One Day Project

After being set the Constructive Visualization project, we were then set a one day project to make an editorial piece using the text we'd been given as inspiration. I chose to go with the ouroboros symbol, and proceeded to draw a few initial ideas for how the ouroboros would sit within the drawing, and tried combining it with other elements from the song. After doing this I settled on drawing the snake around the grave, because the aim was to create an editorial piece, and I think these elements would grab the audience the most. The aim of an editorial piece is to entice the audience as they are flicking through a magazine or web pages (whatever form of communication I have been commissioned for).

After deciding the subjects within my piece I found lots of images of a variety of tombstones and snakes, so I could select the types rather than just drawing a generic snake/ tombstone. Looking back I can see that this resulted in the drawing looking more realistic, like it was truly set in the world. This is the importance of collecting a wide variety of reference photos, which I will bare in mind for the future.

After researching and drawing tombstones and snakes I ended up with some line work for the final piece. I wasn't sure how to colour it, and time was running out by this point, so to be as efficient as possible I photocopied the line art with the aim of experimenting with different mediums and styles of colouring. I chose the first image above because it had a dark feel that I think matched the subject. I am pleased with the line art, but not so with the way I shaded it. Because the brief was to create an editorial piece I think it should be more eye catching, for example I could colour the rest of the picture instead of just the snake. I think this would look good combined with the cross hatching shading, as it would make the whole piece less simple whilst still having areas of tone.

When the one day project was over I wanted to carry on working into the line art as I was disappointed with my first outcome from it. I took it into Autodesk Sketchbook on my iPad, as I was still learning how to work digitally, and thought this would be a good opportunity to experiment some more. Overall I am much happier with the digital outcome, as I improved upon my analogue piece by colouring the whole drawing, rather than just the snake. This definitely makes the piece stand out more. Because I'm still learning to colour digitally some of the blending of colours could definitely be better, but even just throughout this piece I learnt so much. I plan to continue to learn by doing. I think I could improve this final piece by adding some of the cross hatching from the first final piece. This would bring back some of the tone and depth that was lost in the digital version.