ITAP 7/ Development of Creative Thought and Structure in Illustration and Graphic Art

As an Illustration student of Visual Communication I start with Brainstorming at first. I write and draw what comes to my mind while thinking about a brief. What happenens in my environment, what interests me at the moment. As I wrote in one of my blogentries earlier, I get inspired by all kinds of things, but music and film inspires me the most. During one of my 3 week projects, "The Underbelly of Birmingham", was no need to concentrate on the City, but it was easier at first.
Since I live in the West Midland I've heard plenty of Quotes and had many impressions of the people living here. Looking at "The Underbelly of Birmingham" I concentrated on the ironic Quotations like "Besides the mugging it's ok." or "Sometimes I feel like living in Gotham City". I also drew Faces of Birmingham I've seen and combined the Quotes I heard together to one idea.

The Underbelly, the dark side of the City links at first to crime, poverty and all the issues. From the Underbelly i came to the Underground music-scene of Birmingham, since it is the Home of Heavy Metal.
From Heavy Metal I thought about Birminghams music-scene in general and found out, one of the Bands I listen too played at the Glee Club in November. As an inspiration i took parts from their musiclyrics. I knew that this direction had more interest on me than the other idea. It was more of a challenge. The band Best Coast was too specific and reaches only a small target group. To reach a wider one I stoped to concentrate on lyric lines and chose some words for the story. The lyrics became to an inspiration for the story and not the focus. Nevertheless I asked questions such as why did I chose a girl and a banana for the story? As I said before the lyrics were an inspiration and the context was about relationships between woman and men and how the guy she sings about turns away. A banana rottens just like some relationships and to be honest, everyone knows a banana in their life. Below you see some pages of my RVJ (Reflective Visual Journal).

The style of the drawings were inspired by Raymond Pettibon whos known for his comic-like drawings and strong contrast. He's done plenty of Zines for bands such as Blag Flag. This video shows Pettibon working in his studio. As you can see he is working on a wall and on the left you see fotos and research.

I found these pictures of him working in the middle of a huge studio with his final outcomes around him. This way he can overview what else needs to be finished and has enough space to let his paintings dry. I find this example interesting because it seems to be the perfect working solution for him. To work with that much space gives you the option to be free, to experiment and think further.

My working environment at the moment is much to small, therefore i like to work at uni where more possibilities are given to spread out you're work. But when i thought about a working place, also the City you're working in came into my mind. In my first blog entry I wrote about Gustav Klimt, how he got inspired by his environment and thought about cities that inspire me. Visual ritch cities such as Berlin and London have so much to offer that you see on every corner Art and new fresh ideas. Through traveling I get more open minded and pay attention to get different perceptions.


Reference

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