Here's the original piece:
I based my layout of the original copy, and started drawing out guidelines for all of the words. It's going to be harder to make sure that the leading and kerning it accurate as I wouldn't be able to adjust it as easily as I did on the computer for the original, so this took quite some time! Putting in the words took just as long, but I finally managed it.
When I was done I used a thick micron and wrote over what I had. I did this because I am going to do the final on a separate piece of paper because this paper was getting a bit messy.
While I was doing the inking process I accidentally smudged one or two letters, and this sparked an idea: why don't I have droplets of water all over it, as if they were tears?
Now it was time to scan and brush it up on Photoshop! I can see some things that needed tweaking such as the leading between "they're more like" and "tsunami tides", and I also wanted to emphasise the 'tears'.
The first thing I did in Photoshop was to duplicate the original and sort that kerning out, placing a white background behind it. I then duplicated the duplicate (confusing, I know) and used the Magic Wand tool to delete all of the white spaces.
Now it's time to work on the layout as a whole so I brought up the grid view and sorted that out. I made sure that each line was on a different layer so it was easier for me to do. I also tweaked some of the letters that seemed to be drawn a bit too high from the 'baseline'.
I added in the little wave painting I had done and placed it at the bottom of the quote to act as a full-stop. I then put in the paper stock as well and adjusted the saturation of the quote. I did this by duplicating the group that the words were in, merged it, and then went onto Image > Adjustments > Hue & Saturation.
What I have so far:
I'm not too sure of what I think of this; I do like the effect of having smudges of ink to show that the person is crying, but I just wish I was able to make the 'tsunami tides' a bit thicker because it looks much too thin. Some of the letters need a larger kerning, especially in "they're more like". Some of the letters don't sit on the baseline correctly either.
To make the 'tsunami tides' line a bit bolder I tried out some values in Colour Balance.
To make them thicker I used a different nib for the dip pen and scanned it in, putting it in place of the one that was there before. I then played around with some of the letters to sort them out and tried out difference vibrance and hues again.
Here's what I have:
Reflective Thinking - Summary
This exercise made a nice change to my project because I was able to improve on something I had already done. There's still something that is still bugging me about this, and I really don't know what! What I'm going to do is sleep on it so I can look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow.
I quite enjoyed this exercise as I was able to try out two type styles using the dip pen. I seem to be getting the hang of it a little bit now! I am able to figure out just how much ink to use - which took a while - so the next time I use it I should be able to master it to a certain degree.
When I do come back to doing this or doing something similar I think I might try out using uppercase and lowercase, because when I showed this on my Facebook page that was one of the things that my classmates mentioned doing. It might be a good idea to do a similar technique with a quote that is included within one of the many topics that the Oxford Literary Festival covers instead of some lyrics.
Learning Outcome:
[5] Developed skills of independent study, resource utilisation, problem-solving and decision-taking.
[7] Developed their ability to learn through reflection on practice and experience.
[9] Developed their ability to work with complex material, analyse problems and identify appropriate solutions.
No comments:
Post a Comment