The last two days I have attended a book making workshop. A lot of it was about different ways of approaching  making unique style artist books that open in weird ways and have bits that pop up etc. I tried making pop up bits because it looked rather simple. This lead to me drawing my normal style drawings over bits of paper that would be cut up and raised. This lead to my normal drawings but in a context where they could be altered to appear strange and distorted. This had a really cool visual that I definitely want to explore further. Also work in the context of a book is just really cool. The fiddly precise nature of making a book does not play to my strengths however so I embraced a rough, mismatched look that I believe I could support with my style. This could develop to create a really strong sense of aesthetic.

I also learned Japanese book binding. This was fiddly, tricky and confusing at the time but in hindsight I quite liked it. I really like the boom I made and although I made mistakes with the stitching and did some things in the wrong order it still holds together and I want to explore this method more. It seems like a good option for a one off artist book that doesn't need multiple copies. I think the aesthetic could be tinkered with to mirror the images I'd put inside to make a book, like my other one I made, it's good to have options.

Style

Here are some examples of work I've tried to make that achieve something photography couldn't. As I've said earlier when illustration is used in place of photography in a situation where photography could be used (so most of my work which comes from photos) it shoul present some sort of attitude or feeling. I've played around with this by experimenting with backgrounds and different maybe more expressive marks.

Studio space 19/11/2015

Comic work

Here's just an overview of some of my comic work showing how I've been creating the pages and using photoshop to clean the pages and colour them. I don't know much about photoshop but you knowledge is progressing as I go. As I learn how to use photoshop it is influencing how I go about doing my physical work, realising what I need to do in the physical form and what is better left to photoshop. This also helps with figuring out how to deal with mistakes.

Studio throughout the project so far 26/10 to beginning

I haven't talked about the narrative side of the project so I'll do it now. I'm working on a comic because I think that worked well last year. I'm going for a similar style as well drawing with ink in a loose-ish  style with a brush. This sort of working isn't very typical in comics which usually have a more solid, defined style. This typical style doesn't really suit my strengths however so I'm trying to create my own ways of doing things. I think the style works quite well (although obviously a bit of tuning is needed) and gives my comic so far a distinct look.
I don't think the lack of a normal comic-ish style is too important as comics today are becoming more and more varied in style anyway, especially with the rise of indie and creator owned comics like those published by Image comics. These comics such as Low, Deadly Class and Paper Girls are my main influences when it comes to comics and those with a more typical style, such as the majority of Marvel and DC's material I find to be rather boring and often just plain bad looking. Of course their are exceptions and even Marvel and DC are starting to vary their styles slightly like with the newest Hawkeye and Batgirl  series for instance.
Most comics are still a lot closer to the typical comic style than mine however.