The initial idea for this project was mythology; looking at
different myths and legends. Mine was originally on Welsh, Irish and Celtic
mythology but after talking to my tutors I looked at other different cultures
and beliefs such as the Ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Romans. However, I kept
going back to my original idea and then this narrowed down to Arthurian Legends.
This kept cropping up as I was looking at various stories but I kept going back
to Merlin and Arthur as this is something I know well and adore. While looking
at this legend and thinking of ways to try and take it forward, I kept looking
at the different stories which are part of the legend such as Guinevere and
Lancelot, The Knights of the Round Table and how everyone Arthur holds dear
betrays him somehow. I realised how tragic the stories were and how they could
be turned into movie posters so I decided to have a go at this for my Final
Major Piece (FMP).
Studying different interpretations led me to realise that
the TV Show Merlin is my favourite retelling and the one I relate to most and
this soon became the idea for the movie posters.
To get started I wrote down the main events of the TV series
to try and see which could be incorporated/turned into a movie poster; however,
there are five series and there are a lot of key moments, characters and events
to try and narrow down. Looking at it, it seems that it comes down to roughly
the same as the traditional legend, the only difference is that Merlin as a
main character is a young boy instead of an old wizard, and there is an area
about Merlin finding himself and becoming his own person which does not seem to
appear in the original telling. Going on the fact that it is mostly the same as
the original legend I narrowed the posters down to a trilogy.
I had to do a lot of research and while there is a lot of material
for secondary research there is not much for primary. On discussion with my
tutors I identified visits to museums, photographs and critical
studies/observational drawings were the best way forward.
Two places that I identified as places to visit were the Royal
Armouries in Leeds and the City of York. In the Armouries I had plenty of raw
material for primary research.
In York I took photos of the old buildings and scenes in
Castle Museum grounds which I did observational drawings of in my sketchbook.
My secondary research led to the development of my first
ideas board which was of the characters in Merlin (as on the TV Series). It was
hard to see who was important but I picked who I thought was and did drawings
of them. At this stage I was not sure if they would feature in the final
posters but this is part of research development. One that I was particularly
proud of but did not end up using was of Morgana using pencil and then building
up tone.
I also did a research board on typography and also collected
some samples and put them in a booklet format. The typography included is a
mixture of 40s/50s movie poster style titles. I wrote out ‘Merlin’ in a few of
them to try and get a rough idea of what it would look like as the title on a
poster; next time I wrote out other related words to try and get a look at the
fonts potential as a title. Tracing the letters also seemed a good idea, to
ensure they are correctly sized and placed as some of the letters are bigger
sized and slanted compared to the others. Examples can be seen on my board and
in the booklet.
The artists I looked at for poster one was Osvaldo Venturi
and Yvonne Anne Gilbert. Venturi’s was watercolour based and mainly film
posters. I looked through a 50s film poster book. His work is blocky but
bright. It does not look blended but he manages to achieve a soft but dramatic
effect. I did a quick drawing and watercolour painting.
Personally I think it was okay but could have gone better. I
don’t think I used the right colours.
I also looked at Yvonne Gilbert; I came across her work in
The Enchanted World series of books. I am a fan of both artists for very
different reasons. I enjoy Venturi’s illustrations and posters due to the
dramatic portraits and blocky realism, and the way the paints don’t blend and
run together was something I wanted to try and recreate. For Gilbert I saw the
elegant and detailed work and wanted to attempt the same amount of detail and
patience. No area of her work is lazy; it all as the same amount of attention
and I hope one day to be an Illustrator influenced by her work.
At this point I was unsure who’s style to follow onto the
posters but for the first one I believe it will be Venturi’s style of bright
colours and blocked out brush strokes as it is more suited to my final design
for poster one. I have practised drawing Merlin in his style and found it
better for my poster due to the size; Gilberts style will be too long and
possibly fiddly at this stage.
For both artist research sheets I painted the text which
took longer than anticipated, but I feel it was worth the time as it looks
smarter. There are two studies on each sheet, one on Venturi’s is a painting of
Merlin and a critical study of one of his posters (see above).
Both of Gilberts are critical studies, one of Lancelot and
Guinevere and one of the Lady of the Lake. 
For
this I had to build up the detail very carefully and I was pleased with the end
result, particularly on the folds of the cloak and dress.
My
second study of the Lady of the Lake has less colour but still did a lot of
time and and effort for the dramatic effect. I built the tones and shade up
very carefully over a few days.
So far out of the artists research I feel that Venturi work
was hardest to recreate as I am still not too confident in using watercolour
and need some practice with some of his techniques, especially with stopping
the paint from running together.
Using colour pencil is something I am more comfortable with
so Gilberts work was more familiar, but still something of a challenge because
of the amount of detail and the sharpness to it.
For poster one I did one design, one development sheet and
one final design.
When I had been writing my ideas down for the trilogy to me
Merlin was the main character with Arthur and Nimueh as important secondary
characters against the backdrop of Camelot.
I
planned my work out in sections with Merlin been the largest and central image. I was happy with
the outcome but was glad I researched typography. As finishing details, I completed
the title in gold leaf (see technical file).
For Poster two I originally looked at the work of Mark
Langeneckert (pastels artist) and did a picture on velour with pastels.
However, I was not use pastel as I could not set the work so it would not smudge;
researching velour told me that the pastel fell off of the paper. I did
portraits of Merlin and Arthur on my research board but in the end Gilberts
influence won out on pencil.
I did use the pastel image of Arthur as an influence on
poster one.
For poster two I did some sketches of characters and as this
was the middle of the trilogy I looked at how that linked in with the stories
and episode of Arthur and Merlin. At this stage it was the Golden Age of
Camelot when Arthur and Guinevere were in love so these are the characters on
this board.
I did mixed media for this of watercolour and coloured
pencil.
For poster three there were so many characters I could have
chosen but did not know what to do. However, a key theme of the legends is
Arthur’s name or doom (another word used for destiny in the stories) was as the
Once and Future King.
I did research and
looked at Mucha as one of my ideas was to do poster 3 as a silk painting but
after experimenting at college (see technical file) I decided this was not an
option.
I looked at Louis John Rhead and really liked his work. His
was one of the five artist boards I did (the other one Boris Grinsson). I decided Arthur would be the only character
on my last poster but would try and achieve a stained glass effect.
I have done a lot of other work around my FMP and am very
pleased with the end result.
Word Count:1522
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