semester 2 – chalon joy collingwood

Year Evaluation

May 12, 2019May 20, 2019 Chalon Joy

It’s that time!~

I’m so close to handing everything in, and before I do so I need to reflect upon the year as a whole- the good, the bad and everything in between!

Semester 1

I hit the ground running for Semester 1 after a disappointing year repeating the second year of my degree at CCAD (now the Northern School of Art). I had big plans for the year, outlining some pretty ambitious projects for the coming months, including a fully fledged animation project and a few familiar competition briefs from the past, e.g. the Cheltenham Illustration Awards, which has always had a very engaging theme year on year.

Risograph Printmaking: The first project I decided to work on was the Riso project- I’d heard about the new printing facilities and was eager to try them out as part of the initial Semester 1 term, which was highly focused on skills development and experimentation with new techniques.

This proved to be a very steep learning curve, but I did enough research to somewhat know what I was doing. At this stage, we only had 3 ink colours and a plain black ink drum, which made my options somewhat limited. However, these colours produced a very ‘traditional’ riso print with the strong pink and blue inks, which was outside my comfort zone yet felt very fitting for my first go with the medium.

I was pleased that I’d given it a try, despite being a bit iffy with my final image- it felt quite far away from the rest of my body of work. At the time I wanted to revisit the process, but my current plans didn’t leave much room for negotiation.

Penguin Student Award: The next two projects were worked on simultaneously- the Penguin Student Award and my personal project, Narrative Animation Development.

I chose Wonder by R.J. Palacio as the subject for the Penguin Award, as I was already familiar with the story and thought there’d be some really nice visuals to experiment with. I actually really enjoyed working on this, as it was a valuable experience that had clear industry links, which felt very worthwhile. I also loved getting back into typography and layout, as I hadn’t had a chance to work with these elements since my disastrous Pavilion Books brief while at CCAD (…maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it definitely felt that way). My final image was successful, even though I could have spent a little more time on the imagery rendering and overall finish.

This project was completed in the space of around 2 weeks, which was a feat for me since I tend to spend way too much time mulling things over in the research and development stages- which unfortunately impacted my work for the latter Narrative Animation project. :c

Narrative Animation Development: I was super excited to start work on this particular project as a finale for Semester 1, as it was based around an idea that had been mulling around in my head since the end of my FdA (summer 2017). I had planned for this to be my FMP at CCAD, which never happened since I moved back to Newcastle College after a tumultuous year. Therefore, I was determined to make it happen and started out with a concept project that would lead onto the animation realisation in Semester 2.

As I worked, I was easily able to map out my characters since they’d been fully formed for quite some time. There were negligible changes in appearance, but this was mostly practical so they were simplified enough to animate. However, time started to become very short and I ended up scrapping some of the more interesting elements of the project, including the background/environment designs which I was very eager to work on. My final project consisted of two character boards and accompanying development, some environment mood boards and a set of storyboards for the narrative.

At this point, I was well and truly knacked and vowed to never overstuff my proposal again.

Semester 2

Semester 2 was a bit of a disorganised monster, as I was so tired and stressed after the self-imposed heavy workload of Semester 1. I was very mindful when mapping out my proposal for this term- which led to the sad decision to remove the Animation Realisation project from my work plan. Ultimately, it felt too disconnected from the rest of my work planned for the year. Perhaps this is because the original inception of this project was quite a while ago, and I’ve grown as a person and an artist since then. Coupled with the immense amount of work it would take, I decided to postpone this project to be realised in my own time after my degree.

This left me with a bit of a gap in my schedule, so I decided to fill this in with a second Riso project after my pleasant experience in Semester 1. I had planned for the last commercial project to be the Cheltenham Illustration Awards, which felt was achievable, as well as being a good opportunity to create a stand out portfolio piece for the year. The final personal project was my Portfolio project my default.

Risograph Realisation: This time around I felt much more comfortable with the process and its capabilities, so I was able to utilise the full potential of the risograph printer. We also had some new ink colours which was a very welcome addition- the teal and purple inks created some really nice effects on my final artwork, and I was happy to be able to create artwork with these specific colours in mind.

My final pair of prints was based on my travels last year, with an emphasis on the cross-cultural aesthetics of Chinese and Japanese design and symbolism. I was much happier with my outcomes compared to Semester 1, but I value both of the projects in my wider progression as an artist- I really want to continue to utilise this printing technique in my career and further work.

Cheltenham Illustration Awards: This project was nicely familiar to me, so there wasn’t really any struggle with the process or research elements. The theme this year was ‘Tales of Unity’, which was perhaps a little more niche and specific than in the past. Nevertheless, after a bit of initial struggle drafting out a suitable concept, I was able to use my new digital skills to effectively create a final piece that will serve as a centrepiece for the year (and final show).

Although I was used to the process, this project caused the most stress as it was completed in a short space of time right before the deadline (as the Risograph Realisation project overran by an alarming amount of time). I regret not leaving more time for the final realisation as this could have potentially made it even better- however, a deadline is a deadline and I’m not about to lose even more sleep over something out of my hands now~

Portfolio Project: This was a mandatory update on my existing portfolio- since lots of the work was still relevant, this made the workload much lighter than I’d anticipated. It also included making an updated portfolio book, which was good fun last year and was nice to revisit again. I also gave my creative CV and business cards a bit of a facelift, and also launched a new website! chalonjoy.com ~

Outcomes

…and here’s the final products! Most have been dotted around my blog already, but these are also on my ~new~ portfolio website… just a sly bit of self promotion there. c:

screen shot 2019-01-25 at 13.41.58 — *Anthropomorphic Deer Final Designs (Collingwood, 2018)*

screen shot 2019-01-25 at 13.41.43 — *Young Female Character Final Designs (Collingwood, 2018)*

screen shot 2019-01-25 at 12.31.31 — *Penguin Student Award: ‘Wonder’ Final Cover Art (Collingwood, 2018)*

*Terrariums Risograph Print (Collingwood, 2018)*

Koi_Final — *Koi Fish Risograph Print (Collingwood, 2019)*

Dragon_Final — *Chinese Dragon Risograph Print (Collingwood, 2019)*

FINAL_FILE_-3 — *Cheltenham Illustration Awards: Modernisation (Collingwood, 2019)*

I’m now looking forward to final show, where I’ll hopefully be exhibiting my ‘best’ work from my degree, as well as selling some prints and other little bits of merchandise. I’ll blog about this afterwards too, even though my work will have (hopefully) been marked long before then!

Future Learning Plan/Progression

Targets and hopes for the future include:

Continuing to improve and enhance my skillset, particularly within commercial settings, and especially in pattern design and figural illustration- these are the two areas I enjoy working with most~
I also want to actively seek out opportunities for exposure, like open competitions and job openings that would suit my skillset. I’ll also look to improve my online presence, and look forward to fully launching my website and online store very soon!
Lastly, I want to endeavour to take life drawing classes, as I want to improve the figural elements in my work. They are my favourite thing to draw, but I still need to rely heavily on references to get something that looks remotely like a human. ^^” Hopefully having more free time will allow me to get stuck in at a weekly class, and I’m hoping to be able to draw more dynamic poses and better anatomy as a result. Especially hands. I hate hands.

As I jump over the last few hurdles before my deadline, I’ve found it to be quite cathartic to reflect upon the final year of my time as a student. I hope I manage to snag a First, but even if not I can safely say that I’ve tried my absolute best despite the drawbacks and issues I’ve faced in my life since returning to college.

I’m glad it’s all over after 4 years of deadlines and stress, but I’ll miss having a routine to stick to and a solid support network- I’ll have to build my own now ❀

References

Collingwood, C. (2019). Anthropomorphic Deer: Final Character Board [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Cheltenham Illustration Awards: Modernisation [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Chinese Dragon Risograph Print [risograph print].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Koi Fish Risograph Print [risograph print].

Collingwood, C. (2018). Penguin Student Award: ‘Wonder’ Final Cover Art [Digital].

Collingwood, C. (2018). Terrariums Risograph Print [risograph print].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Young Female Character: Final Character Board [Digital].

evaluation, portfolio, SWOT/Target Setting

Cheltenham Awards Final Piece Production

May 8, 2019April 2, 2020 Chalon Joy

It’s been a busy week indeed!

In between running around like a headless chicken and trying to maintain a ‘healthy’ work/job/life balance, I’ve finally finished up my final project of the year ♥

It was quite an arduous process, but I think I actually really benefited from the super short time frame I’d been left with- not only was I working towards my deadline, I was also racing to get my art book submitted for publishing in time! I wanted this piece to be included, so that was another self imposed time limitation.

I created the piece on Procreate, using a variety of my own photos from my 2018 China trip to inform the architecture and layout. I clocked in just over 30 hours across 4 days according to the app, so here’s a wee time lapse video of my process to make a very long story short! (This is the 30 second quick cut- the longer time lapse video is about 12 mins long, and unfortunately I couldn’t quite get it to load up on Vimeo!)

So it was quite a linear, reassured workflow, but also had some new techniques being used since Procreate is a completely new tool to me since my last Cheltenham project in 2017. I’m really pleased with how far I’ve come, as my line art, layers and detailing/texture management has come leaps and bounds. While I still appreciate the flat, pastel-y appeal of my old Cheltenham piece, this newer one boasts a lot more depth, as well as a more experimental colour palette that really is quite ‘far out’ for me as an artist- up until now I really have been stuck in my ways with pastels and monotone, but the subject matter fully supported a warm, deep toned palette and I think it ties in quite well.

Here’s the finished piece- there’s loads wrong with it of course, but I’m content for now ♥

Although I feel I’ve had a lot of success with this project, there were still some weak areas here and there- artwork wise, I think there’s still something amiss with the anatomy… but I have the time to fix this before final show, where I’ll hopefully be exhibiting this art as a centrepiece. If I’d have an ample amount of time prior to hand in this could have been fixed, but my workflow left me with a bit of a difficult situation- the way in which I’d blended the layers and applied tone and shading meant the line art and skin tones were across multiple layers, so it won’t be an easy task to correct this.

Working on this Cheltenham project has opened up lots more opportunities for me- I’m considering making a series of similar pieces based on my travels around the world. Also, when I submit this piece to the Awards I could potentially be featured in a catalogue showcasing selected entries from the year. Very exciting~

And with that, this wraps up my project work for Semester 2! Left to do is to finish off this blog, as well as some promo type stuff, like business cards, a creative CV and other artist-specific things like potential merchandise for final show. So, targets for the following week include tying up all the loose ends and making sure everything is ready and prepped for hand in, and also starting to think about final show- what I want to exhibit, sources for merchandise, and technicalities like layouts, exhibit space organisation, and marketing.

References

Collingwood, C. (2019). Modernisation [digital].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Modernisation Time Lapse .

portfolio

Risograph Realisation- Printing and Embellishment

April 25, 2019May 20, 2019 Chalon Joy

First of all, sorry for the super long hiatus- between the Easter hols and life stuff in general, I’ve been busy sorting out various aspects of this project- it’s been a journey, but we made it!

In terms of finalising the imagery for print production, I had a few issues with the Dragon image- when I’d first decided on the central elements of each print, I was acutely aware that if I didn’t execute it properly the Dragon image would be a bit… cheesy looking. Maybe it’s just my spin on things, but dragons are inherently a bit lame so I really had to work to make sure my print wasn’t typical/lame. I feel like it’s halfway in-between haha- not quite cringey, but also not really what I envisioned, which is a bit of a shame. I based the imagery off a decorative wall within the traditional Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai:

yu-garden-768(2) — *‘Dragon Crossing the Clouds’ (China Discovery, n.d.)*

I thought this was a really unique part of the architecture within the garden, and this helped me immensely while I was designing this part of the imagery ❀

The koi, as previously noted in my Durham University visit posts (here and here), was influenced by reference imagery taken during my outing. This was the easier of the two prints to design, as the subject matter lends itself towards the type of aesthetic I was going for~

I won’t document the actual printing process here (more info in my research folder) as that’s already been covered on this blog here, but my final two designs turned out much nicer than expected! The new ink colours really helped too, as I was able to use a much cooler, less harsh palette of blue, teal and purple. I really knocked down the opacities on all four layers, which produced a lovely painterly effect…

…in fact, the resulting imagery was so nicely processed that I didn’t even want to embellish on top of these! I did some tests with metallic inks, pens and foil leaf on a failed print from my first printing attempt, and honestly the results were nice, but didn’t enhance the prints at all. The embellishment appeared very heavy compared to the plain prints, so I decided to ultimately leave this part of my proposed process out, since I felt it detracted from the final product too much. That’s not to say I regret researching into this so much- I can undoubtedly use these techniques in the near future, as I plan to work with printmaking often once I graduate.

*Risograph Embellishment: Gold Leaf Test (Collingwood, 2019)*

*Risograph Embellishment: Metallic Ink Test (Collingwood, 2019)*

*Risograph Embellishment: Metallic Pen Test (Collingwood, 2019)*

Targets for the coming weeks include… doing the entire Cheltenham Awards project because I’ve left it so late! As well as continuing to build and collate my portfolio ready for hand in ♥

More in a few weeks once I’ve made a good start on the next project!

References

China Discovery (n.d.). Yuyuan Garden: ‘Dragon Crossing the Clouds’ [photograph]. Available at: https://www.chinadiscovery.com/shanghai/yu-garden.html [Accessed 12 Apr 2019].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Chinese Dragon Risograph Print [risograph print].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Japanese Koi Risograph Print [risograph print].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Risograph Embellishment: Gold Leaf Test [risograph print, gold and silver leaf].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Risograph Embellishment: Metallic Ink Test [risograph print, metallic inks].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Risograph Embellishment: Metallic Pen Test [risograph print, metallic pen].

research, SWOT/Target Setting

Semester 2 – Cheltenham Illustration Awards 2019

March 18, 2019May 27, 2019 Chalon Joy

While I’m still working on finalising my risograph prints for Commercial Project 2 (hoping to have these printed in the next week or so), I’m going to start looking into the brief for the Cheltenham Illustration Awards (CIA) which was recently announced at the beginning of the month.

CIa 2019 Poster v2 900 web banner 2 — *Cheltenham Illustration Awards: Call for Entries 2019 (University of Gloucestershire, Sanfellipo, 2019)*

In previous years the theme has been ‘Tangled Tales’ and ‘Tales Through Other’s Eyes’, so this year’s theme of ‘All Together Now: Tales of Unity’ is quite different. My first thoughts are that this theme is a bit less varied and not open to interpretation as much as the previous themes of 2017 and 2018. I worked on a piece for the competition in 2017 and was admittedly able to shoehorn it into the theme (‘Tales Through Other’s Eyes’) without too much bother; my design was only loosely based on the given brief.

This year, I plan to work much more closely with the given theme to produce something that is tailored to this concept, rather than trying to twist an existing idea into meeting the needs of the brief. Based on a mind map by my entire class that I photographed (Collingwood, 2019), I’ve taken some of the most appealing ideas and made my own mind map that expands upon these concepts:

*Cheltenham Illustration Awards Mind Map: ‘Unity’ (BA Hons Illustration) (Collingwood, 2019)*

IMG_9305-1 — *Cheltenham Illustration Awards Mind Map: ‘Unity’ (Collingwood, 2019)*

My piece from 2017 was done digitally, and I daresay this is the best way of creating artwork intended for online entry/print- I will most likely adapt a similar workflow of digitally collaging both traditional and digital motifs/imagery to create a piece that successfully showcases my skillset.

The competition is open to student, emerging and established illustrators, with a deadline of 1st June 2019 (a bit over two months away at the time of writing this post), so I’ll have right up until our degree deadline of the 13th May to create something really special.

On another note, there’s been another recently announced competition that is new for this year and based in the North East. Northern School of Art (formerly CCAD) is running The Northern Illustration Prize in association with AOI, with this year’s theme being Monkey, based on the bizarre legend of the Hartlepool Monkey.

Screen Shot 2019-03-18 at 11.10.16 — *Northern Illustration Prize 2019 Banner (Northern School of Art, 2019)*

I can’t say that theme has massively grabbed my attention, but with it being a new competition based in the North East it would be nice to enter. Since our degree course is brand new for this year, as a class we’re hoping to pull together some really good entries to put us on the map.

Like the Cheltenham Illustration Awards, it’s open to both emerging and established illustrators, with the prize being a fully funded studio in Hartlepool for one year. The prize is to mark the start of the Northern Festival of Illustration, a biennial event held in Hartlepool.

During these coming months I’ll have to be aware of my SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) more than ever, since I don’t want to let my grades slip at this crucial time. These are more of the same according to past projects- I’m good at realisation and research, but poor at timekeeping. This is both a weakness and a threat, but as this is the last project I’ll have to be acutely aware of how long is left before hand in- there’s no room for error here! Opportunity wise, I’m looking forward to be able to realise something and have full control over the outcome- most of my other projects have had a certain element of serendipity to them, where I’ve had to battle other elements in order to produce something I’m happy with.

My main target for the coming weeks will be to finish off the bulk of the work for the riso project- Once I get the images printed I can embellish the resulting prints at my leisure… or more likely, as an escape from what is most likely going to be hardcore planning and execution of this CIA 2019 project for the next few weeks!

References

Association of Illustrators (2019). The Northern Illustration Prize 2019 [online]. Available at: https://theaoi.com/northern-illustration-prize-2019/?fbclid=IwAR0SpwQXMjmh9nyb018JgubtDWu4bPB4FTi_RsSzLtgr2-e24vFmcGEoEz4 [Accessed 18 Mar 2019].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Cheltenham Illustration Awards Mind Map: ‘Unity’ [photograph].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Cheltenham Illustration Awards Mind Map: ‘Unity’ (BA Hons Illustration) [photograph].

Northern School of Art (2019). Northern Illustration Prize 2019 Terms [online]. Available at: https://theaoi.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/northern-illustration-prize-t-and-cs.pdf [Accessed 18 Mar 2019].

Sanfellipo, A. (2019). Cheltenham Illustration Awards 2019 – Call For Entries: All Together Now! Tales of Unity [online]. Available at: http://www.cheltenham-illustration-awards.com/p/about.html [Accessed 8 Mar 2019]

Smith, R. (2019). ‘The Northern School of Art launches major international art prize ‘The Northern Illustration Prize’ [online]. NorthernArt.ac.uk. Available at: https://northernart.ac.uk/the-northern-school-of-art-launches-major-international-art-prize-the-northern-illustration-prize/ [Accessed 18 Mar 2019].

evaluation, SWOT/Target Setting

March 2019 – Progress and Reflection

March 4, 2019May 27, 2019 Chalon Joy

It’s been a week or so since my visit to the museum, and I feel that despite always feeling that I’ve never done enough work (this is probably part *actual* truth and part self belief issues haha), I’m happy that I’ve managed to nail down my final concept after a series of initial and developed designs.

I think this riso project dragged a bit for the first couple of weeks- I suspect this is due to the fact that I spent a lot of time researching into the imagery that I wanted to use. I’m very aware of this subject matter potentially walking a fine line between appreciation and appropriation, so I wanted to take the extra steps to ensure I was representing each culture accurately. I also made use of my current knowledge as I do have a strong general interest in this topic, but I’ve learned so much more through thorough research. It’s always better to be safe than sorry, and I’m pleased that I was also able to expand my research file with this~

Drawing out the initials is really tedious for me- I much prefer sketching out the development, since this is building on an idea I really want to do (rather than drawing out ‘filler’ ideas). I fully admit I usually have a somewhat fully formed initial idea in my head when I start a project, so it can be hard to stray from this or try to show enthusiasm for the other initial ideas ^^”

Another thing I really wished I’d done was to do all of my initials and development digitally- as well as aiding in the general layout, working digitally is much neater and less messy than scribbly pencil drawings (which my sketchbooks are notorious for). I tried to remedy this by doing a few little ‘key icons’ research pages in watercolour in my sketchbook- the phrase “you can’t polish a turd” comes to mind, but I had fun doing them anyway!

japaniconsheet — *Japan Icon Sheet (Collingwood, 2019)*

chinaiconsheet — *China Icon Sheet (Collingwood, 2019)*

It was really strange drawing and colouring something refined traditionally- I never thought it would come to this but I actually really prefer digital now! Especially since I’ve started working on Procreate with my iPad, since the technicality and effects both mimic tradition workflows very well. Throwback to the iPad review I wrote- read it here ♥

Targets for the coming weeks include finishing off my digitised concepts, taking these into the final design stages, and looking further into colour choices with the riso.

I’ll have to be mindful of any threats to my progress such as time restraints and poor planning, as these things have hindered me in the past- however, I’m determined to keep better time this semester, as one of my targets from a few weeks ago was to manage time better.

More to come soon!

References

Collingwood, C. (2019). China Icon Sheet [ink, watercolour].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Japan Icon Sheet [ink, watercolour].

research

Semester 2 Overview

February 1, 2019March 4, 2019 Chalon Joy

So I’ve had a lovely week off (a reward to myself for finishing Semester 1) and I’m so excited to start working on my Commercial Realisation project this term! ♥

We had a lecture about clarifying out intentions for this Semester, and we also discussed how our Portfolio projects are going to pan out- since our hand-in is mid-May but we need to spend a lot of time building our portfolios and exhibit materials, I really need to re-evaluate what I’ll be working on in order to produce the best products for final show. We’ve been told to finish most of our ‘formal’ degree work (with the accompanying vis dev and research) by mid-March, so this gives me a little over a month and a half to complete the Cheltenham Illustration Awards brief (which is revealed at the beginning of March), and the tentative Animation project (which was originally scheduled to be completed over a whopping 14 weeks)! These would be my two Commercial Projects, with the recurring Portfolio project being my Personal Project.

I’m certain that I still want to continue with the Cheltenham Illustration Awards, as the reasoning behind wanting to do that was to have a nice centrepiece for my end of year exhibit- I’d originally scheduled this project to be 5 weeks long, so this seems doable in the new timeframe.

The animation project (as a submission to the Adobe Awards) may have to sadly take a backseat as it’s most likely going to be too complex to complete to the best of my ability in the month that is available :c I fully intend to bring the existing work to fruition eventually- this might be a passion project of mine that I’ll take on in the summer after graduation… watch this space!

As an alternative, I want to further explore the riso and do some prints to submit to another competition- so far I’m thinking of basing them on the theme of the ‘Sun, Moon and Stars’ (this is extremely typical of me, haha)

I’m sad that I probably won’t be able to make my animation right now, but I really enjoyed working with the riso previously in Semester 1 and now that I have a lot more knowledge on the process and there are three new colours available, I’ll be able to make something really fancy~

My targets for next week include writing out a synopsis and briefs for my first project (Commercial Project 2), as well as starting initial concepts which I’ll work on while I wait for the CIA theme to be released.