Studio Brief 4 - A Matter of Opinion

I have been looking at the quote "When I die, there is nobody to take my place" by Keith Harring, and it's relation to my own ideas about existence. I am looking into the concept of reincarnation and the possible continuous cycle of life, wondering if what Harring said could be argued against. I don't feel like I want to make highly visual pieces of work in order to develop my ideas, and am preferring to write out my own thoughts at this point in time.

I really like the aesthetics of note taking and test beds that grow into finished pieces of illustration in their own right. I feel like my work doesn't need to be a page full of thumbnails, and am enjoying just being able to play with the format of my sketchbook. I have begun looking into Samsara, the Hindu cycle of life and death. At the moment I would say my work is moving towards type as image, or possible type and image, although I feel like the imagery comes second to the writing and note taking.

• One in the same - is there another one like us out there? Why are certain people so similar?
• Circles - continuous life cycle - can't stop drawing them
• Oil pastels go over anything - fine liners don't
• I really like this format - not sure if I want to change it? Narrower - letterbox?

Concept Crit - Peer Feedback

My group suggested I look into drawing within a circle, since this brief has no real restrictions. I like the idea and how it would fit well into my concept, however I don't feel as if it is the best  way for me to communicate everything I want to say. I'm not sure how to properly explain what I can visualise but I just know this is not the way in which I want to go. I want my final three illustrations to fit together to make up one image in some way, and this will be much easier with straight edges. I have realised my initial ideas are lacking in quantity and I may have spent too long trying to visualise shapes, layout and colours etc. I think this is just the way I work, although outside of a brief I would have much more time to spend on developing my ideas in this way. The group suggested I try out some thumbnail pencil sketches, I definitely want to use text in my illustrations and I am still thinking about how to transfer this into thumbnails and being able to visualise each idea clearly.