Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns was born in 1930 and has yet to die. He is currently 83 years old and currently lives in Connecticut.

Jasper Johns' early work drew on Abstract Expressionism's ideas and techniques, but he took the art world in a new direction by endowing everyday objects with artistic importance, paving the way for Pop art and Minimalism.

After several brief stints studying art - first at the University of South Carolina in 1947, and then at the Parsons School of Design in New York in 1948 -- Johns was drafted into the Army. 

Some of his work can be seen below:

 Often considered part of a Neo-Dadaist movement, Johns bridged the gap between Abstract Expressionism and Pop art during his early career, but is still expanding his subjects, materials and styles through his current work.

Unit 01 Visual Recording

12 Saul Bass inspired posters

The many people Saul Bass has touched made these, there were many, many people.

Y-Chart

It's a Y-Chart. Why? Because I can.

Mood Boards showing the themes of Sin City.

I did it! :D

My Hand Made Movie Title Poster Of Sin City.

Item Sketches

See, this is what happens when you give me a pencil!

My weekend, in a nutshell. I did these for college and now I'm posting them here...for college.

Storyboards

Draft

Final

these were created to take me step by step through the animation...it may have worked...I'm not sure

Unit 53 2D Animation Production

Types of Animation

Animation is unique in the way it evolves. It get’s simpler and easier to use with every stride. From pencil on paper to technological programmes, animation has changed how we live today, creating films, presentations and even just little hobbies for various people all over the world. Animation has made the game industry, no animation means no visuals. We’d still be playing text-based games without animation or at the most point and click games.

There are many ways to animate because of the way it works. When your brain sees an image, then that image is suddenly replaced, your brain is confused. It tries to make a link between the two pictures and so, tries to fill in the gap between when it was there and when it wasn’t. This gives the illusion of movement and many frames together is that same technique but many times is succession.

So yes, animation is just confusing your brain in a good way. Animation runs by playing several frames every second, otherwise known as frame rate or fps. The more frames per second, the smoother the animation looks, meaning it’s a better quality. This tends to be a theme only in computer animation as flipbook animation and etcetera is controlled manually. The fps is how fast you can flip the pages or turn the wheel.

Despite animation confusing the brain it can still pick up on little changes in the motion. So for a single frame there might be a black spot somewhere on the screen, which means it would flash on the screen for less than a second. But our brains being all amazing, detect it, it sees a difference and notices, meaning technically, we are seeing and processing every single frame and then our brains add in frames in between to give the illusion of motion.

Now there are many techniques to getting this illusion right, and I’m going to be listing a few, so sit back, relax and read it all!

Flip Book Animation

First thing you need to know is: what is flip book animation? It’s basically where a series of images are drawn into a book or a flip pad in such a way that when moving between many images, it appears to move

This is one of the longest forms of animation due to the need to draw out every single background again and again and every single character and moving thing again and again.

Flip book animation has been used by budding animators for ages, creating unique animations using just a pencil and paper. It’s one of the most famous kinds of animation and due to having to draw the character over and over, a wobbly effect has been implemented into other animations to give it that flip book feel.

The first ever flipbook was shown in September in 1868 and was created by John Barnes Linnett. He origionally named it a Kineograph which means moving picture. It was actually the first kind of animation to feature a linear sequence of pictures instead of a repeating animation.

Today, flipnotes are considered as simply a novelty toy. They are still used in advertising and people still buy them today as collections. They have been known to go for thousands of pounds in sales and auctions.

Stop Motion
Stop Motion is essentially taking a real life object and taking pictures of said object in slightly different poses from the last. When these pictures are put together it gives the illusion of movement. This kind of animation is usually used to make real life objects move that would usually be static. E.G one of the many Lego home made films you can find.

Stop Motion can be used in so many ways, it can make objects move, it can make pictures on the wall out of nothing as you can see in the video above, it can even morph rooms and make clay into man-eating monsters (My personal favourite use).

This is an example of what stop motion can create with just a little creativity.


Kinetoscope
A Kinetoscope is simply a machine with a peephole in the top where pictures are slotted through very fast. This actually gives the illusion of movement. Kinetoscopes were one of the very first kinds of animation to be invented, so I bring you this thrilling rollercoaster of an animation:

It may seem like a simple man sneezing, but really it's a series of images placed in the right order to give the illusion of sneezing movement. 


My Running Cycle
Now after spending weeks of colouring in and drawing and backgrounding, I have finally finished my own running cycle. It may just be a strange yellowish goblin thing running through a bit of an odd looking forest. But it's my yellowish goblin thing in my odd looking wood!

Evaluation: In the above video, I have created a basic running cycle, simulating the motion of real life running, but using a character called Yallery Brown, based on a story. I have added a background which moves behind the character, and sound effects which I have collected myself. These consist of footsteps. I'd say the strengths of this project are the following:

- Smooth running animation
- The sound is synced up with the animation
- The character is fitted to my own art style

The weakness' however are as I find:

- The background seems a little jerky.
- Not much in the way of asthetics, shading and generally making things look pretty.
- The character may be a little small so not the easiest to see.

Feedback:
Someone commented that the sound was synced up with the running and the background may have been roughly drawn and seemed to speed up as the animation, but the character design was good and appeared to move reasonably smoothly.

         Yallery Brown Storyboard

 This was a storyboard I made to dictate exactly how the end result would play out.

Communication through art and design Unit 4

Task 2: Art of the game, redesigned Sonic!

The task I was given was to redesign a character from a video game in a new art style. I decided to use suprematism, the use of geometric shapes to create an image. I started by drawing out The blue hedgehog himself. Seen below:

After this was completed, I moved the image onto photoshop and proceeded to draw shapes all over it:

And this is the finished product! Don't worry, this isn't just a bad drawing of Sonic the Hedgehog, it's Sonic reborn in the form of Suprematism! The combination of geometric shapes to make a picture!

Text Styles

This would be a bunch of fonts I found and downloaded because I wanted everything to be beautiful!

 We also have Quite and loud contrasts along with a random curvy line bee thing.

Cute, to Creepy: Art of the game.

So these were my drafts for what I could do, then I edited one and made the following: 

After that, I worked on adding more colour to make this:

And then we have the finished product. A poster of mystery!

A Tiger thing

We were given a task to redraw a pre-drawn drawing, so this is what I had to draw...kind of...

Creative text

Then I went ahead and made a bunch of wort art things.

Salsa

When Bored, design a salsa themed thing...yeah...I was bored...

Illustrator Pathing

Just made another thing using pathing in Illustrator. Fun!

These would be the creative Haiku's

                                     

And these would be the other ones...we don't talk about the other ones...

How to make tomato soupy soup

Poster Picture Compositions

The above composition was created with the colour scheme in mind. Some are quite simple with a plain brown background or just a few identifiable shapes like the two on the right. These are simple yet convey their message in a way just as effective as other posters, such as the top left one. This has used the colour scheme of blue and neon purple, giving the effect of a party atmosphere. The one beneath has chosen black and white with a blue filter over a partial amount of the picture. This makes it seem professional and organised. The poster on the bottom middle of the composition is so simple it almost looks like a ticket. It contains all the information but still looks quite good in its own way. Finally, the district 9 poster. It's used quite a browny grey colour scheme to get across that this film is about a war. A worn poster with the giant faded spaceship in the background shows exactly what this film wants to show to reel you in.

This composition focus's on the art used to show you what the feature is about. The bottom right one, Mothra uses a unique font combined with a detailed moth head with simple colours. It gets across its message well, and maybe a slightly cheesy film, still an interesting poster. The top left poster uses a very simple background to draw your attention to the flying people, drawn it dark colours to contrast against the background. The one to the right of that, again uses simple solid colours using silhouettes to create a unique poster. The poster on the bottom left uses a more detailed picture yet does not use a background of any sort. Again it means the contrast between the subject and the background is even greater. The top right poster uses lines to make your eyes follow the shape of the pods, again using a simple background, with detailed foreground character subjects. Finally we have the poster to the left of Sc-fi July. This one has a detailed character, and the background contains another character of sorts, just as detailed. It gives the poster a comic book feel with a big red font drawing your attention between the picture and the title.

The above composition focus's on old poster looking posters. This means posters that don't just look like any old fancy pictures, but the posters that look like the posters you used to see up on street corners or in cinema lobbies. For example: The bottom middle poster, otherwise known as "The Visitor". It looks like a poster just due to the layout, the art style and the way the text is placed. It looks and feels like a poster. Then, the picture on the bottom left. It's very complicated and colourful and actually looks like a poster you'd see on the wall of a building on the street. The poster on the bottom right however is quite the opposite. Simple colours, recognisable shapes, and still looks like a poster in the way it's laid out. The top right picture is even more simple however and if anything I'd consider it more of a leaflet. Then we come to the top left poster. With an actual photograph and text letting you know the subject, yet another poster I'd expect to find somewhere outside. The top middle one however looks to be a silhouette. It's well designed, it holds mystery,it makes us want to read what the poster is about.

This composition focus's mainly on fonts. The way fonts are used to express the meaning of the poster. The top left picture, war of the worlds, holds a distorted unique font to display its alien nature. Quite an unsettling font at the same time, it seems to do its job. The bottom middle picture in very font heavy. So much so the text is used to create a picture. Avery recognisable picture in fact. The picture on the bottom right borner has moved the picture to the side for the text, giving a good effect while displaying the information needed. The picture on the bottom left however has little to no pictures using the lines to guide your eye to the title of the festival. The poster on the top middle has been blacked out for the most part with a single beam of light guiding our eyes to the white text in the black scene. Again contrast is used to display information. Finally, the picture on the top right. The picture has been simplified while the text has been stylised for the poster.

Mood Boards

Various Typefaces

Moodboard On Poster Ideas

These various pictures making up the moodboard above are various ideas I could use for my poster advertising my concert. First, the top left was not in my opinion the best choice, it was good in its layout and colour, giving it a calming effect, but this is not the ideas I want to convey through my poster. The object in said picture however, could work quite well if put on the right background. The picture to the right of it however I found very good. The red on the black for the helmet mixed with the classic space suit gives the right effect of fear and fascination at the same time. This idea could well be worked on for the poster. The next picture, is more of a futuristic feel along with some stylish circles. This could be used as a twist on the normal sci-fi feel to give it quite a happy look, while still staying on topic. The picture in the top right is an ideal picture to use. It uses colours that work well together going from dark colours used around as a boarder and a small compressed light in the middle. It's laid out so it's quite easy to add text and a title. Although I'd have to draw it by hand first it'd still work well as a base. The next picture, the bottom left one is effectively a poster in itself. It's quite simple yet uses just the right amount of colour and in the right way, as if layered. The picture next, to the right of the previous, focus' more on photographic effects. This is a very good technique yet I would need quite a bit of help, as I'm not entirely sure how to do this.

The Posters I created

Evaluation

During this unit we were asked to create two posters for the same event. One image based, the other text based. Above are the two I produced. (Minus the placement of the date and times) I drew them by hand in my sketchbook, went over the lines in pen, and scanned them into the computer where I filled all the lines in black and filled all the various shapes with colour. It took a while but eventually I managed it, and the results, I believe are pretty good.

I believe during this task I learned a great deal more about how to use photoshop. How to colour in lines for example so they are not just part of the background. I learned how I can create my own fonts and stick to the style and how to stay on a certain theme without going too far off it. I know I managed to keep the design to a sci-fi theme and stuck with the title of the event throughout.

As for what I did well, I think I managed to pull of a pretty good design, making the text appear to be earth and yet making sure the viewer knows it can't be by leaving gaps with stars inside. Out of the two I do prefer the image based poster though. The text one is just that, text, and a picture as they say, can say a thousand words.

During the development of these two posters, I went through several ideas, ranging from an alien peacing out, to an eye full of binary. The one I did like however was a picture I drew of a floating space helmet, broken at the front, the owner nowhere to be seen. I stuck with this idea and developed it further adding pieces of rubble and broken metal, then one piece rusting away, suggesting it had stayed on earth most of its life.

During development I did run into several problems. For one the scanner took a while to actually work, the program wouldn't let me select certain lines and therefore slowed me down, and it was a pain to fill in all the white space when the program only lets you edit parts you've selected with the magic wand. I did manage it in the end though and I'd say it's not too shabby.

I'd rate the imagery poster a 7 and the same goes for the typography one. This would be mainly because I could have quite easily added more detail and refined the posters a little more if I was given a little more time. As it turned out though this was not the case and so this is what we have. 

Finalised posters

Above we see the 6 posters I have designed as alternatives. With one poster (The top one) I only made a little change replacing the debris in the original with a moon instead. After this I felt like I wanted to steer away from the design I'd drawn so I took various images and edited them to the extent that they looked like a science fiction poster. The second poster was the first one I edited from an actual photo. I took a picture of a light ball with a glowstick inside and shook it. Then changed the color, added a posterisation effect, then added stars to make it seem like planet earth. I thought it was quite effective so after darkening the picture I decided to move along and use more of my pictures.

In the second poster I remembered I'd already created a mirror image of a log to create an alien looking picture. So I took the picture, darkened it slightly and put some text on it. The original picture had been mirrored and had an effect to make it seem dark and fiery.

The next picture I created was one I wanted to add a boarder to. So I took a flower with colours between the leaves, and changed the colour to make it look as if it were glowing. I then mirrored it and put it on the top and the bottom before inserting a mysterious silhouette in the middle.

The next poster I decided to make a little more surreal. I got a picture of a leaf close up and added a neon effect. Then I mirrored it up, down, left and right. and added stars to the background. Most of these posters were remade from scratch, this was because I wanted to move away from the original design and try new techniques. This means I've learned a little more and I have a much larger range of ideas.