CARLOS ALCORDO SHAPE AND COLOUR REFLECTION
TASK 1
For task 1 I decided to use a picture I took of my little cousin in 2016 in Taiwan, it is a very special photo for me becuase it is one of the first photos I had taken when introduced to film cameras; a Canon AE-1 35MM film camera to be exact. I used ILFORD HP 5 and did some editing recently. I wanted to use a picture of my cousin as well because I miss them dearly, I ussually visit them yearly or they come visit Canada but because of Covid I havent seen them in 3 years. Using this photo motivated me to do as best as possible for this assignment and am very exited to show Anna and also my fam back in Taiwan.
Based off the criteria for this assignment, I saw lots of opportunity to create an illustration with both shapes and colours. The shapes I saw a lot of potential with the folds, the flowiness and wrinkles of the clothing. I also though that there are many shape opportunties in the background such as the stairs and the shadows, but lets see how it turns out.
For task 1, I first increased the contrast of my photo so I could get clearer blacks for the outline. the photo was very pixaleted but ended up still working during the outline step.
I mapped the shadows, fold and wrinkles of the figure into 4 different tones of black and greys, playing with opacity as well.
For the outline I used both the pen tool and also the pencil tool. I used the pencil for a majorty of the sweatshirt too get more of a flowy aesthetic to it.
I tried various swatches for the darker tones like the shadows. my favourite one was this one, some kind of checkered pattern, But overall I liked it better with simple coloured swatches because I thought it would be adding too much.
TASK 2
Due to unfortunte circumstances, I had accidentally deleted both my task 1 and 2.
This was my final illustration for task 2. I used various colours using munsells colour wheel. Munsells colour wheel directed me to compose the sketch with both the colours orange and blue. In the wheel it directs us to use lighter tones between these two colours, so I used the colours based off the wheel, but eventually changed the colours a bit in terms of tones, based off my personal likings.
I also found another cool swatch to use for the darker shadows and ended up liking it alot, and for the shadow I tried various swatches.
After accidentally deleting all my AI Files, I was fortunate enough to keep all my screen shots of my process, so I was lucky enough to outline and recerate the illustration based off the screen shots. Although I was panicking and stressed at first, I saw this as an opportunity to correct and make it better.
I changed minor parts different colours such as the pant hems and bag which I thought it complimented the primary colours compared to the previous one. I also found another pattern swatch to use as my dark tones and loved the way it turned out.
Let this be a lesson for all students to back up their AI Files!
TASK 3
Going into Task 3 I wanted to use stairs as my background for the scarf because i thought it would create a really nice aesthetic to a fashion garment. I first tried stairs that go up, but realized that it wouldnt work that much because it would leave lots of white space. I knew I was headed in the right direction and wanted to further explore different compositions.
I wanted to put 4 versions going around the scarf giving it a more symetrical aesthetic and saw that it would look best for a scarf.
I came up with the idea of making borders of 4 that fill up the whole square and made the stairs fill up 1/4th of the square and the multiply it by 4 and reflecting them so they match and connect with each other.
To get rid of the edges, I made a triangle shape and used the clipping mask tool to straighten and make the stairs equal when I multiply them.
This is how it turned out after using the clipping mask tool. I then copied the stairs and reflected and rotated it to make sure it fills the blank areas.
After completeting the background, I used my illustration for task 1 and played around with positioning of the sketch and tried various options. I wanted to the figure to look as if shes going up the stairs.
Using the repeat tool Anna demonstrated us I also used a radial version and loved the way it turned out.
I added larger versions of the sketch to fill in the blank space and I also wanted to give the illusion of the figure getting bigger and bigger.
I added a border but didnt like the colours and spacing of it so I tried something different.
This was my final design for the scarf. I am very proud ot eh way it turned out. I feel it is very authentic to my type of work through its pop art aesthetic and also minimalistic approach. I made sure that and critical thinking that this type of illustration would be approriate for a scarf.
In terms of artistic and symbolic meaning, the original photo of my little cousin walking up the stairs to me symbolically represent a child growing up to who knows what. As a kid your options of what you want to be in the future are infinite, well thats how I felt as a kid. In this illustration I wanted to showcase that by prodominaltey using multiples. I hope others can see the same vision as I do.
Overall this project was very fun and I learned a lot through Anna's guidance and I cant wait to show my family back in Taiwan what I created.
