OUIL405 Project Proposal

Project Proposal 

Picture Book Title 

• A Trashy Guide To Classy Wines. (Genuinely proud of this title)

Idea: What are your picture book about?

• It is an well research look into high class wine culture that is presented as a satirical look towards the way wine can be seen as either a very high class drink or lower class one, depending on how much you spend. 

Intent: What are you trying to achieve?

• I want to make book that is both amusing but most importantly informs the reader on some of the basics of wine culture. 

Structure: How might this book function? 

• One of the main point brought up in my crit was the fact that some of my ideas where moving away from the research I had done and become almost too abstract to link to the research i'd done. Because of this I'm going to make sure that all my pages link in someway to some experience or information I have learnt.
• I want someone to be able to read his book and come away having learnt something about wine that they didn't know before.
• The book is going to look at different aspects of wine culture, such as the history of wine tasting, types of wine, the technicals of wine drinking and the history of wine bottles. These will all be brief overviews to each subject as a kind of beginners guide. 
• It will either be structure in a comic-esque form with me as the guide or an illustrated information booklet. (I'll be creating demos of each of these approaches.)

These ideas are based on my research into....

• Wine
• Wine Tasting 
• Going to the discovery museum to look at wine bottles.
• Researching Wine tasting history

In order to develop these ideas, my research over Christmas will be....

• Look at what I already have for content.
• Develop weak parts of the book or parts that have no content with secondary research
• Use Secondary research to delve further into the world of wine
• Spend a day drinking wine and sketching (see what the results are)

Self-Evaluation

What have you discovered about research over the last 2 weeks?

• Research is integral to my idea and development process.
• There are so many types of ways to research and depending on what you're doing depends on the effectiveness of certain types of research

Which approaches to research did you struggle with?

• I found Collections the most difficult as I found myself more focused on the experience of my project the the collection side of it. 

Which approaches to research did you find beneficial?

• Both secondary and talking to people where the best approaches for me as I was able to discovery basic and specialist information from people and develop a depth of understanding from the information given via secondary research. 

What do you regret about your approach to research during this brief?

• Drinking the amount of alcohol I did midday in a place that isn't my home. 
• I wish I'd done some more observational drawings while at wine tasting

What kind of media, skills, tools and processes are you going to explore?

• I want to focus on the quality of craft with this book. I'm going to use both ink and water colour as I want the images in the book to be extremely controlled in their craftsmanship.
• I know the final book has to be printed digitally so I don't want to have to do much adjusting on photoshop as I'd rather it look as hand made as possible. 
• I really like the idea of the book being a collection of mini sequential narratives that inform and explore different aspects of wine culture.

OUIL405 Kate Beaton

A lot of Kate Beaton's work is heavily based off contextual research that has been retold within a more humours form within her comics. However there is still an awareness of the original research within her work that makes the comics both well grounded to the truth and funny.

OUIL404- Collage

The main issue I struggled with, was the construction of the piece. the paper did not allow the flexibility that I needed to create fluidity of the dress to match the body losing some of the hilarious effect of the piece which was that the image was taken from a mens 60's pornography magazine and it had be remade to advertise a more mundane and non sexual activity (DFS sale).

Another major weakness that I have become aware of with this piece is my ability to differentiate between lettering/typography and just handwriting. I need to read up on some typography magazines/ books as well as illustrating some typeography myself.

OUIL405 Initial Research

Wine tasting allowed me to research something that I enjoy (wine) within more depth as well as getting some first hand practical research in.

It was much easier to get research from people (such as the waitress) as they expect you to talk to them and thought I found myself spending most of my tim developing research from my own personal experience, learning about the wines and the establishment helps in developing your own assumptions.

There is a progression throughout my sketchbook when I am wine tasting where it is easy to see how the wine effect my thought process and the way I document my research. It's an interesting way to look at going about a book, creating it with increased intoxication however it's not a smart thing for me to do. 

I felt it easier to create visual notes with written annotations as away of collecting research, both primary and secondary.

I do begin to fall into character design after a while. It's unintentional but it feel like the most effective ways of displaying the things I have learnt. Though at this point the drawings where based more loosely of the research than the other drawings. 

A mixture of my drunkenness and very loosely based of the research I'd done I started to think of creating something that was a joke guide to wine, just to amuse my (very drunk) self.

OUIL405- Max Degtyarev

Looking at ways to visually document time spent at a specific location Max Degtyarev's work is a effective and easily read version of how you can go about documenting  an experience. It could fall under sequential narrative.

OUIL404- Shape and Texture

I really enjoyed this weeks task, however I do feel like I spent too much time on craft and not enough time experimenting with texture and shape within my book. I believe I have an issue using my sketch book as a problem solving tool instead of just putting in the completed work. I need to allow more mistakes and push myself more.

OUIL405 One Week Book part 2

I was unfortunately ill when the group decided on the images pick, but the general feel of the book is reminiscent to what we agreed on, emphasising our frustrations over the merrion center's bureaucratic system that limits creativity. However the one image that doesn't really work with the rest is the men giving out makeup as it jilts the flow of the book. 

I've always enjoyed the screen printing process but I prefer to work singularly because it allows me to go at my own pace and if I am ill i don;t have to worry about others and can pickup on my own slack also if faults happen they are mine to deal with. However when collaborative work is used with effective communication it can go on smoothly.

OUIL405- One Week Book

The focus of where we we're assigned for this project was the Merrion centre. We where told that legally we where not allowed to draw within the premises. I decided to tackle this by talking to people and drawing them and their experiences when I got back to college. Overall this issues felt very frustrating as it limited the groups ability to document experiences as they happened.

I found that the most interesting things I took away from the Merrion Centre was the time spent talking to people with in the centre rather than the centre itself.

After creating a series of quick sketches that reflected some parts of the dissuasions I'd had and the general experience during the day I found it all a bit lack luster. When we all grouped together we agreed that there wasn't that much interesting going on so thought of taking another route.

The way the hotdog book is going will be a more cynical look at the over bureaucratic side of the centre than the more emotive and humorous point raised from conversations with people in the Merrion centre.

Photography Induction

Depth of filed

Long Exposure

Shallow field

Short Exposure

•  Found the depth of filed and shot exposure to be the most interesting ways to take photography.
• I am personally not taken by photography but understand the necessity of it.

OUIL404- Shape

It was difficult to create block shapes with pencil

These Images have been cleaned up to get rid of pencil lines. I had difficulty with the sketchiness of my shapes.

These feel more logo-esque than anything else

With the shape brief I found it difficult to get into. It did give me the same interest and adaptability that I found the detail and Line gave me as I felt with my chosen subject didn't allow as much flexibility as others could have. However with the next brief on texture and shape I hope to find ways to push the way I look at making the images. I'll start looking into artist to help push this process further.

OUIL404- Pattern Tone and Line

Really enjoyed this. Experimented with control and fluidity of line work. Tended to take more time that previous pieces. Really enjoyed pencil work.