Volunteering for the Hay Festival

A few weeks ago we had e-mail sent to us from our tutor asking for volunteers for the festival, we would go to 2 talks at the festival for free. My friend and I took the opportunity.

On the day we were asked to gather in a group and choose 2 events we'd like to go to, so we could be given the tickets. The first event we chose to go to was called 'Outside the Asylum' with Lynne Jones, the second ticket we chose was 'Reportage Illustration' with George Butler.

After talking to my tutor there was a few spare tickets, so we also decided to go to a talk called 'Sustainability in an age of Brexit and Donald Trump' with Jonathan Porritt, Claire Fox, Ed Giliespie and Martin Wright.

Talk 1 - Lynne Jones, Outside the Asylum

Below are some of the slides included in the presentation of the stories that she had been told by different individuals as well as her struggle.

Lynne began the presentation with talking a bit about herself and then continued to tell us a story about PTSD, and the fact that it is not as well-known as it should be in this current era. She told us about a family who got raided by soldiers in Syria, a sister and two brothers saw their family get blown to bits by them. From then on the brothers were not the same. Years later the brothers were diagnosed with PTSD and now remain in institutional care, their sister gave up her own career and family life so she could take care of them. When Lynne spoke about going to visit them she mentioned that 'one was laughing and shaking' while the other sat in silence barely looking at her.

She also spoke about physiological debriefing,' saying that how we grieve, how we address loss isn't an open question, it is how as an individual you deal with it.

She went on to say about the devastating things that happen in this world, the killings, explosions and so much more. The media care more about the disaster rather than the death. She spoke to a man who lost his mother in a bombing, and in doing so explained that the realisation of the matter is that you loose significance of the deaths and more of the disaster.

"Is humanitarianism a waste of hope?" She asks, not going into her opinion, she simply says that Alain Destexhe explains it better than her. 

Although she doesn't put her opinion out about humanitarianism she goes on to explain that 'humanitarianism relief is essential.'

She was asked 'Do you use drugs?' her response, "Yes, because of severe medical health illnesses including mental health illnesses NEED TREATMENT."

After the talk I thought that I could reference her book in my dissertation, as I'm going to be talking about 'dark' surrealism, in other words, artists that create art based on their nightmares, they re-create them. As well as talking about just nightmares, some artists deal with mental health issues, they create things they see through their eyes. I feel I could talk about this book in my dissertation to help my readers understand how different people deal with different problems.

Talk 2 - Jonathan Porritt, Claire Fox, Ed Giliespie and Martin Wright, Sustainability in an age of Brexit and Trump. For this talk it started off with talking about the economy and the talk turned into something else, but was hardly a debate. I was really disappointed and wasn't that interested in this talk. 

Talk 3 - George Butler, Reportage Illustrator

Below are some of the drawings he showed us during the presentation.

His book (a year of drawing) was unfortunately too expensive, so instead me and my friend got him to sign our tickets, also managing to get a picture with him (edited black and white filter.)

Further planning for workshop with children at Hay Festival

Displaying flags, boats and facts

Four our workshop we decided to make it easier for the kids and have the boats link up with the flags. So depending on if they liked the boat or flag, it would have a boat to make, we also added in some facts about the boats from that specific country. We also used string and pins to link them up, behind them is some foam board that makes it easier to pin on to.

We used these specific countries/continents because we felt that the range of colour and different patterns on each flag would give the kids more choice.

Zines

We created a zine that was more of an activity sheet than a zine, something they could do more with, we thought it would be a better idea rather than just giving them a zine with instructions. The zine contained instructions and we also put the coloured flags on so they'd be able to identify the different flags through the workshop, and write what each one was. 

We decided to make the back page of the zine white (the outline of the boat,) so the kids could colour them in, making the zine more interactive for them.

After making a slight change of the back page, we also thought that making the flags to be in no colour, that the kids could colour them in, I feel this final zine works better than the previous ones created because its a lot more interactive for the kids and I think they would enjoy colouring in things rather than having them already coloured.

 This was the final result.

This is our lesson plan for the workshop.

Week 12 - Deadline and putting our Illustrations up for the festival

Yesterday was the deadline for our Hay Festival project. I am pleased with how my project turned out as well as my illustrated pieces not only meeting the deadline, but also having my client pleased with them. I created a range of colour for my final design as well as playing around with it in photoshop, this shows my design can be presented in more than one way, and still looks good!

Unfortunately they did not have enough vinyl to create all 3 of my different coloured trees, but I still had the naturalistic green colour. This was more effective than using the other colours because of the colour of the trees, it represents summer/spring time.

Today we put up the illustrations for the festival, due to an accident with a car, I struggled to put up my illustration but I also didn't want to miss it. So I decided I would need some help, because not only was I sick from the incident but my illustration was huge and needed 2 other helpers. My boyfriend and friend from the course helped me put up my illustration.

First, we had to peel off the illustration, because it was a giant sticker that needed to be put up. We started by peeling from the middle to the side, this prevented any of the illustration sticking to the other sides.

After finding the right position, we put the illustration up on the vinyl and stuck it down firmly. On the far left side, was the person who printed our illustrations, his name is Lee and he guided us on how to make our illustrations look good after they have been stuck up.

We then had to peel the front of it off. (The reason this was on was to prevent the illustration from getting dirty or from ruining it.)

After peeling off the front and pack from the illustration we then had these plastic shaped handles to help use get rid of any air bubbles on the illustration. We had to do this a specific way as if we didn't do it the right way the illustration would be left with a hole in it, or the air bubble would spread to something bigger.

This is my finished illustration stuck up, and I have to say I'm very pleased with it, as we stuck the illustration down firmly, made sure there were no air bubbles and I feel my illustration looks really good on a larger scale! The effect of the overprinting of the trees, makes the trees look faded, as my illustration was put up in a shader area, I felt this gave it the vibe I wanted to give it, a mysterious forest of trees.

Crazy coloured theme

Here are some more of my final designs, inverted in different colours. I messed around in photoshop and this was the result. I feel the images are so colourful and powerful, giving off neon colours to make them really stand out on the screen. 

I feel the orange coloured one worked well because of the warm colours used, it makes the atmosphere feel calm. I also really like the colour palette because it can also be associated with a safari dessert.

This design worked effectively because of the colours used for this image, they compliment each other really well and the fact the background is darker than the trees really make the work eye-catching.

Night time theme #2

 After submitting my final designs, I decided to go back to a theme that I was really intrigued with but didn't have time to do further designs on. So now that my deadline for the final designs has been submitted on time I can focus on the theme that I really liked.

The night time theme I was looking into before was more about changing my style and the design of the tree to suit the theme rather than keeping the same design, but changing the colours to suit the theme. As the designs I've created below are of my final design, but are inverted and colours have been slightly altered to give it more of a burst of colour, making it look neon. This gives the images a night time look.

I feel as if these trees worked really effectively because the fact that the background is black, makes the colours dynamic and makes the illustration seem almost lively.

These trees were created using the threshold tool in photoshop, the trees are of only 2 colours, making them look a lot more negative than the other trees.

I feel these worked effectively because of the 2 colours, making it a really strong and bold image, and also helping it to appeal to the eye.

This was also created on a negative format using photoshop, and the saturation was changed to make this purplish colour. It almost makes you feel like your wearing thermal goggles to see the trees, and it gives off a really bold effect.

Deadline 2?

So... We had an urgent e-mail sent out via our course leader and our tutor for the current project, saying that the printer had troubles reading our illustrations and corrupted our files. So it couldn't print. Most of the class, including myself, had to go in and re-create the files and send them over yet again.

It was not our fault that our files were corrupted but we did not have much of explanation as to why this happened, regardless, we headed in to sort it out and were asked to make a JPEG, TIFF and Original Illustrator file, and to send it to the tutors and course leader. I had some struggle as one of my files kept creating more cut paths than needed, so with some assistance I managed to take away the unnecessary cut paths and just have the one.
These are my very final Illustrations all in order of how they are going to look on the banner (from pink, to green, to blue) and hopefully won't have any troubles with the printer..

Week 10 - Workshop for Children at the Hay Festival - Planning

After finishing up our Illustrations ready for the printer to be transferred onto vinyl for the festival, we were given another brief. This one being for the children going to be at the festival, it is to help the adults at the festival have their own time and keep the kids entertained.

The brief is for the client Anorak Magazine for their summer edition, and was aimed at children 5+ related to the theme 'Our World.' It has to involve things like our planet, animals, humans, water. (So it pretty much has to be a theme for something to do on the planet, but still has to be educational.)
We were put into groups to map out what we thought might be a good idea for the workshop, we had a few ideas like finger puppets, paper boats, wooden spoon characters, hand puppets.

After a group discussion we decided to go with paper boats, with this idea we can show how the different countries around the world use boats, (for food supplies, holidays, etc. Maybe including time era too.)

(This is not my image, or my design, but it is here to show you what I mean by how the boats will end up looking like when finished.)

We thought for the kids side of things we could have them pick a continent (by pointing to a part of the world, on a world map) or the colours they like (depending on the age group) and they can create their own boats. We chose that coloured paper would be preferred and that the country they pick is the colour of their boat as well as adding things like stickers, animals, feathers,etc.

As well as having the kids create and decorate their own paper boats we were going to let them create their own flags to make their continent and boat.

We will also have instructions for how to create boats. (It will look a little something like this..)

Our age group we were given is 9-11.

Our side of illustration comes into play at the fact we're going to be creating the boats, drawing them and decorating them to match the countries. This means its fun and educational for the kids, and we get to have some fun illustrating the boats (and maybe creating them too if we're lucky.)