Exercise: using black and white

Here I was to produce a line visual around one of four possible words. I chose the ‘sea’. Even though this was a black and white visual, I first created a colour mood board with various pictures of the sea that I had collected from lots of travel magazines. This was just to give me an idea of potential images that reflected the sea and I had some fun arranging them across the rainbow spectrum.

Using this and a spider diagram to come up with more images or ideas or objects that could represent the sea, I came up with a big list of things and then I selected some that I thought could be more interesting to do in a black and white or simply things I enjoyed and thought were most reflective of the sea. I even tried drawing things using white pastel on black paper to give me some ideas of what it could look like and also just to try out a different medium and tone.

I eventually got stuck on the idea of a lighthouse at night beaming out to sea – I figured I could make something quite striking and simple and using the black and white aspect to really reflect the night time and the lighthouse’s beam.

So I tried out different set ups using different images found online as per the below, with the odd other random idea flung in there but I kep coming back to lighthouses.

Many lighthouses were the simple round conical types so I tried out images using the famous lighthouse at lake Geneva and found this much more interesting in terms of shape and architecture so in the end I used that and a similar background for my sea feature as per the below.

However, I added light beam and removed some rocks to further simplify the image. I had some trouble with imagining how the water might be reflected. I looked up some different drawing styles and tried a few and almost drew it in using pen but I decided to leave it out and later experiment more with the black and white cut out shapes to find something that was good in the image.

After realising that the print machine I have access to does not allow for black and white reversal, I figured out how to do this on photoshop and so worked from printed out copies of both the white and black line or the black with white line.

I then made a start as per the below. This was already quit effective but I wanted to add more detail in the background and to the rocks to give a more glistening look. The below is the progression as I took photos while I added more detail and finally got to a reflected beam of light that I liked.

In the end to get the reflection I needed, I used the same white beam turned upside down so that it would follow the same flow of line as the real beam and cut into it to make the wave shapes and then added more waves of black and white on top. I like the noir-esque look to it – here’s the final version!

References:

Google searches for pictures of the lighthouse in Geneva:

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