Monday 18th April 2011:

Today I looked at the work of illustrator Michelle Thompson. She was suggested for me to look at in a peer review and so I decided to see how I could respond to her work.

One piece of hers, which is referred to as ‘Portrait - Image selected for the Anti Design Festival’, has ripped pieces of paper around an image of a man, and one piece is covering his mouth. This reminded me of the phrase ‘see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil’, and so I decided to use a photo which I had taken the other day and then to cover the eyes, mouth, and ear and then to have ‘see no evil’, ‘speak to evil’ and ‘hear no evil’ on these pieces of paper. I think that this is really effective and draws the viewer in as it’s quite unexpected. I also created a more distressed background and above the image, the word ‘bullying’ made from masking tape, because I wanted to create the idea of the subject not seeing the evil and distressed situations around her (which could occur from bullying).

I think that perhaps I should add the word ‘Anti’ above bullying because if someone doesn’t hear or see any ‘evil’ (ie bullying), they probably wont speak any evil either (as they won’t have learnt any evil things to do or say, etc). This could perhaps be the anti-bullying campaign within itself, showing that it’s a cycle effect where if no one said or did anything evil, others wouldn’t hear or see this, and so they wouldn’t do or say anything evil.

This would therefore maybe be quite a good idea for a poster design because it not only attracts the viewer, but it gives out a strong message without being too visual, which I think would work well. I will probably explore the phrase/proverb ‘see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil’, further because I find this concept quite interesting.

I also looked at a piece which she created for CICA Magazine (use your assets). The one hand choosing one thing from another hand made me think of the subject of choice, and what choices bullies and victims have. This then gave me the idea to have one hand with three options to the question ‘who will you be today?’, with the options being: ‘neither’, ‘victim’ or ‘bully’, and the other hand choosing ‘neither’. I wanted to show that you don’t have to be one or the other, you can be neither the victim or the bully, and that perhaps seeking help (ie: from my anti-bullying organisation), can help this to happen.

I also used green for the ‘neither’ card and red for the ‘victim’ and ‘bully’ option cards, because these colours are well-known and easy to recognise and right and wrong, showing that being ‘neither’ is the right choice to make (if able to).

I think that overall this has turned out fairly well and would maybe be good for a poster idea. However, I want to have one poster to appeal to the victim and one to the bully, whereas this idea would appeal to both. It also seems to be ‘missing something’, and I don’t feel that the message which I wanted to portray is as strong as it should be.

I like Michelle Thompson’s work because it’s unique and uses a variety of materials (ie: collage, which I have used in these two pieces), without losing the simplicity which is needed to visually communicate the correct message. I will keep this in mind when developing and designing my final pieces.

Target for today: Look at the work of Michelle Thompson and respond in sketchbook to show the viewer how they can prevent bullying and that they don’t need to be a bully or a victim.

Target for tomorrow: Look at the work of Nathan Ford and respond in sketchbook to show the realisation that the bully can also be a victim. Prep more sketchbook pages.