ATA: A5 Journal works

Not much going on in here so far, I've been playing around with collage and to loosen up I've been using paint. Still haven't really got a direction I'm heading in so I will have to keep on experimenting. 




LIKES 

• nice to loosen up doing work 

DISLIKES 

• no where near to anything I like yet
• Doesn't capture the essence of murakami 
• Too many people drawings 

ATA: Immersing

After some advice from some of the level fivers, I've took out a book from the library on traditional japanese drawing, that sort of helped with what I was doing today but the more and more I draw people the less and less I like them. It's really hard to get away from drawing the characters as Murakami's books are so heavily based on human interaction. 

In a bid to get away from characters I drew Takahashi milk which is just one of the small things that weave throughout After Dark so I had a go at drawing some (using google as a reference as no shops in leeds actually sold it). 

From drawing these I realised that I actually enjoyed writing in Japanese so I had a go with that again in the next thing I drew. A scene where Mari and Kogori are talking about Korogi's past. 

I was pleased by how this came out. Using simple lines and the faces blank really helped me out to figure out their positions in relation to each other without having to worry about which way their eyes would have to be directed etc. 

I also raided the scrap draw and found some nice black paper, I illustrated some of the characters trying to draw as simply as I could using the traditional Japanese as a reference point but I was'nt overly impressed by anything  I made.

 I started doing some paper cutting just because it suited the part of the story where Korogi is explaining her abusive past. I think this is one of the only things I made today I can take forward which is annoying but at least its progress. 

LIKES 

• using Japanese within the artwork made it more unusual 
• drawing non character based things 
• using ink without shading 
• using basic lines to communicate something bigger 
• paper cutting as a medium for this 

DISLIKES 

• how drawing people is really easy to get stuck into when trying to communicate Murakami's stuff 
• black paper and gouche didn't get me anywhere but at least I know not to go there (and I think using the colour blue is a definite yes for this) 
• drawing people in traditional japanese style, just isn't working 

PLAN!

• Read more of Murakami's stuff and try going after specific objects and illustrating those 
• Take the paper cutting and the mari/korogi talking scene forward. 
• incorporate Japanese into work again perhaps? 

ATA: Cat Drawings

After the ink session I have been struggling to make work, it's crossed my mind that maybe I should have picked another author that I'm not so attached too because everything I am making is not expressing how I feel about it properly, its verging on cutesy. 

I've been playing around with quotes at the moment to try and get something from that, I'm trying to branch out with materials as well. I'm getting too comfortable with ink. Also the whole two colours thing feels really limiting so I'm sticking to mainly black, blues and reds. 


LIKES 

• Overlay of objects onto others 
• Blue/ green tones to bring out loneliness
• Continuous lines helping to bring out ideas without worrying about it looking finished.
• using cats as signifiers for the characters (often they are alone, occasionally interact but majorly in their own worlds) 

DISLIKES 

• "cutesy" esque drawings, too generic. 
• everything feels finished, theres nothing raw in here and I'm staying on the same ideas too long
• maybe get away from ink for a while, i like its fluidity but time to think about other stuff 

PLAN!!! 

• try more materials out 
• ask some advice from others (is there anything there worth developing??)
• carry on with the cats, especially the last few cat drawings (lovingly named pooter cat) 
• continue listen to immersive playlist which is mostly jazz, quite enjoying it actually
• try and steal some scrap paper from various bins! maybe the print room?  
• Watch more cat videos to get some more realistic movements
• think some more about colours, look at previously used printed works 

I really liked this cat I drew in big in blue ink so then I redrew him in pencil then I drew him again in gold ink. I'd like to come back to this just because I thought it was simple in a nice way. 

ATA: Loosen Up

For our session with Teresa we were asked to prepare themes or motifs that we would draw. I chose music because it is the one that is in every single novel and it is also strongly linked to the author himself. 

This session was really great for me, I had really been struggling just to make marks on paper ( everything i did seemed to be too involved too soon). 

Again the colours yellow and blue suited it well. I used a paperclip for the yellow turntable which was fun. 

I also used my hands and twigs to create the other pieces. I chose ink as the media because I feel like ink suits the way Murakami writes, its precise but it can be messy. 

ATA: Choosing Murakami

After weeks of thinking about who to choose, I finally selected Murakami. 
This was because out of all the authors work that I read I found his work the most immersive when I was reading it. I had only read After Dark and Norwegian Wood previously and thought it was a great opportunity to take out some more of his work. 

I started with a basic mind map looking at the different aspects of his life;

 - Murakami had never set out to be an author.

 - He was at a baseball game when he decided to write his first book. 

- He enjoys Jazz music but is not a talented musician 

- He owned a Jazz bar with his wife 

- Both his parents were literature teachers, he grew up around a variety of writers and his work is generally considered very westernised. He is popular but is often critiqued as not a traditional japanese writer. 

- He doesn't enjoy fame

I also looked at places where he lived and drew a few small sketches of them. He has lived in the same region for quite a while, Although born in Kyoto, he spent his youth in Shukugawa (Nishinomiya), Ashiya and Kobe. He attended Waseda University in Tokyo where he met his wife. 

Looking at where he lived helped as Murakami draws from personal surroundings and experiences when he writes. 

His books have a lot of very good visual quotes and his characters are often described well enough to come up with a decent idea of what they look like. 

The first book I looked at was After Dark. It is a smaller novel out of the ones he has written but carries one of the main themes that occurs in his work - Alienation. The novel revolves around a young trombone playing student Takahashi Tetsuya and a 19 year old named Mari Asai who is spending the evening reading in a restaurant to escape her home, where her older sister Eri Asai has been "asleep" for months. 

As the book is set at night, most of my initial drawings were just in pencil or centered around the colour blue. 

I found it quite hard to do loose drawing at the start so a lot of my first stuff in the sketchbook is "finished". 

I drew Eri Asai in her bed. Although not being able to draw loosely annoyed me, I did really like this piece of work using yellow as an accent colour among the blue. 

I also drew Mari Asai (walking girl) but wasn't pleased with that. I drew Takahashi as well, I was quite pleased with his little face.