Our next project was called ‘Field Notes’ and we found out that we would be visiting the Barbican Centre to draw from life.  Once there, we could draw and record any interpretations of the centre, including people, architecture, movement, sounds etc. using any media we wanted, so there was a lot of freedom.  However, the sketches would be fairly rough and impromptu as time was limited (one afternoon).   It was freeing to draw on location but also I was a little worried as I do not believe my observational drawing is particularly strong but I do think I managed to capture the essence of what I wanted. 

I also took some photos of key elements that I was drawn to in the Barbican, giving the option to utilise both observational drawing and photography in my final piece.

We had to display our sketchbooks to the class and look round at all the sketches of the Barbican Centre.  I was pleasantly surprised at the range and skill of some of the architectural renderings in particular – some were like art works in themselves! 

I really loved the use of colour within this depiction, especially as, in reality, the architecture was largely grey and brutalist, but this creates almost a whimsical, even fairytale, feeling.   

Another example of work I really liked was very stylistically appealing to me, because of its naivety with ‘incorrect’ perspective and wobbly lines, but it made it more interesting and was a great composition, with the ‘L’ shaped element, leading the eye to the upper left quadrant with the flags. 

This example is like a fully-fledged artwork in itself, combining different mediums, such as watercolour and pen.  Even the sky treatment is redolent of brickwork.  I also like the texture of water splash on the stretch of water. 

The feedback I received for my own work was that the simple and clear depiction was attractive, with a large variety of linework, with bold, thick lines and block shapes, giving a very graphic quality.  After the feedback, we had to consider potential compositions for our final piece, which would be large scale (one metre by 1.5 metres) to go on a wall to create a mural.  I initially made extensive use of very thick, block lines in a cropped representation of one of the buildings, with simplified greenery/vegetation on the balconies.  Here is a digital mock-up created on my iPad. 

However, I felt it was not original enough and I felt many other people may also come up with a similar idea.  I then started to focus on the patterns of the ceiling in the Barbican and noticed how the squares could almost fit within the gaps on an outside smoking post, so I combined the two elements.  I did not go ahead with this idea as I thought it too vague.  Instead, still focusing on the pattern on the ceiling, I came up with a composition utilising 6 square blocks with rounded corners.  I would use bold, bright, warm colours for attention, which was similar to the lighting situation in reality, but I would also add interior elements which were simplistic symbols which captured my attention (architecture, staircase, toilet signs and the Barbican kitchen).  This was rendered with Posca pens, giving a smooth, constant finish which was suitable mechanical and untextured. 

When it came to creating the actual drawing, I first started by gridding out and measuring as accuracy was very important.  This was extremely time consuming. By lunchtime, most people looked much further on than me and I still had not begun to add any colour.  However, once it was accurately designed, I started blocking in using the bright colours first so they would not be sullied by the black liner.  I used lots of masking tape, not only to create a flat canvas for the accuracy required, but also to create clean lines within.  I then moved on to creating the illustrations within the light areas, first in pencil and then with varied widths of black marker pen.  Once these were complete, I then merely had to draw the black in the central area, again utilising the masking tape to ensure a sharp finish.  I had to be very careful not to smudge any previous colouring and lots of patience was required.  All that was left to do then was to block in the background in black.  This sounds simple but again was very time consuming, with no spaces to be seen as this would the spoil the graphic look, and the accuracy had to be very good so as not to ruin the whole lot at the last minute.  Overall, I was very pleased with the work.  It took a lot of patience and time, qualities I did not think I possessed in such abundance.  It was a very satisfactory outcome accurately representing my initial ideas and was very clean and graphic in style, almost as if produced digitally, which was the idea I wanted. 

Today we were in the studio and we were briefed about our latest project, 40 Hours.  We did various tasks which made us think about the concept of time and how we could incorporate it into our work.  Task 1 was similar to Daniel Eatock’s drawing of a circle – we had to draw a circle in a minute so at 15 seconds, the circle was quarter done, at 30, halfway done and so on.  Individually, this was only a minute of our time but once we hung our drawings on the wall, it represented 45 minutes for the number of people in the class.  This made us think about time as a continuous and shared concept than the normal linear idea.   Task 2 made us use our phones.  We had one minute to record an image or a video of something in the classroom, again, indicating time.  I did a time-lapse of my finger tapping, something mundane that one does when bored or fidgeting, and the sound of tapping was like the ticking of a clock.  Task 3 – we had to do a ten-minute blind drawing of our partner.  The set rules were don’t look at the drawing, don’t take the pen off the page, make sure it takes the whole 10 minutes and look at your partner and really study them.  This made us realise the importance of setting out rules and keeping them, recognising the importance of the process rather than just being concerned with outcome.  In Task 4, we did a ten-minute repetitive action.  I chose to make marks on a piece of paper, holding two pens in my mouth.  This was a strange experience, and my mouth ached, and it is not one I would like to repeat and it really makes you aware of how long time actually is.  It made us realise that if we were going to do a repetitive action for our whole project, it had to be something that we could maintain.  One good example I saw in class was when a guy span around with his arms outstretched, holding a pen in each hand and as he spun, he made a mark on the wall.  The end result was an amalgamation of lots of different coloured lines, over and over, which was aesthetically pleasing and also when the paper was removed, it left a blank spot on the wall where things had overlapped, also showing the value of absence when considering the concept of time. 

Task 5 – we had an hour to create something spanning the whole hour.  I chose to walk continuously around the campus and surrounding areas, filming on my phone on a time lapse, filming continuously.  This showed how things can be compressed down, eg. something which lasted an hour could be compressed into 30 seconds of footage.  It was a bit manic watching it, and you were unable to focus on much, but it did give a sense of time passing.  All these tasks ultimately made us think about how we could include Time in our end product.

Today we had a tutorial to present our initial idea for the project.  Task 5 from yesterday, the walking, made me consider steps as a measure of time.  I thought to link this with commuting time and hoped to draw a comparison between the lengths of our commutes in cities opposed to the steps taken by those in the developing world just to collect the daily essential of water.  Half of Londoners say their commute is the worst thing about their lives and I wanted to put this into perspective by showing that really, things are not that bad, compared to the onerous tasks in the developing countries.  I planned to measure my commute to uni, counting the number of steps using a Fitbit, as well as taking note of the time in minutes.  I would then walk 6 kilometres – the average distance walked by those in the Third World to collect water – to see how the time and number of steps differed in my commute.  I could present my data in a couple of ways.  I could have painted my feet and walked the same number of steps on a large-scale piece of paper or doodle footsteps continuously over and over on a piece of paper for the amount of time the commute took. 

I set out my rules for recording the commute.  I would start timing/counting steps when I left the front door and then make note of the time/steps from stepping inside my station as well as leaving the station.  I would walk on the escalators to get a more accurate step count or take the stairs.  I would also record the time of day.  I planned to make no extra stops eg. no stops to get coffee! 

Commute 1 – Warren Street to Archway

Time started: 10.26 am

Starting step count: 1403

Time when reaching the station: 10.38 am

Step count at station: 2805

Time leaving the station: 10.54 am

Step count leaving the station: 3195

Finish time 10.57 am

Finishing step count: 3564

Timings breakdown: (Lap 1 - home to Warren Street station, Lap 2 - Warren Street station to Archway station, Lap 3 - Archway station to Archway campus)

Commute 2 -  Archway to Warren Street

Time started: 12.01 pm

Starting step count: 4422

Time on reaching the station: 12.06 pm

Step count at station: 4796

Time on leaving the station: 12.23 pm

Step count leaving the station: 5212

Finish time: 12.37 pm

Finishing step count: 6777 

Timings breakdown:  (Lap 1 - Archway campus to Archway station, Lap 2 - Archway station to Warren Street station, Lap 3 - Warren Street station to home)

I thought I could repeat this journey at different times of the day to see if it varied due to the amount of foot traffic.  I also considered completing the journey carrying a 20 litre jerry can, much like those used by people in the developing world to collect water.  While I thought the idea had some ‘legs’ (!), I was struggling with how it would come to fruition and what it would actually look like, so I started collecting other people’s commute times as well.  I thought about presenting the data on a large-scale map, similar to those done by Paula Scher.  Again, I was struggling with the idea as a whole.  I chose to abandon my idea as I saw these problems as insurmountable.  I joked about making a list of activities I would rather do than this project, coming up with ridiculous suggestions.  I found it quite funny and decided this would now form the basis of my project. 

I presented my new idea at the interim crit, displaying the list I had made, as well as my first 20 illustrations from the list.  I used a simple black-line style, as well as minimal colours and some mixed media eg. foil, paint, bin bags etc.  Umberto supported my new idea and I set about completing the final 20 drawings.  Each drawing took from 30 minutes to an hour to do; again, displaying the time allowed in drawing.  I sought to display them all together on a wall, but I then decided it would probably work better in a concertina book form, forming a narrative and joining them all together. 

Overall, I was fairly happy with my project.  Although I struggled at the beginning to form a cohesive idea with the footsteps, I think I managed to bring it back by doing something a bit more unexpected and satirical.  The mixed media works well, adding an extra element to the work and following my presentation to the class, people joked I should go into stand-up comedy.  I’m glad I can make people laugh with my work!

Having missed the first day of this project due to illness, I was absent for the initial briefing and had to catch up.  While others were experimenting with ink, I had to create my storyboard depicting my chosen story.  I chose to illustrate my expedition to the Arctic, trekking across Baffin Island off the coast of Canada.  I decided the 9 key points for the story, which had to be a real narrative (ie not a made up story, such as fairytale or fable).  The storyboard is as follows:

1. Flying out to Baffin Island
2. Skidooing to the start point
3. Cross-country skiing across the barren landscape dragging heavy pulks
4. Being caught in 70 mph winds, with pulks flipping over
5. Trying to set up camp in the heavy winds at the aptly-named Windy Lake
6. Tent pole snapping
7. Being upset, cold and frustrated (temperature got down to -35 degrees at night)
8. All of us having to cram into the emergency shelter
9. Next day, weather clearing up, enabling us to carry on with our journey and make it back safe!

We then had to draw it up neatly in pencil on our canvas, creating a narrative flux connecting a single scene from the storyboard.  They would be connected eventually but we had to work within three strips of three (each strip to measure 10cm high, 48cm long).  I chose an illustrative, simple style which was very graphic and almost looked like it could be lino cut. 

After completing the drawing in pencil, we had to ink in the work in black and white only. This was very time-consuming because of the neatness required.  This was so that we could later prepare a positive for the screen printing.  Ignacia taught us how to scan our work on the school printers – we had to do this in two parts as the paper was bigger than the scanner.  We would then have to stitch the images together in Photoshop and also heighten the contrast, making it as flat black as possible for when we sent it to the printers to make the positive.  We could also add textures at this point, or any other elements, but I chose to keep my work as stylistically simple as possible to enhance the graphic element.  

Today we would start on the actual screen printing.  We had to create a stencil using newsprint, cutting any areas we wanted to be filled with the colour accents.  I chose a pale blue due to the cold, Arctic setting of my story, choosing to fill in the sea, the pulks, the flapping canvas of the tent and then the dark background after the tent had snapped, highlighting the extreme coldness.  We had to set up the equipment under Umberto’s guidance, securing the screen, creating the correct registration before finally printing onto A2 pieces of paper.  My registration was slightly off due to loose elements in the composition, such as the snowflakes and icebergs.  My first pull of the squeegee was not hard enough, leading to blurring of a few edges, but after adjusting the pressure, the rest of the prints were fine.   

Again, we had to come into Uni on our time slots to finally print the primary colour onto our designs.  Umberto taught us how to use our positive to prepare the screens that he had coated in gel.  We would place the positive in a uv lightbox and place the screen over it before sealing it in a vacuum and exposing it to the uv light.  The black areas of the positive would block the light so that the gel wouldn’t harden and could be washed off so that the gel-free areas of our pattern could be printed black.  We then set up the printing station as before, only using black ink this time, filling the screen.  We then used the squeegee to print our designs.  On my first pull, I used too much ink, causing it to bleed a little at the bottom of the design.  I rectified this on the subsequent prints (three in colour and one in black and white).  On the ones with the colour, the registration, as I suspected, was markedly off for the snowflakes and icebergs but I actually like this effect, as it looks as if it is deliberate and adds extra visual interest.  To fix this in the future, I would probably not line the snowflakes in black, leading to just the one layer. 

After our prints had dried, all that was left to do was to bind our books.  We had to carefully cut out the strips using a scalpel, leaving a one centimetre flap on the end of the first two strips.  This would act as a join to the next strip.  After cutting, we then had to measure out 16cm intervals to get accurate folds and folded the book in the concertina style, making sure we folded it the correct way each time, taking into account where it would be joined.  We placed glue on the flaps and stuck them together, creating one continuous, long concertina book.  The first panel was glued to the inside of the cover and we wrote a title on the inside back cover.  I chose to cover the front with a white mesh paper to represent snow and ice, attaching it with clear glue.  We all then laid out our books on the tables so we could view everybody’s work.  People really liked the simple illustrative style of my book but I was really impressed with the level of detail of some people’s books.  My personal favourite was the depiction of the Salem Witch Trials.  Their use of the balance of black and red across the length of the storyboard was impressive and the story was very clear from their illustrations, making the narrative easily understood.  Some people chose to use dark blue instead of black as their primary colour, and this created an unusual, distinctive look.  However, for me, black was the best choice due to the simplicity required of my design. 

Today we started our final part two project, which was to create a publication.  We started by scouring sound archives such as the British Library for Sound and the BBC Sound archives to identify three sound clips which interested us. 

My first clip focused on accents.  I clicked on one from Yorkshire and it was a little old lady from Pately Bridge talking about bread making.  Her accent was very funny and her way of talking about the recipe was very informal and I thought it could be interesting the create a recipe book in her dialect. 

https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Survey-of-English-dialects/021M-C0908X0046XX-0900V1

The second sound clip I found was again through accents – this time, a Leeds accent.  The clip was of a conversation between two friends about one of their experiences in a psychiatric hospital called Highroyds in Leeds.  There were some interesting quotes from this clip that I felt I could illustrate. 

https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/The-Listening-Project/021M-C1500X0189XX-0001V0

The third sound clip was from a Youtube video about Stanley Kubrick, about the new invention of the steadycam in the filming of The Shining.  I thought I could create an informational pamphlet about the development of this new contraption or focus on horror film aspects. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKhAeOvjH5o

We presented our sound clips to a small group and had to identify which one we would work with. I chose the second sound clip about High Royds Hospital.  The content of my publication would be formed around quotes from the interview and I visually interpreted it using a distressed pen line with multiple strokes to express the disturbance experienced by the interviewee.  I thought the medium of fine line pen would be the most appropriate, as opposed to print, in which some detail would be lost, and it would also be extra work for no added benefit.  I would scan my drawings into the computer and then digitally print it out onto paper.  This could be like a distressed, textured paper or even black ink on black paper, creating an uncomfortable viewing experience, akin to the patient’s own uncomfortable experiences at the hospital.  The publication would be targeted at the general public and potentially by mental health charities, showing how far services have come since the ‘dark days’ of Victorian asylums and straitjackets.  I would use fabric to create a sleeve for my book, redolent of a straitjacket, even attaching a metal buckle to the front. 

Today, we learnt about different hand binding techniques for our books.  I could use a Japanese stab bind to join individual pages together.  This would allow me to use papers of different colours, starting at black, going through the grey spectrum and ending with white.  I could also potentially have paper fold outs in my book.  Another format I could use was a concertina book.  Tricia talks of a long corridor throughout the hospital, which could be mirrored by the long page format of the book in concertina form.  I could illustrate it with one, long continuous drawing and have the quotes floating amongst the images.  The final format I considered is the one fold format.  This would allow me to have a front and back cover, as well as six pages.  When opened up, I could then have one big poster on the back.  However, I felt this would not be the best way as it limited me to using only 6 quotes/illustrations and there were so many poignant moments throughout the interview.  I chose to go for the Japanese stab bind, using four holes.  I decided to orientate it landscape as opposed to portrait, as the join would take up too much space on the portrait aspect and limit my illustrations. 

I set about creating my quotes using a rubber stamp set and hand stamping them onto paper.  I used a mix of capitals and lower-case letters, eliciting confusion and lack of stability, and I felt that the hand stamping (rather than digital type) created a more personal feeling.  However, this process was very time consuming and took longer than expected!  I was, though, very visually effective.  There were random ink marks where, for example, it had been overstamped, and mottling where it was not fully printed, and I liked the imperfections of this.  After selecting my quotes, I then started illustrating.  The drawing style is very different to my usual clean-line drawing style but I felt it better suited the narrative.  The drawings are dreary, dark and even scary, again, making for an uncomfortable read.  Once these were completed, I scanned both the drawings and the quotes into my computer.  As we had to create three books, I started setting it up in Indesign documents so that it could be easily replicated.  I bought some black and grey paper which I would print on double-sided.  However, when it came to printing, it was too thick for my printer! I was left without being able to use the paper I wanted.  I had to print onto normal A4 white paper, which was a little flimsy for my liking, so I decided I would go to a professional printers so I could use the paper I wanted.  I did, however, manage to experiment with black paper, and I liked this effect, difficult to read though it was.

When I finally got to the printers, I chose an off-white paper of 170 gsm (the paper I used at home was 80 gsm). This gave my book some ‘body’ and some sturdiness, and the second version I had printed on even thicker paper – 250 gsm.  However, this was probably a little too thick.  The book still opened but pages did not turn as easily.  The printers did not have any black paper options but I managed to source slightly textured, rough-fibred paper from a local art shop.  The colours ranged from black, dark grey, light grey, to off white to replicate the patient’s journey from the dark times of the hospital to a slightly more positive recovery outside the environs of the hospital.  To create the strait jacket for the book, I roughly cut the shape and this actually worked well with the theme, complete with its loose threads and untidy edges. 

Overall, I was very happy with the outcome as the design and the materials suitably echo the patient’s own uncomfortable experiences, so that the visual elements complement the narrative and add to the overall effect. While the drawing style is very different to my usual work, it emphasises the dire nature of Tricia's experiences in High Royds hospital.