During my trip to Japan I made a visit to the museum of Modern art Tokyo which was just next to the stunning Imperial palace Gardens. This was a great opportunity to expose myself to new artists and perspectives.

The first thing I liked about the gallery was that it was spread across 4 floors so you started at the top and walked your way down for me this was effective as it exposed me to types of art that normally I wouldn’t go out of my way to see, also the view of the office buildings and Imperial palace Gardens from the 4th floor was breathtaking.

Ewan Turner, (2019)

As an illustrator I was naturally fascinated by the illustration work on show. It was really informative in terms of how these artist viewed Japan and what they wanted to represent, with many artists focusing on traditional locations and few references to modern life and cities. I also really enjoyed the range of styles on show from traditional techniques to sculpture.

One artist who had an particular influence on me was the work of Kawanishi Hide. Hides prints on show were made from the woodblock print making technique which allowed him to make beautiful compositions and is a technique that I intend to learn and possibly use in my project at some point. What drew me to his work was the use of strong bold colours with the contrast between these colours creating the contrast thus the lack of black outlines in his work.

Kawanishi Hide, (1894-1965)

Overall I would say that this trip was really successful as I have found at least one artist in which I will research further and at least use his ideas about colour. One thing I could have done better was I didn’t gather as much primary research as I should have and this could present a challenge when I come back to this for inspiration and experimentation. This is something that I will try and improve on when I visit galleries etc in future.

Bibliography

Kawanishi Hide, (1894-1965) Self Portrait [woodblock print]. Museum of modern art Tokyo, Tokyo

Ewan Turner, (2019) [Photograph]

For the next step of the research stage I decided to gather some primary research in the form of a questionnaire. The goal of this was to start to understand different peoples perspective on what the definition of a strange place is as well as to discover places I could visit to gather further research.

For me the research that I gathered was very interesting and I got things out of it that I didn’t expect. One things it change for me was it made me look at my own city and areas in which I grew up in in a new light. People talked about how areas such as Hackney and Shoreditch were once no go places and are now becoming ‘hipster’ places. I also had a similar response about the Royal arsenal and how inside the walls its really posh which is a contrast to the outside. This idea of contrasts in different places is something I could really expose in my image making.

Overall I gained a wide range of feedback from crazy Russian villagers that claim Jesus lives with them, a penis festival in China, sun in Scotland and my very own bedroom. However I would say that I was disappointed by the number of responses and feel that it didn’t go as well as I had planned.  I think its challenging to get information out of people but in future I I will plan better to make it more entertaining and set up to gather more information if I decided to it again.

Another thing that I hadn’t expect the questionnaire to bring up was the it made me start to question what my definition of a strange place is and this is why I untimely feel the questionnaire was successful as this has opened up new paths of research of which I plan to explore in my image making and research.

As my project would include a combination of graphic design and illustration in my final product I decided to watch the Abstract art of design documentaries about Illustrator Christoph Niemann and Graphic designer Pauler Scher (Abstract: The Art of Design ‘Paula Scher: Graphic Design’, 2017) for inspirations as well as way to improve my creative practice and advice of image making and designing.

My analysis of the documentaries alone was that I loved them. They were the first documentaries of artists or even just people in which the whole product of the documentary was a reflection of the artists itself. I felt that the from the way they were cut to the use of their illustrations or things that were personal to them the production was Taylor made. The first time I watched the documentaries I was frustrated at the lack of times they spent going though each piece of worm some only being on screen for seconds. Once I watched them a second time however I began to understand that the documentaries are about how they think and see the world and while there work is a reflection of that, you can go and view there work any time you want. (Abstract: The Art of Design ‘Paula Scher: Graphic Design’, 2017)

Things I took away from the Pauler Scher documentary were her ability with and the way she spoke about the importance of Typography ‘Typography is like painting with words, it’s my crack” (Abstract: The Art of Design ‘Paula Scher: Graphic Design’, 2017). This had defiantly had an influence on me as I’m already thinking about was in which I can make the typography in my book more exiting and expressive as well as maybe looking into using in on the cover. Would this help me communicate better? Although the challenge there is whether or not this would effectively reflect a book of illustrations. I was also a big fan of her painting as a form of relaxation that was also a way of expressing that physical creative engird that had been lost in the computer age. She says that her maps are ‘made too ask questions rather than answer them’ (Abstract: The Art of Design ‘Paula Scher: Graphic Design’, 2017) and that they were ‘emotional not factual’ (Abstract: The Art of Design ‘Paula Scher: Graphic Design’, 2017) . I think that not only is this a beautiful way of expressing herself but there is also this idea that ‘once you show the real thing you kill it’ (Abstract: The Art of Design ‘Christoph Niemann: Illustration’, 2017), which Christoph Niamann talks about in his documentary, which I think is relevant hear as the imperfections and the idea that it is not factual is the thing that gives it its Beauty and significance.

(Abstract: The Art of Design ‘Paula Scher: Graphic Design’, 2017)

Niemann talks a lot about this idea of ‘if you show something you kill it’ (Abstract: The Art of Design ‘Christoph Niemann: Illustration’, 2017). He believes that everything has a place from abstract to reality where the idea just works. This is definitely an idea in which I can relate to as finding that seat spot of whether to make an image complex or simple to communicate and idea. Somthings that I found interesting from his is where he said ‘not planning can help’ (Abstract: The Art of Design ‘Christoph Niemann: Illustration’, 2017) and ‘sometimes you are just staring at blank piece of paper truing for crazy moments to happen’ (Abstract: The Art of Design ‘Christoph Niemann: Illustration’, 2017) For Niemann being free and experimentation are an importance part of his process  and developing an idea almost without a plan is the main things and the computer is secondary. This is soothing that is very alien in my own practice where I mainly work on a computer but for this project certainly I will try to stare at blank paper more and have more trust.

(Abstract: The Art of Design ‘Christoph Niemann: Illustration’, 2017)

I think watching these documentaries was an informative task because of the influence on me in terms of my creative process and ideas behind the images . They highlight points that I can take on board and begin to execute to improve the quality my work and even my research and experimentation. I think these documentaries will also be informative in terms of research as they have been a good introduction to there work and how they create work, which could also be applied to other artist research.

Bibliography

‘Christoph Niemann: Illustration’ (2017) Abstract: The Art of Design, Series 1, Episode 1. Netflix, February 10, 2017.

‘Paula Scher: Graphic Design’ (2017) Abstract: The Art of Design, Series 1, Episode 6. Netflix, February 10, 2017.

Evaluation of Proposal

Looking back on the proposal stage of the FMP I feel that while my intentions where in the right place with coming up with essentially just a book of illustrations, I just felt that at the start of my project I had no idea what to do. I feel this comes down to poor planning on my part and not thinking long term about things such as research and developing an idea.

Once I’d had a chat with Olly and let most of the panic pass I decided to re read my proposal and it wasn’t as bad as I had in my head. While there was still a clear sense that I had gone for form first the idea I’d come up with (Friends and strange places ) was actually a specific ideas that could be developed and explored through research.

From this I now have a clear plan of expiring this idea of strange places as well as what makes a strange place, and how contrast can show this.

Starting of research

At the start of the research process I decided to simply brainstorm as many weird places as I could and reasons why. I was coming up with connections and a few ideas of how I could illustrate them but I needed to explore further, so I then started googling famous strange places. I think the brainstorms were an effective way to start the research period as I was able to get a lot of information and ideas out of my head and get them on paps to allow me to explore further. On the other hand while I was googling these exotic places it was interesting to find out about these crazy places like a pink lake in Australia but, I quickly realised that while these were fascinating places I just had no connection with them and felt that this wasn’t the direction I wanted the project to take.

(Rough Guides, 2019)

Bibliography

Rough Guides. (2019). 20 seriously weird places around the world – Rough Guides. [online] Available at: https://www.roughguides.com/gallery/20-seriously-weird-places-around-the-world/ [Accessed 17 Mar. 2019].