CHRIS WARE - WEEK 1-2

Chris ware is a comic artist and illustrator, he has a very refined, neat and delicate style and draws, in my opinion quite  realistically in terms of proportion. This is drastically different from my style which is sketchy and more of a loose way of working. although I found this project difficult I thought it was a great way to try a new way of working entirely to expand my knowledge and overall skills in illustration.

this is the first illustration experiment I tried where I would use Chris Wares methodologies. the first thing I wanted to experiment with is the actual layout of the page, I attempted to make it look as scattered and more diverse as possible, by using different sized boxes and introducing circles, arrows, though bubbles and words to give it this feeling. I did this because Ware likes creating comics and panels in a way that almost seems like it has been scattered across the page. This is because he feels that us as humans have a very organised and thought out way of remembering memories and stories, A.K.A from point A to point B. he likes to contradict this statement as he feels it makes it more interesting for the reader[1]. this is also why the words and text are smaller and tend to be simple sentences,  he didn't want to make both the text and drawings complex as he thought no one would be able to understand them[1]. I made this experiment where there is no start, although it says 'FIRST' at the top of the page there are multiple ways in which you can start. like follow the arrow or read just bellow it, the arrows force you as a reader to look around the whole page rather than in a linear sequence. there are arrows and thought bubbles leading from the figure(me) in the centre of the page, this is because I based it on the illustrations he did of 'The Woman' in 'Building stories'[2]. I found that these arrows and thought bubbles broke up the feeling of a straight line sequence, this made it possible to make multiples little stories on one page, and best suited the theme of this experiment 'Straightening my hair'.  Ware likes to play around with colour and use it as a way of connecting people, stories and themes[3] this is why I tried to mute the colours apart from the fire and the red circles, I wanted to emphasise that this comic sheet is supposed to be addressing the dangers of straightening my hair.

This is the second Chris Ware inspired illustration. For this experiment I decided to focus solely on the characters themselves as I felt they had many different aspects of which I could try to replicate. the first thing I noticed is that the general shape of the face and head is similar to a kidney bean or peanut shape. this could be to make it easier to generate multiple drawings of the same person or it could be down to his personal preferences, this gives the impression of dimension to the face and makes it more interesting to look at. The noses are also very rounded and most of the time contain little detail and are very simplistic. I tried to replicate these preferences in drawing myself, with a 'peanut' shaped head where the nose is very rounded, but also where the facial features are very simple. Ware admitted in a web article that he used to love reading Peanuts comics and TinTin, he really liked the clarity of the drawings and he felt that in some way it describes how we as people reduce things and makes things more simple when we think about the world[4]. to me this means he loved the way that there was minimal detail when it came to the facial features and how we can still perceive it quite clearly as a person. I would say that it might be a similar thing to the Gestalt theory, and how are brains are programmed to fix images with missing lines. the last thing I included in this characterisation of myself was they grey, plain and black dot eyes. from looking through many of his comics on the internet I found that almost all or most of the male characters had dot eyes, whereas the female characters have more defined eyes and resemble the shape more. I would guess this is to personify the female characters more.

In a lot of Wares comics you can see that he likes to show time passing in a few forms. He shows time passing in  his comic strip 'Big Tex' where different squares has a different viewpoint into the future. Like how there are changes in seasons, parts of the house are dilapidated and old whereas others are perfectly fine, and also the presence of death. he also shows time passing in the opposite way, by slowing it right down, like in a short comic in his book Building stories there is a 2 square comic showing a man standing in the snow looking down, in the next frame he is shown looking up[5]. this type of slowing down is something that I recreated, It is mostly used to fill the space and make it so the comic doesn't go by to quickly, it spaces it and makes the pace even throughout. this really interested me, I loved the way that nothing really noticeable changes but it shows a clear evolution of time progressing, a really creative solution. Ware says that he likes to take a different approach when a character is pictured replaying a memory, he likes to layer images and repeat them to show the slow progression of the mood[6] I also dabbled in experimenting with the colour again, making the autumnal colours on the leaves a little more muted but also making it the only bit of colour in the whole 4 square comic. this makes the showing o slow progression through time more apparent. as on further inspection of that image[5] you can see the man looking down is brighter and more saturated than anything else around him, making him more noticeable. I used these slowing down techniques and used them in my own to get the same idea across and I think it was very successful in doing that.

this is the fourth and final experiment I did using the methodologies of Chris Ware, for the last one I decided to do something that I could have a little bit more fun with. this last experiment was done to show the possible evolution of a day I had a while back. from start(university lift) to end (getting back into my room) using the speech bubbles to portray my thoughts on me not wanting to wear trousers and how I love wearing shorts. I based this off  a short comic by Ware in 'Building Stories'[7], showing a woman not moving from 1 standing position in different points of the day and in different events. such as at a party, getting undressed and at a funeral etc. in which he also uses speech bubbles to indicate her thoughts on one subject matter of how she didn't like dolls. I also thought a little bit more about colour, remembering that Chris Ware likes to use colour to link people, objects and themes. I used my bright yellow converse in every single frame, this is because they are my favourite shoes and I thought it was a clever way to get some personality into the drawings.



in this entire Chris Ware assignment I feel I have well and truly become a fan of his work, after learning and reading about his methodologies and putting them in my own work I realise how much work and effort he puts into it. This had helped me learn more about using colour and line weight to emphasise mood. and using frames appropriately to show changes in time. all things in which I can apply for my future illustration work.


REFERENCES-
[1] FearNoArtChicago (2012) Graphic Novelist, Chris Ware. [Available:]       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4MOYCvgEmw [date accessed: 24th October 2015]
[2]Ware, C. (2012). Building Stories book. [Online]. [date accessed: 24th October 2015]. available from: http://moreintelligentlife.com/sites/default/files/ChrisWare7.jpg
[3]FearNoArtChicago (2012) Graphic Novelist, Chris Ware. [Available:]       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4MOYCvgEmw [date accessed: 24th October 2015]
[4]Stuart, K. (2013). read an image that moves in your mind. The Guardian. [Online]. [date accessed: 24th October 2015]. available from: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/11/chris-ware-graphic-novelist-interview
[5]Ware, C. (2012). Building Stories book. [Online]. [date accessed: 24th October 2015]. available from: http://www.domusweb.it/content/dam/domusweb/en/art/2013/04/03/chris-ware-at-galerie-martel/big_409211_7153_03_Ware-Invitation-pourpresse1.jpg
[6] Larimer, K. (2012). The Color and the Shape of Memory: An Interview With Chris Ware. [Online]. [date accessed: 10th October 2015]. available from: http://www.pw.org/content/the_color_and_the_shape_of_memory_an_interview_with_chris_ware?article_page=3
[7] Ware, C. (2012). Building Stories book. [Online]. [date accessed: 24th October 2015]. available from: http://www.macleans.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Ware_Building-Woman-p-6.jpg