Friday 15th April 2011:

I wanted to create something really simple, which would still give out the right message. I remembered from my research that I saw a piece which said ‘stop bullying’, and had a handprint as the ‘o’. This was really effective. I thought it would be interesting to try something similar by having a handprint in the centre and then ‘stop’ above it and ‘bullying’ below it. I also wanted to explore typography further and so chose a type style which was bold and created a sense of urgency.

I think that this image is quite effective and really stresses the need to stop bullying. I like how the handprint could represent the victim either saying ‘stop’ or perhaps holding out their hand to protect themselves, and that it could also be the bully, as hands are often used when physical bullying occurs.

Although I wanted this piece to be simple, it seems to be missing something. Perhaps the handprint isn’t strong enough and needs to be slightly darker. This would hopefully make the details of the handprint more visible, and therefore make the piece more personal to the viewer.

I also wanted to look at ‘eyes’ because I feel that the emotion (of both the victim and the bully), can easily be seen just by looking at their eyes. I also had this idea from when I had given out my questionnaires asking which name would be good for my organisation – one person chose ‘victimeyes’ because they thought that some nice images could be created from this. The idea of only needing to see the eyes to know how the person felt was also used when I was taking photos to represent the victim/bully. I had photos where there was a word on paper, covering my face, but the eyes could still be seen above the paper. I thought this was really effective, and so thought I’d pursue the idea of eyes further in my sketchbook work.

I used marker pens, watercolour pencils and water for this piece which I think works well because it makes the eye look ‘teary’. I could perhaps explore the use of materials further and consider what visual image I am trying to communicate and choose materials to suit this.

I wanted to look at the emotions of the victim more and thought that exploring the quote ‘eyes are the window to the soul’ would be an interesting thing to keep in mind when creating this image.

I think that this piece is quite unique and although the words are quite subtle, this maybe makes it more interesting and entices the viewer. I might explore ‘hiding’ words within images further because this could represent that even when the bully stops calling someone names, the emotions felt by the victim may be hard to see but they’re still there.

Target for today: Create a page in sketchbook looking at research and handprint with ‘stop bullying’ and create a double page in sketchbook looking at eyes and words and how ‘eyes are the window to the soul’ to show how emotions can be seen through the eyes, etc.

Target for tomorrow: Create a double page in sketchbook showing what may influence a bully, and another double page in sketchbook using typography in unique ways to express the sentence ‘calling me ugly won’t make you beautiful’.