Presentation Document Disaster

The day started well with me presenting Jonny some of my work as my submission for the degree show catalogue. He liked two of my images (see below)

my work

He suggested perhaps combining them, and playing around with some of the colour functions in photoshop. After a few hours fiddeling we managed to reach this:

First test (my work)

He then told me to continue tweaking it it Photoshop and to show him once I had something I was happy with. I finally settled on the below image, where I think the image as a whole is more powerful than the one ontop, and the off red allowing to see the complete design of the background image.

Final Submission for degree show catalogue, to be submitted on monday

However the day came to a bad end when I had my presentation document meeting with Alexandra. I brought in my presentation document (a book, the scans of which are plastered all over this blog) to show her. Alexandra looked at the book, and told me that I had misunderstood the entire concept of the presentation document. It seems that weeks ago there was a second meeting, shortly after the introduction (here) where a guideline document was handed out. This document I do not have. By the end of the talk I had come to the conclusion that I could either rewrite the entire thing in either a new book or blog format. Or I could try to edit my old one, which would prove very difficult as the only way to do so would be to physically add more pages to the book itself. Alexandra expressing that she would like to see certain elements from my old book carried through, I decided that I would do a blog. That way I will be able to scan in the images of my book and reuse them later, instead of them being a complete waste of time. Below are some of the notes I took:

scan of my sketchbook (ignore the green writing)

When my tutorial was over I left feeling quite empty inside, that changed to anger/frustration at the fact that all the work I had put into my old presentation document (56 A3 pages) was more or less a waste of time. Now not only do I have to struggle with my FMP being very behind, now I basically have to redo my presentation document. I am going to go home and sleep, I can't deal with any more bad news at the moment.

Catalogue Tutorial

Today was our first official day back at university, and we started off talking about our degree show catalogue. Jonny briefly explained to us that we will get  a double page A4 spread and we need to start thinking about submissions. I had hoped that I could use some of my FMP for that, but being very... VERY behind at this point, I just need to concentrate on actually getting it done. I do wonder how they will chose a cover.

2010 illustration catalogue cover by Jon Clark (http://jonclarkdesign.blogspot.co.uk/)

We also had a fundraiser meeting later in the day to talk about serious ways to raise money. We are still far short on our £3000 target, and as far as I know no one has any real suggestions. There have been many talks about trying to raise money by selling work at the university, but nothing ever seems to come from it. As I suspected we did not have any real suggestions this meeting, but we did seem to waste a lot of time repeating ourselves. At this point to be honest I don't think that we will reach our target. Either there will be no London show, or we will all have to pay out of our own pocket to make it happen. Derek our tutor did suggest that we could raise money by holding club nights, as the last few years of illustration have raised large numbers at these events. He mentioned that he might be able set something up with one of the local night clubs... though we all know that might just be an excuse for him to DJ again.

FMP Work Begins

Today I began working on my FMP, not research, not a side project, but actual work! I started on the War poster, and started off simply with permanent markers, and later I will start using Acrylic paint to add a more rough feel.

photograph of drafting film sheet, containing part of my war poster.

I wish there was a quicker way of drawing, as unfortunately even after extensive experiments (see below) the fastest way to get a proper image onto drafting film is to use lumocolor markers, and they need at least two layers.

Drafting film covered in different ink tests.

The only thing that works better than the lumocolor permanent markers, is black acrylic paint, which only needs 1 coat. However the same level of precision cannot be achieved with the paint... well certainly not by me and my meager painting skills. This unfortunately does mean that when I do create a poster on drafting film, it almost takes twice as long due to each drawing needing to be traced twice. There is the alternative of doing it digitally and printing it... not only would this be very expensive for me, but there is nowhere near by that can print drafting film up to A1, and multiple sheets of A3 will be nigh impossible to line up.

The End...

Today I got the phone call that my Grandmother passed away at about 09:14 in the morning. Her funeral will be held on Thursday, an event I cannot afford to go to... one I do not really want to go to, as my aunt and her son will be there. Both individuals who have split my family in two for the last many months, and who are largely responsible for my Grandmothers death, and my grandfathers condition.

Back...

I got back from Denmark a few days ago... I have not made any progress on my FMP, neither have I written down anything for my presentation document for quite some time. The reason for this was more or less a repeat of what happened last Christmas (Negotiated Study), though worse. Upon coming back to Denmark I learned that things had changed quite a bit since last time, for example my grandmother was diagnosed with liver cancer quite some time ago apparently.

While in Denmark I spent all my time either visiting the hospital, either trying to spend some last moments with my grandmother, who by all accounts has got 2 months left to live at best... however with each passing day she changes from the women I once knew, to a yellowing corpse. I can truly say I have never seen anything so tragic in my entire life. On the day I left for England I said my final goodbyes to and old women who practically recoiled in fear from me, believing me to be my aunts junkie son.

To make the whole matter worse my grandfather has chosen the side of my aunt, barely visiting his wife in hospital, instead turning to woman who only a few months ago poisoned him, and abducted him for several weeks. It disgusts me to see a regular figure in my life in such a new light. I was never more heartbroken than to in one week have to say goodbye to my grandmother, and emotionally give up on my grandfather.

Yeah this is why I have not found the motivation to continue working on my Final Major Project.