story of a fictional town which we had to rewrite the text for and illustrate. We wrote the text using hand typeset and embossed rather than inked, and did a series of postcards which went in the page pockets.







...and here is the back of the postcards, which I designed.


c) We did an audio book on alternative/improvised versions of little red riding hood, and each made cd covers/inserts. Here are the templates of mine.







d) For a Christmas panto (small project) we did a puppet show based on a painting. These are my puppet designs.

Layout sheets

Last year I worked mainly in sketchbook. The year before that, whilst at Kingston doing my foundation, I worked mainly on A2 / A3 sheets such as this one. I want to do more of these this coming year.

Secret Art Show submission

So over the summer the plan was to do a few graphics related competition entries. However I got caught up in work and such and ended up just doing the one submission. Here it is. They are 2 cd cover designs, which I submitted to the 'Secret Art Show' in York, which will be running from 7 - 13 November, and aims to raise £10,000 for the Multiple Sclerosis Trust through sales of donated CD cover art donations such as this. The artists are to remain anonymous until the show has ended.

Here's their website.

My pieces are supposed to work together, with the message being cut such that half is on one cd and half on the other, making it difficult to decipher on their own. Computer print, card, foil, elastic bands and staples are used.

cdcover1


cdcover2


cdcover1 mocked up in cd case


close up shot of cdcover2

Old Church, Cheap Hotel

Chopstick drawings

With my second year of uni approaching, here is a sample of my work from first year.
Following my acceptance to the StudyChina programme I have previously talked about, I decided to do a project based around it.

I drew things with chopsticks and ink:









I built structures with chopsticks, challenging the function of the objects:


Evidence of this and more became part of this book - a finished piece:





Oh and by the way, I've added a few more China photos to my Flickr.

Austria

Well hasn't it been a while...

Here are some photos from my recent family holiday to Saalfelden, in the Austrian alps.


Panoramic view from the hotel balcony


Totem of some kind...there were quite a few of these happy chappies


Clouds and mountains. Ive tried to capture these as if the clouds are more like the base from which the moutains rise from.



We visited the longest known ice cave in the world. Photos were supposed to be forbidden and our guide warned us many times during our tour. However, there was no way I was going to miss out on capturing these fascinating forms. Without flash and a tripod and the need to be discrete (the caves were pitch black apart from the flame lanterns some people were carrying) getting a good photograph proved difficult. Here are afew of those that came out well/look interesting


These two aren't so related to Austria... I took a photo of a goat, which blurred oddly to make it look vaguely alien. I did some photoshop work to create the below left image. In the right image you can see that I gave it a body. I don't think it looks good, but it looks odd nonetheless.

Onion in the dark

A chance to touch the stones

I went to Stonehenge a week ago in celebration of the annual Summer Solstice - the celebration of the sunrise for the longest day of the year. (Ironically, people stay up all night to witness this, and then most will spend the longest day of the year sleeping to recover.) Anyhow, it is a sacred place, a thing of beauty, the only time anyone is allowed to physically touch the stones, and the fields are full of people, all drunk, high, or plain happy. Hippies, druids and other strange types hoard together.
It was a beautiful night, and sunrise promised to be equally beautiful. My plan was to take photos of the event - I thought there could be some interesting ones. After failing to buy a disposable camera (I thought the style would suit) due to lack of stock in Boots, I opted against taking my SLR and took a standard digital camera.
It quickly ran out of battery, so I resorted to my phone. And instead of taking photos of the interesting people, the stones, and of course the sunrise, I got these...

No people on the Gator.

This here is a vehicle we drove occasionally whilst working at the golf course. It is a gator, and is designed purely to transport tools and such around. It doesn't go fast.



Anyway, whilst sitting in it wondering what next to do one day, we noticed the signage on the dashboard. I took a photo:



It appears you should not ride upside down on the vehicle, nor should you sit upright on it.
It obviously doesn't mean that. I'm just being pointlessly critical in my observation, but it did make my friend and I chuckle on this particularly mundane day of work.

China Photos - The Trip

Welcome banner
Originally uploaded by wj90

My first set of photos from my month long trip to China over Easter 2010 are now up on Flickr.
Unfortunately, with the free account, I cannot upload many photos, as it only allows for 100mb per month. I'm debating whether to upgrade, but I don't know much about Flickr at the moment, so we will see...

Jesussed

My youngest sister Emma, 12 yesterday, was recently given a piece of homework to research and display information on Jesus - who he was, what he said about himself, and what other religions thought of him.
I offered to help, and yesterday we created a game. It is a simple trivia of related questions and answers under the above headings, in the form of a board game. I designed the board and packaging combination, which has no need for an outer box due to its' minimalistic form. The box/board combo has the game name (Je-sussed - I came up with that one!) and the instructions on the outer. It then folds out to reveal the board, and the cards and pieces are kept neatly inside the box. Instructions are written on top of this box for convenience during gaming.

(left: outer, all closed up. middle: box open with contents and board unfolded. right: instructions on show as game is mid play)

Another self portrait

The same process as the last portrait, but here I have used the new Photoshop CS5. Not that I really expiremented too much on it.

CS5

In a previous post I explained how I wanted to learn more graphics related software. I now have the Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection. I will try to play around with some of these programmes over the summer, in amongst my summer job, holidays, festivals and learning Chinese.