Art and words. Now all I need is love - any offers?

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Below: What happens when you play around with the Keep Calm and Carry On maker, you know, instead of knuckling down and actually some real work.

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Below: Following up on the Tukutuku panels from before the break (1)
Our new project is Kowhaiwhai panels.  For those not in the know these are the painted panels of red, white and black which seem to cover almost every part of this country (2)
This turned into a full page spread because, as I was mapping out the actual design and doing a few colour tests, it was discovered that I was not only using pastels but OIL pastel no less.

I decided to keep on and fill the page up with a more freehand design as well as a few smudge tests just to see what the dreaded oil pastels could actually do.

IN OTHER NEWS:
So the four assignments that we have are as follows.

• Design a poster: I was suspicious of this one from the start and it turns out that I was right to be.  The movie poster we're designing is based on the movies that we made.  In my case that's Batman which is always cool but the catch was that we not only have to do it along a theme, romance, horror, 1970's but we also have to design 20 full page spreads and then design the lettering ourselves! (3)
  
  My genre, by the way, is Romance.  A romantic Batman it boggles the mind since I'm not trying to riff on the whole "Seduction of the innocent" angle
  
• Design a prop/set/scenery from Avatar: This is the big one, before this year the movie that they used was Romeo and Juliet which nobody was very excited about (4)  But since they who must be obeyed decreed that the movie we'd be doing was going to be James Camerons Avatar I've been going out of my mind with Nerdgasms.
  
• Design storyboards: Take your film and give us proper storyboards.  So far this is easy since I've just had to take screenshots of the film and work from there.  The storyboards we used while actually filming were quickly discarded as we kept on coming up with more and more ideas.
  
  After you've gotten the storyboards draw them by hand, scan them into the computers and shade them there.  Then print them out and mount them so that everyone can see your work.
   
• Storyboards Part II: You might have thought you were finished with Storyboards after all that but now what we want you to do is take two images of your storyboards and do them in charcoal onto A1 sized paper! (5) 
  
• Kowhaiwhai Panels: Just like it says above.  They're all over the place so make some more and spread the meme!  There is something rather relaxing about doing them although that's only when you're designing the basic shape.  When you get down to those fiddly bits it turns into an exercise in frustration! (6)
  
• Photography: If you read the notes of my last posting you'd see that we covered portrait photography.  The assignment for photography is to get portraits photographs of people working.  But in an interesting contridiction they shouldn't be working because they're posing for you.  It goes without saying that if your brain melts while you're trying to figure this one out then you fail the course.

So the schedule for the immediate future is going to be work + sleep at first but as that dreaded portfolio making draws closer the schedule will undoubtably morph into work + work + "Wake up!  It's time for work!"

In a wee bit of ego stroking news I got told by the tutor for the bachelor level course that she considered several members of the class good enough to skip the level 4 certificate, which is the one that we're currently on, and go straight from level 3 onto her bachelor.

Notes:

1. It took some rushing around but the panels were eventually finished.  Then I made the mistake of talking to one of the tutors about them and to cut a long story short I found myself volunteered to finish off another panel which had been forgotten.  Moral of the story?  Don't never say nothing to nobody.
2. You might think that's a joke but I'm being deadly serious.  They've got a stranglehold on this country like some kind of artistic meme
3. I'll have to space them out quite a bit but eventually I'll upload the better ones so you can see what I'm talking about.
4. I'll spare you my Romeo and Juliet rant.  It basically boils down to
   "OMG/R+J Y Y Y? MCBTH MCH BTR"
5. Before yesterday I had never worked with Charcoal.  But judging by the amount of mess I made doing an A3 picture I'll end up looking like a black and white minstrel!
6. They're also making us each give presentations about the panels and what we're doing.  The horror!
7.