After looking at all three people I found Yuri Garagin to be quite interesting. But still Elvis sticks out to me the most. I decided to do a mind map of more research that I can find. As I find it a good and easy way to get everything down in a clear visual way.
I've just rang my mum then my dad to get their opinions and knowledge on him.Though quite a lot of the things they were saying I had already found out in my research but just thought it was good to hear peoples thoughts rather than just looking on the internet.
Here are notes that I jotted down that my mum said:
- His house was called Graceland.
- America hadn't seen anything like him.
- He had a lot of films.
- At one point they only recorded him from the waist upwards because of his provocotive dancing.
- Cutting edge
- When people first heard his music they thought he was black from the sound of his voice.
- He loved his mum.
- Was in the army.
- His dad died when he was at a young age.
- Vegas
- Cornal Tom Parker was his manager
- World influence.
- No-one on this planet doenst not know who he is.
- Iconic, shocking time when he died. People could remember what they were doing and where they were when they found out.
These are notes that I made when speaking to my dad (quite a bit was repeats of what my mum said, but written on here other things that he mentioned):
- He never came to England properly; nearest he got was the plane landed, refuelled and went back, and he never got out the plane.
- Amazing music
- Towards the end he took lots of drugs and ate lots of fast food
- Died whilst on the toilet
- He wore catsuits, big collars, jewels, wide belts. Catsuit trousers that flared or what were called 'bell bottoms'
- Iconic hair style - side burns.
- His top lip always went up in one corner.
- He was known for driving big Cadillacs with big wings and bought them for his family and friends. He told me to google 1950's American Cadillacs.
- Rock and Roll.
- He was the best ever.
- Looked after his family.
- He will never be forgotten, even future generations will know who he is.
After gathering all this information about Elvis, I have now just been looking at images to do with him and used my research to narrow down the imagery to look for.
These are some images of films posters that he was in:
Then looked at photos of him and his family:
I came across this stamp on google images, which is completly relatable to my project, so thought I would save it. It also gave me the idea for my stamps to also have the ridged boarder on them like an actual stamp would. Also, like this one, to make mine look more realistic I could include some text and numbers.
Then a big part that he is known for is the way he dances so looked into that:
My dad spoke to me about the cars he would drive, particularly his Cadillacs.After looking at images of his cars, I really do want to involve them in my work somehow.
In addition, he is very famous for his white catsuit.
This is house Graceland:
After looking at images of his house I thought it would be good to actually be able to have a tour around his house so went onto youtube and just watched this:
Some things I wrote down whilst watching it:
- A family owned this house before he moved in.
- He played the piano by ear, he never took music lessons apart from the one music class he did take in highschool/middle school he failed music.
- Bought for 102, 500 dollars in 1957.
- Private mecca for him.
- He had 14 TVs and in the 50s it was rare for anyone to have a television.
- Elvis loved Hawaii.
- He also loved horses.
- He had his very own custom made aeroplane.
These are just some random images that I collected that I thought were just generally good iconic images to do with him. Which you can also see in most of them they back up what my dad said about Elvis tending to lift one side of his top lip up.
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I just watched this youtube video about Elvis' life. I found it to be quite moving and facinating to hear about his life. I feel like I understand more about him. As I only knew about him from the basic information and I feel that this has informed me greatly about him and has given me many ideas. It was good to hear not just about his greatness and the good in his life but to hear about the more darker and sad side to his life as it really helps know truly about his life.
These are some notes I made though out the video:
- Began life very poor and had some hard times.
- Mommas boy
- Complusive generocity
- Gladys Presely is his mothers name, he bought her her first car which was a Cadillac.
- He became the provider, bought his mum Graceland.
- Gladys was scared of his fame.
- 1957, christmas was the happiest time of his life; a combination of all his dreams.
- Memphis Mafia
- Gave every employee 1000 dollar bill.
- Was drafted into the U.S army
- Stationed in Germany
- Left for emergancy leave as his mother was very ill.
- His mother passed away and felt a huge amount of grief.
- Most hurtful moment of his life.
- Couldn't turn to his father in the same way.
- Prescilla met Elvis when she was 13
- Came to live in Graceland at 17 and Elvis promised her father he would marry her.
- No drugs or drinks at his parties.
- Sonny West was his body guard
- He became interested in the afterlife
- Reincarnation
- Read the bible
- Beetles became popular dominating pop culture, becoming a threat to him.
- They came to his house; moment of silence when they met.
- Then all sang together - Jam session.
- John Lennon shuck him up a bit.
- Married Prescilla after 5/6 years.
- Unhappy marriage
- Stunning comeback.
- Oozed talent.
- Escalating drug addiction.
- Had a daughter, Lisa Marie
- Couldn't have sex with a mother, detierated marriage.
- Horrified by his appearance that he had become.
- Mindi Millar companion
- Billy Smith, Elvis' cousin.
- Deadly allergic reaction to Codeine.
- Died, and wasn't found for about 15 minutes.
- Greatest entertainer.
- Warmest human being you could find.
After watching this video it's made me interested about The Beetles meeting Elvis, so thought I would find out more about that and watch a video on how they felt about meeting him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWSfqQcJ9tE
I've now just watch another youtube video about Elvis. Watching this video really emphasises how much of a star he is and the impact he had on people. Even influenced other well famous musicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP-zcXtiXhA
"Elvis rearranged the mainstream."
I found a book in the library of Photos of Elvis.
This image stuck out to me the most and really is iconic; this is one of the main visions you think of when you think of Elvis. It has really made me want to incorportate his way of moving and his guitar in my work.
Today, I began by getting my ideas down onto paper by drawing thumbnails, ideas and words that came to my head. On the bottom right of the first photo I did a very rough drawing of Elvis in the style of Ryan Feerer as I'd just got a book out of the library (Illustration Now! Volume 2) and was really drawn the way he draws; very narrow arms and legs with a larger more chunkier body. I find it so interesting when illustrators make the body disproportional.
I then made another list just to jog my memory of the things you would associate with Elvis as I was getting a bit of a mind block of what to do. Then This list actually really helped me stream off some ideas. My favourite idea was to use the format of playing cards. As you would link Elvis with Las Vegas which you would connect with playing cards. In addition I thought it would be a good idea to make all the cards the king seeing as Elvis Presley is known for being 'The King of Rock and Roll'. The cards would work really well as a set, plus on each card I can involve things that you would connote with Elvis.
However, I still want to come up with more ideas so drew some mouths as he is known for his upper lip curl that he does. Then I did some scamps of Elvis doing different dance moves. As he was very well known for his what was provoctive dancing of the time. I drew these in the style of how I illustrated my last visual language task. Creating the background using cross hatching lines and then keep clear a spot light and in each spot light have Elvis in a different recognisable dance move position, wearing his famous clothing.
We then went into group crits to discuss our research that we had gathered and ideas that we had developed. It was interesting to see who people have and what they had found out. I do really think that this is a very exciting project and feeling really positive about it and got the impression from my group that they all feel the same about it. I feel that my crit went well; Elvis is a very well known person so people instantly knew who I was talking about and think I should definitely do some drawings of him dancing. They also think that they postcard idea seemed good and that it related well. However, Joe who also was in my group was thinking of doing postcards too which has slightly put me off a little bit as I would rather do something different to anyone else. But we are still in early stages so I still have time to develop and generate ideas. These are just initial drawing ideas that I have come up with today, I think tomorrow I definitely need to work on more ideas and then begin to develop.I feel if I do go with the postcard idea, I probably would like to create them using illustrator as I think it would give that slick finish to them. Though I would need to take into consideration the easter holidays and the fact I don't own illustrator so would need to come up with a plan. 
I have thought about it now for a few days and have decided that I still definitely want to go for creating playing cards. We both have very different styles so think we will create completely different outcomes.
I created a Pinterest account not too long ago so thought I would have a look on there to see what other people have done with playing cards. I have collected a few that I particularly like/ thought could help me gain ideas for mine.
http://gb.pinterest.com/rf251653/studio-brief-3/
In addition here are a few that I found using Instagram which I recently got.
Today I want to create some mock up playing cards so I can get the idea of what the content will involve plus working to the specific sizing that has been given.
First thing I have done is gone onto Illustrator and using images found off the internet come up with some possible compositions.
Really liking the idea of playing with symmetry. I think that it creates an interesting composition. The first playing card I think has the best line of sight and helps you distinguish the two sides of the playing cards.
Really just playing at the moment. I am not keen on the pink cadillac that I just did, I think that I need to come up with a better composition for it so that it flows better.
After attempting many different compositions I am finding it quite hard making interesting symmetrical compositions with a car. I guess I need to just keep on trying.
Whilst trying find images of Elvis' famous pink cadillac I a came across this image:
It really shone out to me. I love the contrast of the pink and the black and has made me want to keep my colour palette very simple to just two or three colours as I think from looking at this it shows keeping a minimum amount of colour can be very effective. Also,it has really made me want to try and play with possibly having paint splatters in my work it really seems to make this piece more striking.
I definitely want to use Elvis's home also known as 'Graceland'. I think within this piece I can give a good symmetrical line of sight using the path in front of the house.
Another thing that is iconic towards Elvis is his personalised guitar. I have played about on Illustrator with some ideas on composition.I think the one I prefer the most is the sunglasses and guitar one as its incorporating two iconic aspects and works visually well together.
Next I focused just on his famous lip curl. After adding the lips into one of the practise guitar pieces I wanted to have them on their own as a main piece as I think they are just very iconic on their own and don't need anything else.
After making this I realised that the upside down could imbue some sort of deeper meaning that there was this unhappy darker side to him. Also, I noticed that this does look quite similar to the style of Andy Warhol and after looking at Warhol's work I thought that I could try out the way he uses his colours within a piece.
I have just had a sit down and thought about my plan on what i need to do over easter. And I have realised I've spent my time just thinking about the postcards and not even taking into consideration that I need to not only do that but create a big A1 poster plus stamps as well. I don't know whether I should have the theme of playing cards throughout or whether to do the stamps in a different style and the poster in a different style. I think that it would all look smoother and better if they were all in the same style. But I don't know how much I can do with the playing card idea. Especially when it comes to the stamps, I think the scale might be too small for it to work so I do need to have a think about that. I do feel a bit better now that I have come up with a plan for over easter.
We just had our crit. I found it helpful to tell someone about my research and ideas. I was partnered with Adele and she said she's liked my ideas and that I was more looking at the positives and celebrating Elvis rather than showing the negative as I did come across the negative sides in my research. She said she liked that I tried out some experimentations of layout and composition on the computer. Though she said I need to put more thought into my big poster as I haven't done any work for it yet. She has put that she reckons it maybe a problem would be making the poster and making it all fit together. Taking this into consideration I want to begin doing some rough sketches and ideas for the poster and the stamps. After speaking with Adele she said she really liked my drawings of Elvis' lips and reckons that it would be good to use for my stamps. Taking that into consideration I think for my stamps I am going to keep them very simple and just use one iconic aspect that you relate to Elvis. For example: his lip curl on one, sunglasses on another, his famous hairstyle and sideburns and guitar on the other. After having this discussion I am now going to get thumb nailing and sketching and create a plan for over easter.
I have sat down and been doing some thumb nailing which has definitely helped me visualise my work and stemmed off new ideas. Here are all my sketches in my make shift sketchbook that I made for this project:
Elvis' dancing was very iconic and is still remembered for it now. So I want to portray and capture his way of dancing and came up with this idea of having a line of Elvis's all in different dance move positions. I thought that this would be good to have as the big poster as it will involve a lot of his iconic features all together. I did a quick drawing in my sketchbook of an example and think that this would look good reflected like the playing cards.
Like the postcards I thought I would make it on illustrator to get the idea of the composition and will give me reference to draw from.
Using the line of Elvis's that I drew I just wanted to test out some effects.
I feel like it was good to play around with different colours and textures and things and definitely will consider some for the final piece.
Its the easter holidays now and I've come into the studio to do my work as I'm useless at home. I've decided to stop getting confused and complicated and do one step at a time. I'm beginning with the stamps then I shall do the postcards and then the main poster.
Made this in the actual size of what it should be so when made larger it gets pixelated.
After making that I thought that it would be useful to make a template stamp so the boarder and the kings are already in place so I just need to draw in the middle the different designs. This is so that they can all have the same identical framing/format. Slightly different from the first one; this time I have decided that the 'K' looks better bigger so that more space is filled.
Next I have done the famous aviator sunglasses.
After making these I've thought that the font of the 'K' is a bit dull so went to find some more interesting fonts that I could use.
After choosing the font that I liked best I began on a postcard. I have used illustrator to make the famous Graceland house.
I'm still getting the hang of using Illustrator but can feel myself getting better. I have decided that I think that the cards could use a bit of colour in them. I have chosen to go for red as it follows the nature of a typical authentic playing card.
Next, I made this Elvis and following the other postcard I have put in red.I made this on Photoshop as I have never really given Photoshop a go. I will use the frame that I made before and place the Elvis within in and copy and rotate it.
Because I've really got into this last one with Elvis dancing I'm going to create the final poster now as I want that the have Elvis dancing.
I decided to test out some other colours to see if they would work too. As I want the final poster to stand out so thought maybe a few colours could look good.
After testing them out I think that I should stick to using red and black so that it is continuous throughout.
I wanted to use all four dance positions but found that three just looked a lot better. Plus the three that I have used all create a similar reflection so looks more balanced.
I feel like I am getting some where now and know where I am going with it. Where as before I was sort of jumping from one idea to another.
Using the sunglasses that I created before I am going to re make the stamp. Like the postcards and the final poster that I have made so far I have added the colour red to it.
I thought that it looked a bit dull and boring so I've put it onto Photoshop; mad it bigger then used the skew transform tool and played around with that until I was happy. I felt that the 'K' and the heart looked better in the lens and because the lens is a dark colour turning the 'K' white created a better contrast for it to stand out.
Using the hair that I made before I have also re made this stamp to follow the style and colour theme of everything else. I have played around with the sizing of everything and the positioning.
For the next stamp I looked back at my thumbnails and ideas and decided to create a stamp of Elvis's guitar. Like the sunglasses I have used the transform then skew tool.
This is a print screen of me playing around and skewing the image:
Now I have created the stamps its made it a lot easier for me to make the postcards as I will use aspects from them. Looking back at my ideas and thoughts I am going to create the postcard of the guitars and his aviator sunglasses in the middle like the composition I made before in the mock ups.
Same as the sunglasses I used the mock ups the help create the next postcard of the cadillac.
Final Stamps:
Final Postcards:
Final Poster:
We have just had our final crit. Which helped me know what final changes that I needed to make before I print off properly and hand in. Here is how I presented my work:
It was nice to receive feed back and that they have recognised how much I have enjoyed research for this project on my brief. After getting their opinions and thoughts back its made me realise that there still is final tweaks that need to be done to my pieces.
Overall, despite the stresses and frustration that I felt I did in fact enjoy this brief and feel like I've learnt more from this brief/module more than any other so far. I have always wanted to learn to use Photoshop and Illustrator but have had no confidence or knowledge to use them. Therefore, I am pleased that I did force myself to use these programmes in this brief as I have over come my usual dismission to use them. However, I think that I shouldn't of completely relied on computers and maybe of scanned in my own illustrations and used them as it would've made it look a lot more personalised. I did achieve what I wanted to achieve in the ascetics as I think that they clearly portray playing cards. I believe that I managed my time well, taking into consideration the fact it would take me a long time to complete a simple task on Illustrator/ Photoshop. So a lot of my time was spent learning. But I don't regret that as I needed to learn. It just means that it isn't the best piece of work, but I feel so pleased that I challenged myself. I believe now if I used Photoshop or Illustrator again in future projects I could do it and not feel apprehensive about doing so which I did before.
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