This trimester all of our projects were to be condensed into one PortfolioZine with a running style that would tie the pages together. It needed to be at least 16 pages long outlining the projects, our process, our final works and some mockups of our art to see how it would look placed into the real world. We were also asked to include a page with a quote from an artist that resonated with us and covers for both back and front.

PROCESS

For the parts of my Zine that didn't fall under the other briefs such as my artist quote page I wanted to keep with the same hand made feel as my other project pieces. In line with the marbles I created for brief 2 I made a rainbow one to serve as my colour theme for the Zine, alongside black so that it would pop brightly. Once I had my colours sorted I wanted to use a technique I used in a previous trimester of scribbling around the page edges as a border (wider on the left to account for the sewn in seam of the book) not wanting to overpower the content I kept this trim to just my title pages and made a corner cut of the same rainbow shades for the other pages. For my Artist quote I went with One of my favourite people Bob Ross, choosing his quote about talent being an earned quality. I've spent most of my life honing my craft of being an artist and so often I hear people remark that they could never do that because they have no talent, when it's genuinely 90% practice. to keep with the theme I decided on a line trace of Bob at his canvas, recognisable but minimal. My covers are very simple, featuring my rainbow marble and an ink blot that I made myself as an abstract focus point.

The first project was about finding our style for our Zine, something we could cohesively carry through, an emblem or icon that we felt represented us featuring our name and a bio for ourselves to go with it. The icon had to include handmade elements.

PROCESS

For my emblem I felt drawn towards creating a sculpture, knowing I wanted to incorporate natural materials and lots of texture. I chose to create a cast of the left side of my face, something I'd done for my full face previously, and using my skills of crochet I would make my name out of yarn to place along the cheek and jaw. I cut out the eye to make it more functional and glued the crochet down, then going to find sticks to bundle together and weave with more yarn into a tree like structure. Actually placing and solidifying this was really hard because each branch needed to be in just the right place to hold the mask at the right angle with tension so it wouldn't fall and also I don't have 8 hands to hold, wrap and glue a bunch of sticks at once. I needed a base after this and fitting in with the rainbow theme I found some aquarium gravel giving the piece much more stability as the base of the branches was really buried in the container and the gravel was quite heavy. I collected fresh flowers on my shoot day in a range of colours and types to arrange around my sculpture. wanting to add more of my personality to it I opted for a space background and confining the whole picture within a splatter of ink. My Bio is actually poetry explaining my ethos in how and why I create my artwork, how I see the world around me.

Project 2 was to create a series of travel button badges inspired by and for Rottnest Island, including researching the islands history as influence for our designs. We needed at least 3 badges but could make more if we chose to and to create some creative placements mockups of our designs that would fit with the setting.

PROCESS

I wanted to create a series of 4 badges having two set during the day and two at night featuring sights you would be likely to see on a trip to the island. while sketching I got the idea for using a marble as a feature texture in select parts of the art, this developed into finding images of Rottnest with defined colour palates that matched the imagery of each badge and liquifying them in photoshop to create marbles. My four sights I chose was a sunburnt swimmer from behind, the lighthouse shining out over the sea, a friendly quokka and a bright bonfire. Keeping my non marbles areas to mostly flat bold colour made both the texture pop and gave the effect that it was a screen printed image. I kept the detailing minimal to retain this simple style but still adding some cell shading for definition of sections that needed it. For my mockups I knew I wanted to use the marbles as the part of my work that carried over and so I thought it would be a good idea to have for hire bike equipment that would have wraps of the marble that you could rent out while you're visiting the island. As an addition bit I also made shirts that have the series of marbles as well as featuring the decal of the lighthouse from the badge in black to match the trim of the shirts.

Project 3 was out interdisciplinary task where we paired with one of the audio classes to create covers for albums that they were recording. Each audio student had provided a brief with a mood board and a run down of their vision which we could pick from. We needed to correspond with our partner throughout the process as we developed the art.

PROCESS

I knew right away that I wanted to choose the meatal brief as metal is not only something I'm a fan of but the musician was also interested in it featuring alien iconography and themes of breaking out of oppression, two things I'm very passionate about. We discussed what from his mood board was within my capabilities and the direction I had planned to go in, from there I started with photobashing a basic background to set my perspective (which I would refine later) and got to sketching, messaging my partner as I went. I pulled inspiration from the Iron Maiden mascot Eddie especially in the eye shape as that was one of the references I had been provided. He asked that I keep it humanoid looking and feature neon green as my main colour as well as keeping the text readable unlike some metal albums can get. To get around this while still being creative I designed a new typeface with characters that are English but look as though they are alien script. Then came the very long process of digitally painting the alien itself, I estimate somewhere around 30-40 hours. My back cover is the alternate view of the aliens returning to seek retribution on the humans who experimented on one of their own, we see the ruins of the compound it was held in behind a fenced off restricted area. When I mocked up the record itself I wanted it to be unique and so I presented it as a splatter vinyl.

Project 4 gave us a choice between two stories, Red Riding Hood and Moby Dick, to create an alternate cover for the book that represented the themes of the story. We needed both the back and front covers including the spine. As part of this project we also went on a guided tour of a local print factory to see the way the machines work on an industrial level to print, ink and bind various types of paper (and more) media.

PROCESS

Off the bat I knew I wanted to choose Moby Dick because I did an adaptation of Red Riding Hood last trimester for another unit and wanted to try something fresh. Even though I haven't read the book I have a decent grasp on the themes it explores in order to create a piece of representational art. I wanted to emphasise the size of the whale against the human protagonist and tossed around a few ways to do this, the whale breaching in the background with Ahab in the foreground, Ahab above the enormous eye of the creature and the reflection of the ship in the whale's eye. My final decision was to place the captain in a small dinghy at sea holding up a lantern ahead of him as the gaping maw of Moby looms behind him blocking out most of the sky, moonlight spilling around it's edges, moments before Captain Ahab is swallowed. The back cover is the immediate aftermath, the sea is still again with the full moon shining above and only a few boards of the dinghy left behind. My title I hand scripted to follow a wavy motion, fitting with the ocean. The mouth of the whale also reads as a cave that Ahab is emerging from. I didn't realise when creating my pieces that the monitor I was using wasn't showing me what the actual file looked like and so my driftwood came out quite dark, with no time left to correct it it becomes like an Easter egg for diligent viewers.