The Steppenwolf Graphic Novel was a project inspired by the song ‘Steppenwolf’ by Hawkwind. This piece of work illustrates the story of our main character making his way from the sleepy suburbs to the busy city. However, through his eyes all is not what it seems. Following the lyrics to the song, our main character is so lost within himself that even surrounded by people, he sees and feels no one. Through his eyes, he is the only one around.
For this project I started with picking out the key lyrics that would form my story: “A freak, a fiend, a figment of mind”, “Dissolving in the slender of this desolation“, “Maybe it was only an hallucination... I'm no stranger to such things...I made a thorough investigation...The image had a power that clings...To my jaded imagination...My brain has found the bell it rings”.
Sketches and drawings then came to mind as I re-read the lyrics over and over. For the background on some parts I used saturated watercolour paper and black indian ink to create this flare effect.
This project was inspired by a video I took of my partner gazing up at ‘Night Whisper’, a light installation piece which was a part of the Liverpool River of Light 2023. I took a small few second clip of her looking up, her eyes being the focal point of the video. To turn this raw footage into something creative, I selected six key frames from the video, which demonstrated the most eye movement. For this project I used Intaglio ink on tetra Pak. Using a pencil, I drew on the six key frames into the tetra Pak, then going in with a scalpel over the pencil lines. These marks made by the scalpel will pick up the ink leaving a saturated crisp line once put through the printing press. After carving out my design, I inked up the tetra Pak and put it through the printing press. Once dried, I scanned these images in, where I took them into procreate where I was able to line each frame up to form my GIF animation. To finish I layered the original audio on top.
This project was my personal submission for the Batsford Books 2024 competition. I was inspired by an Instagram reel I saw of an animated astronaut jumping on each planet, demonstrating how the gravity effects the height of when you jump. I wanted to use this idea but put more of a fun spin on it, so that it would appeal more to a younger audience as well. So, I came up with ‘Jump High As A…’, a ten page graphic novel, showing how high you can jump on each planet represented by an animal. For example, on Mercury you can jump up to 1.6m, which is the same height as a hippo. This project was completed digitally, with the use of procreate.
My overall project message is to educate people on the severity of the issue of endangered animals. I wanted to used the format of a book to do this since its then elevated into an interactive piece which encourages the viewer to pick it up and flip through it. My main source of inspiration for this was Petr Horácek and his illustrations in the book ‘A First Book of Animals”, in collaboration with Nicola Davies.
Since its a book I wanted it to be exhibited on a shelf just at eye level so not only is it visible but it allows the viewer to be welcomed into interacting with it. It is meant to be picked up and felt and touched, but with great care as the pages of the book are extremely delicate, reflecting the content inside. I went with a pink painted box surrounding the shelf to highlight it as its own individual thing.
To start I had cut all my sheets to size, (two of each colour) and then planned which animals would go on which coloured page. I wanted the animal to correspond with the colour so for example the giraffe went on a yellow page and the blue whale went on a blue page. I rolled out my ink quite heavily so that my prints would be saturated, as I had noticed in earlier trials this paper likes to absorb a lot more ink than usual cartridge paper. When printing I used a second clean roller to apply pressure to the polystyrene prints, so the ink would get into the grooves and different textures of the paper.
The covers of the book are made from my first sheets of paper making, and reinforced with some watercolour paper to protect the delicate pages inside. For the lettering I kept to my theme of print and used ink slab printing letters and had to print each individual letter.
When it came to binding I had to take a different approach and use a single stitch that sews up instead of across, so that the pages can openly fold without bending or creasing. However the binding is slightly loser than I had liked, but this is only because of how thin the paper is. If I had tied them any tighter my pages would’ve torn. Overall I am very happy with the way everything had turned out, not only does it get the message across but it looks good doing so as well.
These here are my Japanese food inpired Tarot Cards. These include: ramen, gyoza, dango, onigiri and sushi. I used procreate to complete this project, with the help of my pinterest board. Forming a pinterest board is something I always do when starting a project. It allows me to collate my ideas together, and to gather reference images and inspirational material. The imagery around the main images on the cards are that of common items related to the main focus. For example, on the ramen card I have included ‘narutomaki’ or ‘naruto’ which are those small white and pink flower like fish cakes, most commonly served as a garnish on top a bowl of ramen.
These stickers are an add-on to my ‘Japanese Tarot Cards’. I have isolated some of the main images from my cards, using then as stickers. These stickers consist of a shrimp onigiri, a ramen bowl and a cluster of sushi. For this project I used procreate, using my favourite brush, ‘Gesinski Ink’