Lockdown Diary

This project is about using my drawing skills to create a small body of work (book/comic) that demonstrates the knowledge and experience I have gained throughout this module but also to captures something of my unique personality. I started my creative process by writing out what I do in an average day, in a step by step process, as well as thinking about things I do which reveal more about me and my personality. This helped me to think about what kind of comic/ book I would produce. I think the idea of having the viewer go through an average day in lockdown with me would be the most interesting insight into my very unexciting life. However, I wanted to produced pages of art work in a way that felt voyeuristic and vulnerable, with the turn of each page the viewer learns more about me in a subtle way. 

Inspiration

I wanted to look at a variety of different comics/ graphic novels to inform my creative process in terms of style and colour palette. As well as understanding how different artists use perspective to make interesting compositions and change up their frames to tell a story. I found the comics that depicted a mundane action or a feeling through a series of frames emotive and I would like to evoke a similar feeling within my own work.

Thumbnails 

Thumbnails helped me to plan out and organise the structure of my book, as well as helping me to find a coherent order to best tell my small story. 

 Mock Up

For me, creating a mock up is the best way to visualise a final outcome before producing the finished piece. I also learnt a lot about presentation techniques when making this mock up, such as the layout of my frames and how they effect the flow of the story and  how many pages I would need for my final piece. 

First Digital Spread

I created this spread to show my design choices in terms of style, colour palette and layout for a feedback session. I wanted to use a textured background that had paper folds into that would make up the boxes of my book. This paper texture was taken from the internet, which means that I was limited in terms of how many frames I could have on one page. To improve I will fold and scan in my own hand made paper textures to create an authentic background that I can change from page to page. I have also used a limited colour palette, made up of cool tones which reflects the underlying loneliness I feel throughout the day. Living away from home when you're at university can feel very lonely at times, this feeling of isolation is accentuated under lockdown restrictions. 

Final Lockdown Diary

I have created a 12 page Lockdown Diary in the style of a graphic novel/comic book,  depicting my day to day life under the lockdown restrictions. I wanted to convey a sense of the isolation and loneliness that I felt cut off from the outside world and my family. One of the conscious choices I made when creating this book was to limit the amount of words I used through the spread, as I felt this would further emphasize the quietness of my existence. Another decision I made was to think carefully about my use of negative space and my lack of background, as I wanted to use the emptiness as a metaphor for the loss of exuberance in my now seemingly limited life.