Exercise: Abstract Illustration

For this exercise was asked to listen to a piece of instrumental music by musicians such as George Gershwin, the Gypsy Kings, Beethoven, Miles Davis. We were asked to listen to the music and create marks which convey out interpretation of the essence of the mood of the piece.

I listened to songs from each of the musicians to see what appealed most to me as from this list, only Beethoven was I familiar with. The song I chose was called Allegria from the Gypsy Kings. The music is from a group from the south of France that have a flamenco, salsa and pop style. The piece Allegra reminded me of salsa dancing and is a happy, upbeat song, full of energy.

I made marks on my paper whilst listening to the music. I did not look at the paper for most of it and instead made marks based on the rhythm of the music. I carried on until the song finished and then took a step back and looked at what I had on my page. I chose the word ‘passionate’ as an adjective to describe the tone of the piece. I then selected a square of my mark’s to create my abstract illustration with.

Using my selection as the starting point I started to transfer elements of my marks over to a fresh square sheet of paper. I used a combination of pastel pencils, Inktense sticks and watercolour marker to add colour to my illustration. The colours I chose all represent an energetic, bright, happy, passionate tone and to me felt like they represented the Latin vibe I was going for. I tried to keep the colours bright and using various shades, whilst not using more than three colours, so that I did not overload or over work piece.

I enjoyed this exercise as it allowed me to be free and create shapes and an illustration just through listening and feeling as opposed to having a plan beforehand. This allowed me to not over think what I was doing and not worry about the outcome. This was also a quick exercise, which meant that I was not precious about what I was doing as I could easily start again if it did not go right. I am not sure if this would work as the album cover for the chosen artist. Although perhaps with dark text overlaid this would work well. Alternatively, this could be the background with an image in front of it, i.e. a Spanish guitar or a photograph or illustration of the band.