Summer Melt

Artwork Title: Summer Melt
Visual Treatment:-
Art Movement: Pop Art
Reference Artist: Andy Warhol
Theme Chosen: Global Warming
Ideation and Concept:
   Global warming is a serious problem that  implicates not only us humans but other species' as well. The animals most affected by global warming are the polar animals or the animals that live on either ice-capped poles. Since global warming is causing ice to dissapear at an alarming rate these animals face habitat destruction, disrupted food supply and possibly future extinction. I chose four animals that best represent the affected area; the polar bear, the penguin, the walrus and the seal.

   We all know that ice cream melts in hot conditions. So the whole concept of "melting animal shaped ice-creams" best represents global warming and how it affects these creatures. It symbolises the dire state of these animals, literally 'melting away' before our own eyes.

   The title of the the artwork is Summer Melt. I chose this title because the summer season is known for its hot weather and this is the time when ice cream sales shoot through the roof all over the world. The bright colours also gives the artwork a 'summer-y vibe'. The word 'Melt' obviously reflects the melting of the ice-cream in the artwork.

Final Product

As shown in my previous post, I've kinda finished the basic design and colouring of my artwork. The only thing left to do was adding the texture. Tried and experimented with many textures, but finally found one that I think is suitable. Since pop art is usually defined by the simple lines, colours, and minimalistic textures, I chose a canvas texture to make the artwork look like a printed canvas poster.

Chose the blending option: Soft Light and adjusted the opacity to 43% so the new texture does not interfere the cone and popsicle stick texture. And ta-da! My artwork is done!!

Work In Progress

Hi all! After quite a  hectic week (or should I say weeks), I finally had time to continue my work on my design project. First, I added lines to the finalised sketch to act as grids separating the four different sections of the   design. Used the line tool (Pen tool) for this.

After that, I added the background colours that I thought were suitable in reference to the ideation sketch that I posted previously.

Not perfect but I later changed the sequence of the layers so the colours would be behind the animals. As you can see I kinda was testing out a colour suitable for the seal.

I later used shapes to fill in the polar bear's head after finding out that simply using the brush tool disastrously resulted in uneven lines and spaces. So here's the polar bears head. Not perfect but the basic shape that I wanted is there.

Next, I tried doing the seal's head.

Turned out good but may change the colour later.

I spent a much longer time on the penguin's head as it had more components than the other heads. Again, not perfect.

Lastly the walrus' head.

Next, I moved on to making the popsicle stick for the polar bear. I created it's shape by adding a long rectangle and a circle at the end to make it oblong. Chose a orangey brown colour. To add the texture, I opened the Blending Option tray and chose a wood texture style for the popsicle layer. Adjusted the colour and opacity to find what's suitable.

Happy with the result as it really looks like a popsicle stick.

Next, moved on to the ice cream cone. Created a shape resembling an ice cream cone and added shadows for dimension. For the texture, I couldn't find a style resembling the cone in the Blending Options tray, so I found a cone texture which I overlay it on top of the shape. Looks too dark for my liking so may lighten the colour later.

The penguin's sno-cone was easy as it only required adding a rectangle shape and warping it to make it look like a cone. So, after that, I moved on the the walrus' double popsicle stick. Duplicated the same popsicle stick that I made earlier and changed the colour.

Later, I made the initial sketch layer invisible and filled up the empty gaps of the background with the different colours respectively. Added the minor important details like the eyes, nose and the penguin's beak.

Almost done! I added the tears by constructing shapes of rectangles and circles together. Changed the colour of the seal's head and the cone lighter. Looks better.

Finally, I changed the background colour of the polar bear as the previous colour was a tad too bright. Cleaned up the edges as well.

So, the basic colouring of my artwork is done! Still undecided on the name. Will keep on experimenting with different textures and effects to complete it. But for now, I'm quite satisfied with the results. Should I just keep it simple, clean and poster-like? What do you think? Do tell me... ;)

A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words

This amazing photo titled “Candy Cigarette” was taken by Sally Mann in 1989. When I first saw this photograph, I was moved by the pure emotion and intensity of the girl. She seemed defiant and entrenched in feelings about herself and her right to smoke a single cigarette during some free time in a park or playground. The carefree atmosphere of the playground is pronounced by a close playmate near her and another on a ladder. She stands out among her friends, so it seems, as she smokes away, staring down the photographer as if her peaceful retreat had been disturbed.

Surrealism

Hi ya'll! A few weeks ago, our lecturer asked us to do an exercise on surrealism. We were given a link to a tutorial for surreal representation. So, after week of PROcrastinating, I've finally decided to finish up my artwork. Kinda stuck with the original design as shown in the tutorial, but changed the items coming out of her head.

Added the handbag and the zebra print heel because its what every woman wants. And since she has glam makeup on, it seemed appropriate.

After completing the above design, I wanted to do more. Since this artwork had a female subject, I thought that I would do a male one. So naturally I chose one of my favorite actors/people, Tom Hiddleston. KInda the same concept, but different subject. I wanted to put something on his face like the previous artwork, but couldn't bear do do it! He's just too precious!! ;D

 Based the colors on his most famous character Loki. The hummingbirds are just humming away in his ears, as a distraction, symbolizing what other people may say and think. The quote was from twitter. ;) Experimented by adding snowy and icy textures for the background. Added some bubbles too. I'm quite happy with the end result.

And

 (Yup, that's Loki!)

Final Concepts

  So, basically I'm gonna stick to the previous sketches of the melting animals. I think it presents a very clear and straightforward message regarding global warming issue. The four animals, namely the polar bear, the penguin, the seal and the walrus will all be placed in one page, each occupying a quarter of the space. This layout approach is clearly reminiscent of the pop art movement, where the illustrations are placed in their respective 'windows' or are repeated in a orderly manner.

I have chosen this picture as a source of inspiration.(Source)

Hence, i drew the respective animals on equal portions of grids on the paper. Made some changes to the seal as i thought the mouth part in the previous versions looked weird. So i chose to omit the mouth and added a pair of cute seal ears.

 The animals will all be roughly the same size to emphasize the equality. Also decided on some colors and textures that I will be using later. The colors would be vibrant and bright in accordance to pop art. And I have decided o not put any outlines on the animals themselves, instead, I will try to use the colors to create contrast and dimension, similar to the lip reference picture above.

This the the raw final sketch that I will use as a guide in designing and coloring in Photoshop later. Am still undecided on whether I should include any wording or message in the artwork. We'll see how it goes. I really hope this turns out like what I imagined in my head! Wish me luck!!! ;)