Tutorial 28th Jan

This week I did some more drawing and collage in book - like sections taken out of a small sketchbook. I like them as objects, and they remind me of the soldiers' personal possessions displayed in the Imperial War Museum. Alex suggested incorporating this into the presentation of my project, as I did with my photographs of origami boxes in Unit X last year; it would be an interesting way to show my designs. Smaller versions of them would work well; a larger book wouldn't have the right feel to it.

I also produced motifs from my earlier drawings, and acclimatised myself to working in repeat in photoshop, which resulted in a range of different effects. I tried to use a variety of drawings as a basis for motifs; bold vs worn-looking ones, some produced with pencil, others pen, and then edited them in photoshop so that they were different sizes and arrangements.

Motifs from drawings of epaulettes, a helmet, and jacket material were repeated in a stripy pattern. They now remind me of biscuits or sweets. This is appropriate for a war time theme; sweets, like the soldiers were not part of normal British life. Home baking is also part of the traditional 'vintage' theme; here it is 'sinister vintage'. I intend to experiment with colour, using a 'military' colour palette, 'vintage' colour palette and mixture of the two, taken from my narrowed selection of colours.

 To make a more obvious statement about 'sinister vintage' and to fit in with the idea of arranging images together from 'Amelie', I assembled the above gun shape from the pretty, flower-like designs based on my grandpa's helmet.

For my photoshop designs I would like to make more motifs from my second batch of drawings, so that they will be more varied.