Exercise 7: Composing pictures

For this exercise, I decided to create a series of drawings. Before opting for a particular style, I did some research and concluded that it would be better not to have contour lines in order to change the scale of the images in the second part of the exercise without worrying about the thickness of the lines.

I remembered some photos I had taken of vintage posters advertising the funfair in Ramsgate. I like the simplicity of these illustrations. They contain just the right amount of details. I thought that, if I wanted to create a certain number of images, a similar style would work well.

I went out to find some inspiration regarding the theme or themes I might choose. I saw a little funfair and a circus, but unfortunately, everything was closed and covered because of the bad weather. I then looked through photos I had taken over the years. I still had the idea of the funfair and the circus in my mind and it inspired my choice of images. Below are a few of the photos I used:

I did not want to have too much of an end result in mind as I started to draw. I just tried to find interesting elements that showed some potential. I also did not try to reproduce any picture accurately. I used the photos as inspiration only.

I first created a few sketches in my sketchbook.

I then carried on in Procreate. I created a limited colour palette so that the illustrations would work well together in a collage. I liked the idea of yellows and oranges with some pink/red. This is the work in progress in Procreate.

I then added a few finishing touches in Photoshop. Below are the final images.

I looked at examples of collages in a book called The Collage Ideas Book (Alannah Moore (2018). The collage ideas book. London: Ilex, A Division Of Octopus Publishing Group.). I also looked at more collages in Pinterest for inspiration.

I then added all the images in Illustrator and played with various ideas (unfortunately I overwrote my work in progress by accident). Below are the final collages.

I used different techniques. One obvious technique is to assemble two or more elements to tell a story. It can be as simple as adding a character to a background (see two examples in #11) or combining more elements (#04). In image #04, the lady is in the middle of the road looking at someone on a scooter. In the original picture, people were watching a parade of people driving vintage scooters. By changing the context (a lonely road with an air balloon in the distance), we now wonder what is going on.

I played with the element of repetition in image #01 and #02. Example #01 was inspired by a show I had seen in a circus.

Changing proportions give some interesting results. In image #02, the dragoon is not threatening anymore as it is depositing a flower at the feet of its master.

I enjoyed creating collages that do not depict a scene (see #03 and #08). In one case, the yellow circle highlights the dragoon’s face, while in the other, it ties the different illustrations together. I had created other geometric shapes but I have realised that I discarded them in my final compositions.

There are many other techniques that I have not used such as replacing part of a body with the body of a different character. I suppose it is because I felt it would not work so well with these images. In a sense, the type of images has an impact on the style of collages.

What Went Well

I am happy with the colours. However, because I have used the same colour palette for all the images, there is sometimes a lack of contrast in my collages as it was difficult to know beforehand how the illustrations would be combined.

I liked taking some elements from various pictures and reassembling them to tell or suggest a completely different story. It shows that inspiration for stories can come from everywhere.

I really enjoyed creating images in Procreate and feel that I have benefited from the practice.

Challenges I Encountered

Creating every illustration was very time consuming. They are not perfect but even when I tried not to spend too long on the details, they still took a long time. Once I realised this, it was a bit too late to take a different direction and, as a result, this exercise took too long to complete. It also meant that I could not create more items for the collages. I need to be more realistic when I answer a brief. In this case, it might have been interesting to take pictures or maybe use a mix of pictures and drawings.

What I learned from this exercise

This exercise has been another opportunity to take the habit of looking at everything differently and see how a scene can be deconstructed and reconstructed to tell a different story.