Visual Jumble: School studies 2011-2013 (Stopprøve)

This is a site for the work we do at my school.

Since I have mainly focused on my own freestyle drawings through my life, my style has become very locked and I have a hard time breaking away from it.

Therefore the work that will be displayed here is in a learning process and hopefully it will show the development in my style.

Enjoy.

v School year 2012-2013 v

Visual Storytelling:

(Teachers: Ari Marteinsson, Sophie Haack and Tom Kristensen)

This was a project in cooperation with our gymnasium. Our assignment was to make a short comic series over the theme 'love'.

We had to come up with the story on our own. Before we started on the final outcome, we had some days where we learned about the building of a character.

The character I came up with was really a bummer. I made her selfish, negative, pathetic, depressing and boring.

I wanted her to be as anti-hero as anything could be. I wanted people to really think that she was a crappy character. So I gave her a career as a cleaning lady in a mental hospital. I tried making a story with her, but I soon found out that I had to give her at least one redeeming quality.

See, if the character is just crappy with crap on top, then there is not a lot of action going on.

Nothing would happen at all, since she is so negative, static and reluctant to do anything in her life. I could not make her come in contact with other people with her being as selfish as she is.

So I made her have some kind of love for her parents.

At the start of the project we got handed out a random keyword that we could choose to use if we wanted. My keyword was 'Before the storm' and I tried working with that. I tried making my story a 'build up' to another kind of story. A prologue, if you will.

The love theme should be my main character split up between love for herself or love for her parents.

The drawings below are my work through the project. Starting with thumbnails and ending with the final comic strip.

Thumbnails:

Deleted scenes:

This is some frames that I chose to delete. My first idea of the story contained a parallel storyline about a crazy man that was afraid to kill his wife. It also contained some siblings to my main character.

I chose to delete them since I didn't have the time to make those extra frames and these characters were spendable. Plus, it would have been confusing to keep track on so many characters in such a short story.

My final comic:

Graphic Production:

(Teacher: Ari Marteinsson)

This was a fun week and the class came up with really interesting results.

Our assignment was to make a book cover to a short story we got handed out. Each person got handed out a different story.

The story I had to make a book cover to was Jakob Ejersbo's 'Majs-lys'.

In short, the story is about two old friends having a dinner together and talking about their lives. Then and now. There was quite the depressing tone in the story. I found the strongest theme to be blissful childhood vs. difficult adult life.

I made two different drawing concepts that I thought could sum up the story pretty well.

One was a drawing with a man locked inside a box. The drawing should come off very claustrophobic, since the two characters in the story clearly aren't comfortable in their position as adults.

The other drawing was more symbolic.

In the story the two friends are eating corn on the cob, while drinking wine. And I thought that these two objects were the center of the story.

Corncobs are very related to childhood, summer, corn stuck between teeth and butter seeping down your chin. Wonderful, messy and yummy.

Wine is very adult, fine and sophisticated.

To match those two objects as the characters did, said a lot about their trouble balancing between the two parts of life.

This was the final bookcover - reviews and everything.

Pink Panthers Asshole:

(Teachers: Søren Taaning and Jes Brinck)

We were going to make an art installation, based on the theme 'fear', that should result into a party.

We got a room to our disposal where we were allowed to go nuts.

This is some photos during the week.

Clay week (April):

(Teacher: Danilo Krstajic)

When we first found out that we were going to work with clay, the class transformed into a joyous kindergarten. We could simply not wait to fool around with it.

The joy damped down a little when we found out how little we knew about working with this particular media. And it was difficult.

But none the less, it was nice and oddly calming to work with the clay. The fact that the result became something else than anticipated is another matter.

I will not lie, I was not good at this.

The results that is shown here would not have turned out this good if it hadn't been for our teacher and my awesome classmate Tina (her blog here) interfering along the way.

The first couple of days we were assigned to pair up and make a portrait of each other.

This is my portrait of my classmate Christina (her blog here).

Whether it looks like her? Meh...Kind of. Not really though.

While working with this I couldn't get the image of Voldemort with a wig out of my head.

And Christina looks nothing like Voldemort, I assure you.

The last days of the week we worked on reliefs.

Our first assignment was to duplicate one of our own drawings. I choose my drawing below.

After the first relief, our teacher printed out an image that the whole class had to work after.

This one failed for me completely. If it hadn't been for the teacher and Tina, this would not have looked like a skull at all. It would have looked like Bigfoot. Or at best: Casper the distressed ghost.

Gesture drawing, week 37 and 48:

(Teacher: Iben Lindebjerg)

I still enjoy gesture drawing to the fullest.

The characters the models come up with are so endearing and I love to try and capture their essence.

The characters we have been presented to so far this year:

- A blue haired winter entertainer

- A drunk french woman.

- A Jamaican and a 60's woman enjoying the beach in each their special way.

- A rockstar.

- An older woman living in a 'Sound of Music'-ish world.

- A poor musician from the late 1800's.

- An indian.

2 min.

'The carpet needs a haircut, the spotlight looks like a prison break, the balcony is on the make and the piano has been drinking. Not me.'

2 min.

This piece of music was playing a concert in my head while this character was on.

30 sec.

2 min.

I'm still astonished that this didn't happen while this character was on.

He belongs here. Amirite?

2 min.

Croquis, week 35, 36, 37, 47 and 48:

(Teacher: Iben Lindebjerg)

Croquis is still a challenge but still just as fun and developing.

30 sec.

2 min.

30 sec.

2 min.

In croquis it as all about simplifying the body to an overall shape like a cylinder or a square box and then get them in the right position and direction. Our teacher (who modeled for us) gave us a task to draw her in simple shapes and take notice to where the shadows were falling. Some really interesting drawings came out of it. I still need to get better at expressing the different levels of the shapes though.

2 min.

Hand croquis. I really need to practice more on that!

I drew a good bunch but this was the only one who didn't quite look like a random doodle or a hairy spider.

30 sec.

Long time studies:
(Teacher: Iben Lindebjerg)

Long time studies are still a struggle to me.
Although, I see progress. I think I am taking the progress in certain steps.
The first year I learned to loosen the outline and give the figure more movement and gravity.
This year I have gotten better at shadows and form. Last year it took me ages to finally arrive at the shadows. I only managed to put on shadows on small spots, but this year I have been better at shadowing the whole figure.
I still have to learn a lot, but it is going forward, which is making me extremely happy.

This one is without a doubt my favourite.
The closest I have ever arrived at a finished long time study.

Abstract 3D models, week 37 and 47:

(Teacher: Iben Lindebjerg)

I liked these exercises!

I didn't expect to but I really did.

I thought it would be confusing and hard to figure out and so it was in the beginning, but the stuff the class came up with was really amazing.

This exercise was about taking a famous logo and turn it into an abstract model.

I choose the Nordisk film logo.

Even though I am quite pleased with this drawing it was not a correct answer to the assignment since it's not really abstract.

I then tried this one where I wanted to see how few lines I could use to make something look like a polarbear.

This assignment was about drawing something abstract and then turn it into a 3D model.

You had to be able to imagine you could walk around it and see the model from all sides.

So this drawing was the first step. Definitely not 3D and a big mess with some small potential for something to work further with.

I took what I found most interesting from the 'step one' drawing and drew it into a little water ice island.

I am quite pleased with it.

This was the first step of an abstract 3D model to a project called 'Cradle to cradle' about circular economy (that is also explained further down this page). Our teacher told us to turn off our thoughts and just draw circles and see what came out of it.

At first I thought it made good sense to have a straight line that transformed into circles and as I put them together in this combination it looked like candles. I thought that was good since candles often represents hope, ideas and peace which I think fitted well on the Cradle to cradle project.

Our teacher then told us to take what we had made and put it in a position where you could see that it was being recycled. I tried a few doodles at first with these circle candles dripping wax that turned into another line and down into another circle candle but I couldn't quite make it look right.

So I decided to involve water.

I tried to combine a raindrop and a candle together that turned into the drawing above.

I thought it worked well, because along with the candle that represents hope and ideas the raindrop that makes circles in the water represents influence and engagement of the idea.

That's why the water drips into small candles beneath it.

I liked the idea, but I was not satisfied with the drawing.

It was just not pleasing for the eye to look upon in my opinion.

It was out of rhythm in some way.

So I ended with this little water island.

A lot more interesting and pleasing to look upon.

But the candle idea that I started out with is completely abandoned and has been fully replaced by a water theme and I find that a bit sad.

So, not fully satisfied but on the way to becoming it if I feel the want to continue it.

Circular Economy (Cradle to cradle), week 37:

(Teacher: Iben Lindebjerg)

To this assignment we were making a logo for circular economy.

We were going to research about the idea and draw down small doodles to begin with of whatever associations we had on the subject. Like a mind map.

In the end we should make a suggestion for a logo.

This video explains the idea and intention of circular economy really well.

And in this video my class participated and the majority of them can be seen in the commercial.

This was my suggestion for a logo.

I don't really care much for it.

Even though it puts a joy in my inner hippie, it is too banal and corny and I think it would put a lot of people off. And that is the least I want for such an important idea.

The circular economy is such a healthy, logical and good idea that it shouldn't become an 'over-the-top-corny-treehugger-dreamy' fantasy, because then people will shrug it off immediately (It would totally get me on board though).

The circular economy doesn't condemn industrialization but puts it in a healthy system that is in tune with the nature.

And that is exactly what my drawing lacks an explanation of.

This is a couple of the small association doodles.

We talked about a lot.

We talked about mushrooms

about power sockets

about bringing back trams

and about dumpster diving and how grocery stores throw out tons of healthy food that could be used for so much good with a bit of redirection.

Potlatch

(Teacher: Andreas Monty)

This was a class project where we had free hands to come up with what ever we wanted and the outcome should be some kind of public performance.

Our class chose the theme 'Potlatch' that origins from an old indian philosophy to give away the most dearest that you own to another.

We split up in smaller groups to each contribute with something different for the final result.

That was also out greatest fault though. We had some problems about connecting each of the things to a whole piece of work.

Some worked with puppets and theater, others with stopmotion short movie or music.

The PR group worked with advertising that included a blog especially made for the Potlatch project. (You can see the blog here)

The group I was in worked with photography. We went through a lot of ideas because our work had a hard time to fit into what the other groups worked with. We ended up with photos of people from our class where we edited their 'totem animals' into the photography with them. We printed the photos out in big format split up into A4 pieces of paper and them put them together a little displaced to give them a fragmented look.

This is a photo from the final performance.

Our first tries:

These photos were our first idea. We wanted to work with mirrors, but we couldn't really connect the idea to the overall theme.

v School year 2011-2012 v

Gesture drawing, week 12-13:

(Teacher: Iben Lindebjerg)

This was so much fun!

Croquis – but with a play!

The model was fantastic at dressing up as different characters and giving us a story about them.

There was a story about a crashed pilot, a girl in the rain, a child outside playing and a hard working woman. She had chosen some great soundtracks for her characters as well that was playing while she modeled.

2 min.

30 sec.

2 min.

30 sec.

(The doodle at the top begged me to turn it into a ghost with a pixie hat on - who was I to refuse?)

2 min.

Croquis, week 12-13:

(Teacher: Iben Lindebjerg)

I really like croquis.

It is fun and it is hard work and you can feel that it is hard work.

You can feel yourself improving, because you have no time to have ‘safety mode’ on and slip into your usual drawing style.

I really like it!

My next goal is to sketch up the head a bit better. Our teacher pointed out that the character of the croquis drawing is not complete if the head is just a round ball.

I definitely agree.

2 min.

1 min.

2 min.

Long time study, week 12-13:

(Teacher: Iben Lindebjerg)

I still got to work on being a lot braver with my lines and shadows, but when I resemble the newest long time study drawings with the old ones, I am happy to see that progress is being made. Just have to keep on practicing!

3 hours

2 hours

I am not happy when I look at this one though. Drew too big a head and had two hours to draw it, but never made it to the shadows.

3 hours

2 hours

First time long time study with the model lying down and I got a pretty weird angle from my viewpoint.

I went into bit of a panic in the beginning because I am still struggling with making my normal standing drawings look sane.

As I began I drew the model way to small on the paper and my teacher came over and said “Have to be much bigger! Fill the paper out!” so I erased what I had made and started over.

The difference was astounding.

For the first time I was actually pleased with the outcome of a long time study drawing!

The drawing also became a lot of fun to draw, because I had to make sense of the forms that I saw and make them actually look like a person.

This is not at all in a finished state. I plan on adding some colour to it. I am thinking on making the hair red, the pillows and the bracelet green and maybe the background in a dark purple/black.

Sketches, week 13:

(Teacher: Iben Lindebjerg)

Homework assignment where we had to draw a 100 sketches during the weekend, choose the 10 best and upload them on the blog.

Done.

..Well…sort of.

6 of them is from this weekend. Out of the about 60 doodles that I made, these were the only ones that could be defined as proper sketches.

The rest of the sketches are people seen out and about in the city, the train and so on.

This sketch was made this weekend when I discovered the series ‘Mad Men’ that takes place in the 60’s and is about cheating business men at an advertising agency and troubled crazy housewives. Awesome drama, awesome psychology, awesome actors, awesome series and an awesome animated intro with great music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ5-sdHP0YQ

A homeless man that I met on the train.

He had his big cart full of junk, he had his well behaved dog, he had his bottle of wine and he stank horribly.

He said that his name was 'The Clown' as he was entertaining some kids.

He reminded me of this song by Tom Waits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWiNJt2yhIQ

(And yes, he had this nice big top hat on. He had decorated it nicely with a piece of a bright pink bed sheet with motives of marshmallows in ballerina skirts on.)

Colour study and Horror of abstract, week 46:

(Teacher: Lars Kram)

I was not able to attend a lot of that week, so I never got to make the final colour drawing for the thumbnails below.

The horror of abstract was an assignment about making lines that made us associate to the feeling of horror and this was my final drawing. I think I managed to put in some kind of melancholic and chilly horror. It was very difficult, but fun and interesting.

Retell a painting (From the beginning of the school year):

(Teacher: Ditte L. Nielsen)

This was the first assignment we got at the very start of the semester. We were going to incorporate a famous painting and its message into modern times and with a ‘modern’ issue. Our group consisting of Anita (http://anita-thomsen.blogspot.com), Tina (http://burholtstudie.blogspot.com/), Christina (http://christina-hvas-ginnerup.blogspot.com/), Christoffer (http://www.christawtegninger.blogspot.com/), Sari (http://weirdmermaidgirl.blogspot.com/) and myself chose the painting ‘Las Dos Fridas’ by Frida Kahlo.

I have always adored Frida Kahlo, her work and her struggles, so it was no problem to brush up the research of what was going on in her life in the time when the painting was being made. We decided to use the issue of identity crisis and about being torn between tradition and personal liberty.

Storyboard (From the beginning of the school year):

(Teacher: Andreas Monty)

The assignment were to make a storyboard in groups, but we were not allowed to talk to each other while we drew it.

So Tina (http://burholtstudie.blogspot.com/), Cat (http://catzilladk.blogspot.com) and I wrote down some random words, snatched them apart with a scissor and blended them nicely and messily together. We picked a few strips of words and had to make a story involving the chosen words. Apparently they were all pretty murderous..

Photo, week 11:

(Teacher: Emil Monty)

I was really looking forward to this week and I certainly did not get disappointed. It was so much fun and interesting. I have loved to take photographs for a long time but have only focused on improving my drawing skills when it came to studies. Therefore I was really excited to get to know about the tricks inside the photo genre and what was considered to be important in photography. I learned a lot at will definitely try to incorporate it into the photos that I take in my free time.

The above photos were taken under a lesson about taking portraits. Since I like to get close and all up in my models faces with my camera it was really nice to learn some main things to have your eye upon for you to make a good portrait photo. I especially liked the trick about catching your model off guard to get a ‘real’ expression (Thanks to Richard Avedon for existing and teaching us his magic tricks. Oh if only you could have his eye for people as well). These are photos of fellow students from my own class: Sari (http://weirdmermaidgirl.blogspot.com/), AL (http://alrandomlydrawstuff.blogspot.com/), and Cat (http://catzilladk.blogspot.com).

This was the kind man that broke the jinx that had been over us since we brought the camera with us out in the town.

This girl almost escaped out of the photo because we could not tell from a distance whether she was foreign or just had dark hair.

These photos were part of a synopsis project we had at our school. We had prepared a synopsis in groups (four people), about immigrants and integration and with it should follow some photos to back our presentation up. So we split the group up in two, took a camera and went out into the city of Viborg in search of people with an exotic look. Normally I see tons of Middle Eastern, African, Turkish, Asian and Greenlandic people minding their day in Viborg, but they had all disappeared as soon as me and my classmate Christina (http://christina-hvas-ginnerup.blogspot.com/), went out in search for them. The curse lasted to the last day before our presentation when it finally got broken by a man in the bus who had spotted the camera I held in my hand, went over and asked “Do you want a photo? How should I stand?”.

Reflections, Week 13:

(Teacher: Iben Lindebjerg)

This was a homework assignment about associations and thoughts about reflections. I chose four photos, that I have taken, that I think touch in on the subject pretty well.

The two photos above were taken in the botanic garden park in Copenhagen. I think it is special that the flower cup and the swans reflection is more detailed than the real deal above the surface. I would love to chat about Freuds egg theory for hours, but to keep it short with the psychology: It is said that the human conscious is like an iceberg – 10% is above the surface and the other 90% that makes the unconscious is below. Plus the photo with the flower cup looks like a panorama which I find pretty cool.

These two photos have always been some of the favourites that I have taken.

The upper photo is taken at the Animation Workshop in Viborg and is a photo of a fellow student from a higher grade who is called Siri (visit her blog, it is awesome!: http://www.blogdessiris.blogspot.com/). I love the way that it appears that her and her shadow is dancing together and that the shadow is marked so clearly that it looks like an actual person from another dimension.

The photo below is a picture of two of my friends called Kim and Nicoline (You will find more photos of them if you click at my ‘Photography’ folder up at the top). I have known Kim since kindergarden and I only got to know Nicoline 3 years ago when we went to the same class at school. I was very surprised to find out that she knew Kim as well and that they were moving in together as roommates. They have modeled for me a couple of times now and it always surprises me how different they are even though they have so much in common. At the photosessions Kim is always dressed to be noticed and is fantastic to fill the photo with her being – bold, dangerous and interesting. Nicoline is so alive with her expressions and I am always taken with the way her eyes can capture you in the photo. Nicolines clothes and makeup is usually more subtle then Kims.

Character design/perspective/background design, week 2-4:

(Teacher: Bo Mathorne)

I loved those three weeks!

Character and background design:

This was really the good stuff.

It was so interesting to learn about how you could manipulate light, shadows, forms and objects to visually tell the story of the character or place you wanted to show. I have always in my freestyle drawings loved to fill them to the brim with symbols of various kinds that would tell about the psyche of the character and it was really nice to learn a couple of extra tricks that I am looking forward to try out on my own.

Perspective:

The super boss you have to fight on the path to have your technical drawing skills under control.

It’s difficult.

I have never been good at it and I struggled at it in the one week where we had the subject. One week is not enough for me and I really hope that we will work with it again, which I am sure we will. The ones I have submitted were the best that I could do in that week. I have a whole sketchbook of failed perspective drawings and I will submit them as soon as I get finished with the other character and background designs that are still in the waiting line for the finishing touch. They too will be submitted in time.

Background design: 'A loners cozy home'

(What is more lonely then living at sea, was my thought)

3 point perspective drawing of a cart filled with books.

3 point perspective drawing.

Character design: Our teacher played a song by Tom Waits and told us to create a character out of our associations to the song. This pleased me a lot since Tom Waits is already a huge inspiration of mine. I must admit that when I drew this drawing I also had Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds CD 'Murder Ballads' in my mind, so it became a mash up of the two. I imagined a little town where everyone was mentally ill in some way - on a high or lower level. I think this guy is the self reflecting depressed one who is getting angry about his situation in a poor, crazy town.

Character design: Part two of the drawing above. When our teacher played the Tom Waits song he said that we could draw an environment of where we could imagine our character living at. To this drawing I had a specific song in my head by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds called 'Henry Lee' who is sung by Nick Cave and PJ Harvey. A song about a young girl who is in love with a young boy who does not love her back. The girl gets jealous and stabs him with a pen knife. After that she throws him in a well.

I thought that in a town where everyone is crazy it would have to be a place that was wide and big enough to let your craziness spill all over the place. On the other hand it should be a place with a lot of hiding places so your insanity could be safe to grow. So I decided upon a dry, old, little and lonely mountain town with big fields around.

The official music video for the song Henry Lee:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzmMB8dTwGs&ob=av2e

Character design: Of a song called 'Four Straws Long' made by our teacher Bo Mathorne: http://bomathorne.blogspot.com/

About an extremely strong little creature who is as tall as it is wide. In the lyrics the creature digs through a mountain at some point, so I imagined that it would take some big hands to pull something like that off.

Character design:We got an assignment one of the days to draw whatever association we got out of the title ’The good, the bad and the ugly’. I pondered for a while and for some unexplained reason it made me think of the game rock, paper and scissors. The paper would definitely be the good because it destroys its opponent by wrapping it in a big, nice and suffocating hug. The scissors would be the bad because of its slice through evilness (maybe he is angry about having lopsided irises). The rock would be the ugly because of its…well, stone face.

Character design: 'Spirit of the forest'

Character design: Here we got an assignment that said to take a popular fictional character and draw the said character in the style used in the short animated video ‘Backwater Gospel’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkDrIacHJM

And in the style of the artist Jean Baptiste Vendamme.

I chose Cruella De Vil as my victim. From her awesome name to her stylish black and white image, she is one of the best thought up villains that I can think of.

Croquis, week 43-45:

(Teacher: Iben Lindebjerg)

- 30 sec. - 10 min. Croquis drawings.

- Objects Study

- Long time study (3 hours)

Who knew that drawing could be so exhausting?

Croquis was very challenging for me in the first two weeks.

When I draw a drawing it usually takes a month or longer for it to be finished.

In those weeks I had to learn to place a full figure on the paper in 30 sec.

I really worked hard on losing the clear outline that I use in my freestyle drawings and I had a quite diffecult time making the proportions of the body believeable too.

They were just way too long and way too thin.

In the last week progress happened though.

My teacher had said to me for the last two weeks to 'draw around the forms' and everytime she said it, it was like she was talking in a different language.

In the beginning of week 45 she said it once again and suddenly a piece of the puzzle just fell into place.

I understood perfectly and my croquis drawings improved a lot.

Although, I still have to work on leaving the outline alone and especially in my long time studies.

I have not uploaded some of my croquis drawings from the first week yet, but it will be done at some point.