Context
The
artist I used for my inspiration was Natsuki Otani because of the technique
that she uses and the fact that she looks into typography to. She is an
illustrator who aims to make people happy with her work. She has been employed
by various magazines and stores to create illustrations for them, yet still
continues, for her own satisfaction to create pieces of her own.
Meaning
To help me with the
understanding of her work I used her website and looked at her other pieces. I
also had a class discussion on the type of font that is used as we are focusing
on typography in class. The collection that this piece comes from doesn't seem
to have a theme that runs through it as she doesn't continue with phrases to do
with happiness. Looking at the piece separately from her collection the type of
font connects with the words used in this piece; even the colours used seem to
resemble the idea of happiness as well.
Aesthetic
To create this piece
the technique that Otani uses is to draw out the letters first and then carefully
adds water in between the lines and adds the paint on top as she goes along.
For colour Otani uses
pastel colours green, pink and blue. The
fact that green and blue are so close together on the colour wheel makes me
wonder why the colours blend so well together. This is because of the use of
the pastel pink which harmonises and reduces the contrast between them. She
uses very bright colours but because she uses pastel colours they don't seem as
bold, her colours are almost subtle yet give this idea of being happy because
she uses very positive colours, even though blue is generally related to
sadness she uses a rather warm blue so this idea is not generally thought of
when looking at this piece and has only slightly used this colour in the corners
of some of the letters.
Lines aren't used in
the centre of the piece this allows the paint to run into each other and blend
the piece is not restricted inside the shape of the letter which allows the
piece to have tone because the colour varies in certain places.
Personal
Response
I chose to look at
Natsuki Otani because her work allows me to try two ways of creating a piece
like hers, using Photoshop and watercolours like her. Her piece really inspired
me to try my own version; she inspired me to experiment with colours that wouldn't necessarily be seen next to each other.
When I first saw her
typography collection I really liked it especially the one I have featured here
in my blog. I really like the way she is able to create such a neat and
delicate looking piece, I also like the colours that she uses and the way that
then blend.
This is the watercolour effect I made on Photoshop.
I followed a tutorial on YouTube
This is done by
drawing out the letters first and then adding water in between the lines to
then add the paint on top this is so that the colours merge.
In the Photoshop
and the watercolour version I have used the same colours so the differences and
the similarities stand out. I have used two primary colours, blue and red, and
a secondary colour of green. Just like Otani’s piece I have used the blue and
the green which as I said are quite close to each other on the colour wheel, I
then used a third colour to see if the colour harmonised and reduced the
contrast between them. This did seem to work and in certain places the blue and
red blended and made purple. It did help that I chose a green and a red colour
as they are opposite the colour wheel and so complement each other. The blue
tends to calm the brightness of the red and the green as well.
On the Photoshop
version the colours are not as bold and have tended to fade, which doesn't give
the same effect as the watercolour version, it slightly lets it down and this
One of the points that I could improve on my watercolour piece as it does let
it down.
On the Photoshop and the watercolour version I used quite a similar bold font. With using Photoshop I am more limited to the type of font however I have a more accurate copy of the type of font each time if I wanted to use it again. Whereas with my hand drawn typography I am free to design it however I want but don’t have the consistency if I wanted to make another version with the same font. I used a website called Dafont and downloaded the font plane crash for the Photoshop version. With this I was able to get a broken glass effect inside the letter and it would stand out even when the colour was applied I wouldn't be able to do this as easily if I created it by hand.
Compared to
Otani’s piece her font is more swirly and relaxed where as mine is more bold.
My version seems to me more like a command because of the font but hers gives
the feeling that you can be happy if you want to. This is again a change that I
would make to my piece. A similarity to her watercolour piece and both of my
versions is the choice of words. In her piece she used "I'm so
happy today" and I used the word "smile" which means the sharing
of the same theme.
On the background of the Photoshop version I added a texture on the background to make it look like watercolour paper. I was very limited on the background I could use and think in the end I should have toned the texture down more. Overall I prefer the hand drawn typography as I have the ability to be more free with what I can do.
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