I've neglected my blog a bit this project and now have a bit of a back log of notes to talk about.

After choosing Sirens of Titan for my text I did a few initial sketches based around the aspects of the book that most visually interested me. The main subject of this was an alien robot in the book called 'Salo'. I enjoyed the idea of drawing something completely new and fictional, something that visually didn't already exist (one of the reasons I chose Sirens of Titan is there is next to no art based around it, only a few book covers). After doing these initial sketches around the book I felt that my work started lacking direction.

I remembered a project that Zak Smith did based around the book Gravity's Rainbow called 'Illustrations for each page of Gravity's Rainbow'. In case it isn't self evident enough from the title the project consists of Smith making an illustration for every page of Thomas Pynchon's book Gravity's Rainbow. I decided I would pretty much do the same for my project. I won't force an illustration for every page though, if I feel there is nothing worth illustrating on a page I will move onto the next page. I plan for each illustration to be a4 sized and to be stuck chronologically on a wall. I will use a range of media but will probably focus on pen and inks as they are my preferred medium. I plan for the illustrations to be largely black and white with hints and touches of colour here and there. For the most part where there will be colour I want there to be a reason for it being there. I also don't want to do all the work in complete colour because I just don't think that a wall of illustrations right next to each other, all in complete colour would be very visually welcoming, I would rather do something a bit more low key.

I did contemplate doing another comic for this project as I did enjoy it last time. The problem with a comic though is you can't really spend a lot of time on each drawing as each one is just a panel in a much bigger work and you have to keep going onto the next. Obviously you can make each panel into it's own incredible illustration but this is hard especially when you're constantly repeating the same setting and characters over and over again in each panel in a page, I also always think when most people read a comic they usually move straight on from one panel to the next so their focus on the illustration's is restricted by trying to keep up with the narrative. My current idea doesn't have a clear narrative to it (there are recurring characters and motifs though) so I feel I can spend more time making each drawing a fully formed illustration. I also won't have to deal with text in my work like I had to with my comic book and as a whole don't really enjoy.

Project 6: Reading and Responding

My new project is called Reading and Responding. For this project I have to choose a text (in the loosest meaning of the word) and produce a body of work around it. The text I've decided to work with, at least for now, is The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. It is probably my favorite book and it includes lots of imagery and characters that I want to draw. For now I'm just finding parts that interest me visually and working from there.