Blog momentarily on Hiatus

Hi everyone, as you might have noticed, Electronic Sketchbook is on hiatus at the moment. I am extremely busy with work and studies so I will have to put the posts on halt during the summer.

I will try to share some pictures from the 27th June MCAST exhibition opening which is currently being prepared. I have very high hopes for this exhibition since lecturers and students alike are putting great effort into it.

I leave you with Stephen Jones' 15 favourite hat illustrations from the Vogue website:

Stephen Jone's 15 favourite hat illustrations

Behance ProSite

Am I the only one who jumped on the bandwagon with the Behance prosite? It's a terrific tool for artists and designers to showcase their portfolio.

I've found Behance itself to be fantastic for promoting one's self, and for those who, like me, have no time to design their own website. Let's face it, it's not about designing your own website and making it work. With portfolio websites you need to be able to update it regularly, share the work with ease, and most of all you want people to see it. With creative social network websites like behance this is much easier because you do all the exciting stuff, and leave all the coding to them, and it's much easier to connect with other artists and designers.

The problem with the normal Behance website is that even though it is customisable, it is quite limited. With the new 'Prosite' you can upload your own header, choose from five different layouts and then fix margins, colours and options just by clicking and sliding away.

Of course this comes with a price of $11 a month, but don't roll your eyes and give up just yet. $11 a month is only about 7.8 Euros, but think about it. It's a fully customisable website, you're not paying anything for domain and it's super easy to use. If you have a Behance profile already, the projects appear automatically on your prosite account, you just have to add them. I do sound like an advert here don't I? :) Perhaps you could give it a try here and tell me what you think. (you can try it without paying first, when you're hooked on to it you need to pay though ;)).

My first trial, feel free to have a look through

Gregory Crewdson

I just blogged about this in my Master's blog and thought I would share here. 

Absolutely mesmerised by Gregory Crewdson's photography, from the book 'Moving Pictures' - Contemporary Photography and Video from the Guggenheim Museum Collections. As soon as I saw the pictures, I immediately thought 'David Lynch' from the lighting, and the positioning / angles of the camera shots and the subjects. Indeed a paragraph from the book states that 'His elaborately staged panoramas often elicit comparisons to the films of Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, and Stephen Spielberg.'

What  I like most about them are the long shots being used, and the importance of the ambience around the people - rather than basic the sole focus on the people themselves. I also find the lighting spectacular (apparently Crewdson has recently employed a crew of up to thirty-five to assist in the creation of his visions).

"In Crewdson's work, meaning if kept just out of reach, where it lurks like a repressed trauma." 

(Moving Pictures, 2003)

StageDive Malta new Blog / Site

So I was lingering on facebook and Stagedive Malta linked to their new site/blog. I was instantly surprised with the creativity of their headers and they also looked slightly familiar. Then I realised, this is Elaine's style! Elaine is one of my HND 1 Graphic students who usually works with collage and found objects and materials. I think Elaine did a great job of designing these headers and what's also interesting is that there are three different headers / background which change if you refresh the page. Click any of the below images to be directed to Stagedive Malta. 

Visit Elaine's work here

Epipheo

So this semester, the HND1's Animation students got a challenging title for their animation. They will need to animate the evolution of MCAST Art & Design in under one minute. Most students are tackling it either in the form of an animated infographic, others are displaying it in the form of a fictional narrative. Either way, I would suggest to these students to have a look at 'Epipheo''s videos on youtube. Even though their videos are animated, they are largely showing statistics & information throughout a narrative and of course trying to sell whatever they have been hired for, in a fun way.

For most people when they think about animation, they think about big budget 3D films, and not necessarily animating for online marketing. I urge students who are inclined towards animation to consider this option; it could be a nice change to the quality of our local adverts.

This is from Epipheo's website: (and visit the website as well, it's as interesting as their videos)
"We are, like, the Crack Commando A-Team of the marketing world. Large and small companies call us when billboards, websites and typical videos don't work. We get hired when organizations want conversion—you know, when you actually want to change someone's mind about a product, solution or cause. We will do whatever it takes to communicate YOUR idea to the world."

Take the time to animate!

BA Digital Arts & Aljazeera Documentary

Here are some projects from the BA Fine Arts on the subject of 'Leisure' for the future.

Jenning's floating Zeppelin TV screen

George's meditative cube (yes that's him in the sea)

Jamie's vandalised Eiffel Tower

Kirsten's stadium on a roundabout, accessed only by motorised bicycles

Ryan's guide to Ultimate Pleasure

Sabrina's new transport system Poster

Sean's outdoor party

Sarah's inquisitive balcony

The projects are still unfinished; will post new screenshots once they are. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of Kamy's and Daniella's movie.

This week I was also glad to see our exhibited piece at the 'Art of Silence' in a documentary on Aljazeera about censorship in Malta. This also got Ruth and I thinking about doing another piece for The Front Against Censorship. Click the image to go to the documentary; it's worth a look.

Updates

Haven't posted during these two weeks because I've had a non-stop schedule, from a 3-day stay in Luxembourg with my Media students:

Ritienne Aquilina & Andy Micallef at the EU Bookshop Ceremony

...to shadowing a German lecturer for the BA Fine Arts Course on the Digital Applications Unit. Presentation will be on Friday and I will try to post some documentations here the following weekend!

The Grammar of Film & Storyboarding

Excellent video tutorials on the Grammar of Film kindly provided by my friend/colleague Eleonora (check out her blog here)

The Grammar of Film Part 1 from Eleonora Rose Abela on Vimeo.

The Grammar of Film Part 2 from Eleonora Rose Abela on Vimeo.

And here's some information on Storyboarding - just in case there's no time to cover this in class :) The final few slides are a summary of the above videos.Storyboarding

View more presentations from Moira Zahra.

Illusive Contemporary Illustration - mesmerizing Illustrations

Sometimes, my friends/coworkers Ruth and Eleonora (check out her new film blog here) come over and we sit down together, drink, eat, sing loudly and draw/paint :) Recently we've been going through 'Illusive - Contemporary Illustration Part 3' for inspiration, before starting our drawing sessions. So I've decided to share with you some names which have kept me looking at their works for the longest amount of time. These are not necessarily my favourites, because there were various other excellent illustrations, but I guess they did mesmerise me slightly more than the others. I have to admit I am a bit of a sucker for figurative and delicate likes, so you'll be seeing more of these.

Pietari Posti

The colour scheme of 'Storm' by Pietari Posti is so simple and yet astonishingly attractive. What I like about this: the line quality of the waves, the 'rough' colouring of the tentacles, the little dark corner in the top left nails it.

Mocchi Mocchi

 This was one of Ruth's favourites. There's something about illustrations of poppies - I guess it's the random, asymmetrical shape, and then the little black spots in the middle. Strikingly addictive,

Joe Mclaren

 A very popular style which is emerging locally as well - 'imperfect' illustration which puts the focus on the line and less on the rendering. Must admit I find its naivety very pleasing.

Bovey Lee

 What's not to like about this one? Beautifully detailed tactile illustration! There were other really good tactile illustrations on the book, but again, the lines in the one got me!

Nathan Fox

Really like the adrenalin and energy in Nathan Fox's illustration - very American-comic but in a different context. Reminded me a bit of the works of Winston Rowntree one of my favourite internet comic artists.

Laura Laine

Laura Laine is a Finnish fashion illustrator. Her works blew me away. Figures distorted in all the right areas. A little bit Tim-Burtonesque, but more refined.

Sabine Pieper

 After detailed lines and figures, collages are next on my list. I like the mixture of detailed faces with rough ink and paint smudges in Pieper's work.

Marguerite Sauvage

 Don't you think Marguerite Sauvage's name is perfect for her style of illustration? :) I was a bit undecided of whether to include her works her of not. Then I looked her up and found this illustration (which was not in the book) and I was hooked instantly. Love the pastel colour scheme, their faces, the hair, the food! (I love food illustration) and the whole Parisian-feel of the illustration.

Nao

I want to buy this as a print one day. What I like about it: the effortless line drawing, the running ink effect which I think is perfect for the context of this illustration. The writing, the hair...

Gabriel Moreno

 Gabriel Moreno's line quality reminds me of Daniela Attard's (who goes by the name of Iella) one of my favourite local illustrators.

Eva Sun-sil Han

 More collage work. Eva's work is a mixture of ravaged collage faces and thin architectural lines.

Marco Marella

 Marco Marella's work reminds me of these IT magazine illustration (perhaps he does do illustration for IT magazines, not sure). Also reminds me of coffee-shop artwork. Either way, I love the mixture of type with his rough-yet-clean figure illustrations.

Vincent Bakkum

I wanted to include a more traditional illustration, and I chose Vincent Bakkum, who does beautifully rendered figures, most of the time - accompanied by birds. I'm not a big fan of animal illustrations but I decided to make an exception for this one.

Yoko Furusho

Last but not least, Yoko Furusho has some amazing works comprised of clean-line figures. I really like the content of this illustration as well.

Please feel free to share your own favourite Illustrators :)

What I'm doing

What I'm doing: Combining traditional and digital. Trying to take the best of both worlds :)

Sharing Love

My latest illustration that I brought to life after sketching it on my return flight from London. I did it while thinking about love and staring at a girl that looked like my ex girlfriend. Where these two are in love, it florishes to the left and their love continues to grow. The little bubbles are blossoms that are flying off, sharing love around to others.

All done in Adobe Illustrator and finished at 2am woooot

Bernhard Gál lecture and performance

Sound Art Project 'stadtklaenge | klangstaetten', Allgemeiner Konsumverein, Braunschweig; May 7th - June 28th, 2009

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend a short-notice guest lecture and performance by Australian sound artist Bernhard Gál after he got in contact with one of my friends to hold a lecture/performance at the St.James music room. Would have loved to advertise it more but unfortunately there was very little time.

I have to say that the lecture was so much better than I had expected. I was waiting for an interesting but perhaps dragging lecture on sound installation, however it was more of a visual journey and explanation of the artist's installations, complete with hints on how to carry out a public-space installation and general details on the implementation of sound.

Site-specific audio-architectural installation in collaboration with Yumi Kori. Minoritenkirche, Krems, Austria, April - June 2005

The above clip is a short video that I took yesterday during the presentation of 'Stadtklaenge' - quite bad quality actually but I was more interested on what he had to say rather than worried about getting it on video :) Performance at the end was nice and atmospheric with a few surprises here and there, such as mingled voices close to the end, and a mysterious accelerating noise somewhere in the middle which felt like such a contrast from the rest of the calm audio piece. 

Overall it was an interesting experience, and even though I was dead tired after work, I enjoyed every minute of it. I hope we have more of this, and I suggest you look Bernhard Gál up if you're interested in sound engineering / sound installation & architecture / general audiovisual installations.

FCUK in Malta

Today I was reading RedWhite (a local design blog for those of you who are not familiar) and came across this great article about FCUK's new campaign based in Malta and Gozo. Click any image to be directed to the article.

MCAST 3D & Interiors Portfolio

Click to view

Chad Wys

Chad Wys gives a new meaning to traditional VS contemporary, check his work out

Behance

Well since it looks like I will never find the time to have my own website... it always feels like such a burden to even start thinking about a layout. I've decided to start uploading my portfolio on behance.net rather than on facebook. I used to update my deviantart account regularly, but for various reasons I have fallen out of love with deviantart. Behance has a much more professional look and is essentially a big portfolio of great graphic work, I urge you to have a look when you have time. There is even a nice clean version you can send to clients so that they won't see all the ads and extra stuff (just add /frame after your name) so here's my under-construction portfolio:

I'm pretty sure some students have a behance account, if so - link me :)

Alphonse Mucha Exhibition

"Over 100 works by Mucha, under the banner In Quest For Beauty: Alphonse Mucha 1860-1939, will be showcased at the Salon of the National Museum of Archaeology in Republic Street, Valletta between February 25 and May15."
Read more on the Times of Malta


You probably already know about this but just in case you missed it. It doesn't happen very often that we are graced with such an exhibition in Malta. I hope there's more of these events. I'd rather see a corner of a work by Mucha rather than go to Isle of MTV ;)

Student Work - Media

This is still student work by Sean Aquilina however it was done before he actually started the Media course, some very good shots here - have a look...

A very well planned and executed Research project on the History, Principles and Purposes of Editing by Media Student, Sean Aquilina. (In Maltese).

Student Work - Interactive Media

Currently correcting Units and writing new assignments, in the meantime here's a 3D animation by:
Mark Julian Borg, Interactive Media.

Banner

I keep getting tired of this blog's banner - perhaps I can get students to design a new one in the coming units :)

The Darwinian Evolution of Photoshop

Infographic: The Darwinian Evolution of Photoshop by Tech King

Student Work - Interactive Media

"This is animation for a TV program created by Mark Julian Borg, Julian Carter and Alex Ferrante. Music composed by Carter.

All done in Adobe Illustrator and After Effects"
HND2 Interactive Media, Animation techniques  

What is Graphic Design?

I showed these two videos to Foundation Diploma students this year who were unsure what the difference between Graphic Design, Interactive Media and Media Production is. This might seem very obvious to certain individuals, but very confusing for others. Essentially, at Art and Design MCAST, Graphic Design involves some illustration, web layouts, print, editorial and packaging as well as some animation. Interactive Media is all of this - but minus the illustration part, web includes development and code, and print, editorial and packaging are replaced by 3d, flash, programming and some editing.

Media Production is something else entirely - this involves the process of script writing, filming, editing, post-production etc... Some students were even confused as to how Graphic Design is different from Fine Arts. The most basic difference is that in Fine Arts you have no client - so in a sense you are much more free to do whatever you like. Anyway - here are two excellent videos from Vimeo which clearly explain what Graphic Design is, and how it is perceived.

what is graphic design from Steve Quinn on Vimeo.


What is graphic design? from Design Council on Vimeo.

The Super-Incredible Activity Book for Creatives

A way to not feel guilty when wasting time is to waste it guessing typefaces and enjoying some good design on the Veer Super-Incredible Activity Book for Creatives.

Click here to download the pdf, and here to access the interactive book (requires a tablet or super skills with your mouse / trackpad). Whilst you're there have a look at veer.com it has some exciting free fonts to download, and other luscious typefaces that you can purchase (some range from 10 - 12 dollars so it's not so bad) 

Purbeck Light Years by Jeremy Gardiner

Back from a long break - here's a link to some artist work I'm looking at for my research. This is Purbeck Light Years, an interactive installation which combines traditional and digital art. Am currently reading about the Women of the Beat Generation - thinking of using this movement as a foundation for a Unit name this semester, any thoughts?