The Final, Final Outcome!

 After my assessment, the tutors made their criticisms about my final piece. They advised I should edit two elements of the image: the figure and the jars. Here it is below:

 I wanted to make the jars appear a lot more structured and taller, so I traced a photograph of a sweet jar that I had previously used as reference and put it into Photoshop. For the reflections on the glass I rotated the scan and used the edges from the opposite side. I erased parts of the lines out slightly giving each jar variation and made them white. I applied the same technique for the underneath perspective view of the lid, except I kept the lines black. For the red colour of the lid I simply used the bucket tool and made the underneath part a shaded tone version. I added thin, vertical, black lines onto the lids for an authentic texture.

 The figure I drew out by hand, as I did with the jar, and I based his stance from the 1950's youth subculture of 'greasers'/rockers. My previous figures remained generic, so I wanted something with more character and attitude; something with a very noticeable presence. A greaser seemed perfect, since they came about the era of Joyce's youth. I put the figure into Photoshop also and increased the levels to make him a silhouette.

 For the rest of the elements of the image, I used the previous techniques because I was already happy with them. I increased the contrast of the photographed sweets and made use of the perspective from the jars by putting an underneath surface to the shelves. I increased the levels to each wood surface giving the image more depth and tonal variation. The image is also a lot more cropped compared to the last one because I wanted the figure of Richard to stand out more.

Joyce's Sweet Shop Unveiled!

 I now knew where I was heading. I redrew the jar shape using marker pen to heighten the boldness of the basic shape. I even redrew the shadowy figure of Joyce's husband, this time possessing a 60s/70s haircut which would have probably been the time she met him.

 I scanned the images into Photoshop and increased the contrast and line thickness to emphasise the shapes. For the sweets, I took a photograph of one of each to create a good mixed variety for the outcome. I inserted them into Photoshop also and increased their edge thickness to go alongside the jars. I rotated and flipped each of the duplicated sweet photos to represent how piled up they are within the jars.
 I made three shelves visible within the image with sweet jars all stacked alongside one another and placed each of the sweets around from the centre. The centre displays Richard's figure and shadow, which is deliberate because he wouldn't be as obvious. I placed him along the edge of the jar to emphasise his visible yet small presence, in turn representing Joyce's only memory of him: a figure in the background.

 Here is my first draft of the final outcome:

 It proves more effective than just the single jar! However, the wood texture I used doesn't seem very evident. Also the jars could do with some sort of reflection to make them appear more like glass.

 Here's my final outcome:

 Much better. The wood texture is a lot more defined and I simply used the paint tool in Photoshop to put in those small reflections on the sides of the jars.

Joyce and the Sweet Shop!

 After my conversation with Joyce and a group discussion back at college, I realised that the history of her and the sweet shop in which she lived in was perfect in displaying her memories. The memory of her husband, Richard, was a prominent factor also because of the way she described her lost memories of him.

 I began researching images of old sweet shops in the heritage section at Stockport Library. I gathered a lot of imagery and started developing from there. I even went to Stockport Market to buy some classic old English sweets, such as: Black Jacks, acid drops, pear drops, rhubarb and custard and liquorice torpedoes.
 My initial idea for the image was it to be inside the sweet shop concentrating on the jars of sweets stacked along the shelves. Joyce's memories could be displayed in each jar, but I'm not sure I have enough strong memories to put in them. Perhaps just her husband, Richard, and the rest just filled with sweets to give the image more autheticity of an old sweet shop.
 I had a one-to-one with another student, each of us expressing our thoughts on one another's ideas. The other student applauded my idea, but wondered whether I could reduce the jar-stacked shelves and just have the one jar taking up all the space on the page. If I did this then Joyce's husband would most probably be within this single jar. The problem though was how to make the jar appear like a genuine sweet jar without any sweets in it.

 I tried the single jar idea and it came out like this below. It was rushed slightly because I still wavered upon the idea:

 Seeing as it's at rough development stage, I can sympathise with it. The lines used I believe should be bold and better shaped. The sweets should be detailed, individually displaying each sweet. The male figure appears generic also, so perhaps I should make further research into how men dressed in the era Joyce met her husband. Regardless, I believe more sweets and jars would prove more effective. The jar style I drew is how they appeared in the Stockport sweetshops when they sold the Squirrel brand of sweets, so that design will remain.

Age UK: Buildings

 For this project, the Age UK association gave us the task to record and illustrate people's memories of Stockport for a book they were investing in. The topic choices given were wartime and buildings. I decided to choose buildings because I felt I knew too much about the war time period, so a challenge was nice.

 The people's memories, which we would be gathering, were from people who suffered from dementia. at first this made me cautious as it is a delicate subject. It drove me however because it was such a good cause. Our group were to meet at the Day Care Centre in Reddish on the following Tuesday.

 We arrived on the day and were briefed what would happen. It was a rather relaxed atmosphere when we arrived, but I still remained anxious. We walked into the room in which the people we would be talking to were comfortably sat having morning coffee or tea. I was casually put with a woman named Joyce and so we began to chat. Here is my anecdote of our conversation:

“He’s a figure in the background...” – Joyce

 On Tuesday, 11 December, I had the lovely encounter of a woman by the name of Joyce at the Day Care Centre in Reddish. Joyce unfortunately suffers from dementia, so the task I was given was to seek knowledge from her background through asking a series of questions.

 Well firstly she wasn't originally from Stockport, but from Leigh in Lancashire. She attended Leigh Grammar school for girls when she was younger and remembered having a talent for maths! She lived in a sweet shop with her family during the Second World War. She confessed sweetshops were a rarity and that living in one made her feel lucky due to the food rations. She also confessed stealing sweets from time to time. She mentioned that when the bombs fell she would hide under the stair case. The explosions never came close fortunately. She mentioned at this point that I remind her of a relative, but she could not remember who sadly.

 When Joyce became an adult she joined the civil service and became a short-hand typist for the building firm, Taylor Woodrow. I found it highly ironic that she was involved in buildings, due to the context of my questions. It was in this part of her life that she met her husband, Richard Howard. Not catching Joyce’s surname, I assumed the same as her husband’s. I asked what he was like and why she fell for him, but she sadly couldn't remember him. “He died too young”, she said simply, thus making Joyce a widow. Her quote that stood out was when she described Richard as ‘a figure in the background’. I found this incredibly poetic, moving and inspirational.