Course: “Visual storytelling”
Task: To make a graphic short story of Raymond Carvers short story Whoever was using this bed.
Double A5 pages
Theres a coulpe of things that needs to be fixed and tried out before I’m satisfied, but it felt good to be (almost) finished with something during a course.
I had two weeks at school where I could define a project I wanted to work on. I decided to continue on a comic-concept (Musmo) I’ve started earlier. What I wanted to do, was rethink how to solve the storytelling and the visual style.
I did a lot of research and writing. Some character and environment sketches. I also made a hypothetical panel from the introduction story where I tested digital colouring versus watercolour. The digital is not finished, but still I feel the watercolour is the one I want to go for. There still are a couple of things I want to test further, like linework, but at least I’m a step further.
This rethinking also means that the first drawn pages I’ve made earlier, will not be used. I won’t start drawing before I feel the essential ground work is finished. Also the project has become more manageable, because I decided to split the story up into smaller parts.
Moodboard:
Illustration for an article written by Snorre Valen in the paper “Del Godene”. Digital drawing.
My poster for Bergen Art Book Fair.
At the end of the typography course earlier this semester, we (my class) were given the assignment of making a poster each for Bergen Art Book Fair. We got three prints of our own posters to put up where we felt like in the city.
It was actually the first time I made a poster, and I was really frustrated and low on self-esteem during the process. In the end I thought I had to approach the task in my own way, and not think about how everybody else was doing it and what was “correct”. I thought it better to fail and learn something from it. Afterwards I’ve thought of different ways I could have solved the task, but I guess it come out as bad as I felt during the process.
Acrylic paint used to make the splatter-texture. Paper textures. Used Photoshop to do the lettering, and the text and logos in Indesign.
I have been planning on making a series of drawings of girls on different kinds of adventures (mostly the dangerous kind). I’ve had some sketches and ideas waiting for me for some time. These are the beginning of one. I think I’m finished drawing the girl, but I’ve not made up her story yet, so the surroundings will come later.
“Homemade” watercolour texture for background…the rest is digital drawing with Intous4 in Photoshop.
The result of my first real (paid) illustration job, made for the Norwegian newspaper Vårt Land. It was published on August 23rd in the papers supplement about meaningful jobs. And no doubt, it was a meaningful job for me, so maybe I should have put myself in among the crowd….why didn’t I think of that before…damn
Anyways, the most meaningful part of the job for me was getting the experience. The employers had a lot of ideas about what they wanted, so I couldn’t do whatever I felt like. Since it was a job I got paid to do, and the illustration was going to be printed in quite a big paper, it was important to me that they were happy with the result (and of course that I felt ok about it going out there too). There was a lot of communication back and forth, fixing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And no one got angry or insulted…fantastic!
Still, it’s a pretty straight forward illustration, and I don’t feel it’s my greatest accomplishment, but I do feel lucky for the opportunity. Hopefully it will open some new doors in the future
Recently submitted this t-shirt design on Threadless. It did not win, but I thought it went quite well for my second submission. Anyways, it was fun to draw (Digital: PhotoshopCS5/Intuos4), while I listening to Sherlock Holmes on audio book. Pluss, I sold one print when I had this Art Market in my hometown two weeks back. Yay!
Lisbeth Moen 