OUGD406 | Studio brief 01 -Design Development

I tried to develop my current designs further. I was inspired by my original sketches as I had planned a wild animal pattern. I transferred this to the human figure I had been using. The result is reasonable, but I don't feel that it communicates my personal experience of listening to the music.

I then began to consider the abstract expressionist Cy Twombly I had researched after remembering our first session interpreting music through mark making. As a test, I sourced an abstract piece off the internet and placed the figure over this using Multiply and Colour dodge, for the original and inverted version. I was intrigued by the results and liked how the paint was visible through the body and that the figure appears to disappear into the paint - similar to the experience of listening to music and disappearing into the sound. 

I decided to create my own version by using acrylic to paint to the song itself. I chose colours depending on the sound that I heard and which colours I felt represented this. My first piece was a mix-up of all the colours, but within this I found the blue and yellow contrasted well against this. 

I tried a second piece with these colour on grey paper to experiment (I felt that grey paper would give the colours more of an impact). I then photographed this as it was drying to record my process. However, as the paint was wet in this image, it developed a really shiny look in the photograph. I took this to photoshop and increased the saturation and vibrancy as I feel this best relates to the song. 

I was pleased with the resulting image and decided to use this for my illustrations. 

Regrettably, I did not record the effect I used to combine the two images. However, it is easy to recreate in photoshop. I was really pleased with the effects I created. The bright colours contrasted nicely against the black and white tones, these variations in colour are similar to the notes of the electric guitar in the song, again the figure appears to be melting into the sound and looks relaxed at the experience of this.

I am undecided as to whether the image looks better with the background or not. I will look to tomorrow crit for advice on this. 

I went to create the lines through the ears, similar to my previous work, but accidentally spread this across the figure. I liked the effect of this added colour and so began to develop this design. I added the lines in the 3 colours I had used this time instead of just one to show the ups and downs of the sound and rhythm. I continued to explore which line shape was best and whether or not to include the eyes, to as if the sound is travelling through the skull and awakening the person. Again, I will use tomorrows critique for feedback on this.