I mentioned recently how valuable it can be as an artist to commission yourself,
to set yourself creative projects just for the sake of experimentation, to
explore different subject matter, to build your portfolio or to explore
avenues that you might want to take your art down in the future. And a lot of you
seemed really interested in that so I thought we would start a new monthly
series here where we set our own creative projects, create a finished
piece of art, our own personal commissions, starting today with creating
an album cover. Now I've done cover artwork once before for a fantastic
single for a fantastic artist and I will leave a link below for you to listen to
the whole thing properly.
It was a perfect collaborative project between us where I was essentially asked
to do my usual thing, do my houses in my typical style, but he had his own concept
that he brought forward and we were able to merge our stylistic and creative
ideas. So I'm hoping for as much harmony when it comes to commissioning myself.
But in order to make an album cover, we need music. Now if you want to join in
with this, you can choose something like your favorite song, something that you're
listening to right now, something that you used to listen to when you were
younger, the best album of all time.. but for the sake of this video, I'm gonna use
Epidemic Sound. The music is all royalty-free so I'll be able to lay it
over the video so you can get a sense of what I'm working with. I actually love this
site anyway, I use it for the music in all my videos and it's so different to
other royalty free music websites in the sense that I will actually download some
of this music to listen to just like for personal use, just to listen to
day-to-day because I like it that much.
And this isn't sponsored at all, they don't know I'm talking about them, and
the link that used below will be an affiliate link if you do or don't visit
this website, but you don't have to use it and as I said, you can just use your
own music. But normally when I start out on this website, I will just start on the
homepage see what's new. So yeah, let's just start there.
Um okay. Is it bad that I like the very first song I clicked on? Kinda want to go
with it. Is that too easy? I just like the sound of it, it's giving me a vibe,
it's giving me like mental images already... Why not! Let's just go for it.
Let's use this song. It's called Balcony by Velvet Moon. So for a normal commission,
the artist would normally have their own ideas for what they might want the album
cover to look like. They might not. They might say go and do your own thing but
there will at least be a kind of theme or something, some imagery
they might want you to include in there. But for this particular case, obviously
there is no client. I think in the future videos I might be stricter, might set
some constraints on the commission itself but for now I think I'm just
gonna give myself free rein to do whatever I want creatively. Alright let's
get brainstorming then I guess. Let's start making some notes. I know
that I want it to be twelve by twelve inches, just so that if the singer
wants that on vinyl, it will be big enough for that kind of format - and you
can do whatever size you want as long as it's square... although I am now thinking
should we do a back cover as well .... we'll come back to that. But for now,
12x12" and then in terms of what its gonna look like, I
think I'm just going to listen to the song through a few times and get a feel
for it and see if anything springs to mind.
Alright, so having listened to the song a few times, I do have a few ideas that
have come to mind. I'm getting summer, sunshine, desert- -more like a
California desert- road trip, like hand-out-the-window, open-road, a sense of kind
of isolation, light leaks for some reason were coming to mind and like a kind of
kaleidoscopic feel to it. And then I listened to the song one more time
really paying attention to the lyrics and I got a lot of lonely atmosphere
from it, a lot of the lyrics are about loneliness and isolation so the stuff I
kind of thought of to start with still stands, the desert, the road trip, but I'm
thinking more now like a motel, like a empty motel room, there's maybe a bit of
a mess and maybe a view of a balcony in there. So I'm going to look for a few
more references that might help just to solidify that idea. And a mood board like
this would help if this was an actual commission. It would help to share
with the client what I have in mind rather than me just saying 'I have a
motel vibe', having images to back that up. Although I would set it out a bit
differently if I were showing this to someone else. But having it all laid out
like this makes sense to me. Now the only other thing I think I'll do is maybe
look at some album cover examples just to see if there's anything I haven't
thought of compositionally, just see if it sparks any more ideas.
Also now that I think about it, another image has sprung to mind of a painting
by loish or Lois van Baarle. I like the colours in it, it's a view of
a window at sunset so I'm going to see if I can find that.... yes, this one here!
This has some of the atmosphere that I'm looking for so let's add that. Maybe
try to have a similar colour scheme... or it's more so the composition
of this one that I like. Okay back to album artwork. Let's just have a quick
scroll through.
Recognise this one straightaway. This is Sha'an our Furrry Little Peach, she did this
a while ago, I remember seeing on Instagram and she's done album artwork
before, another one other than this, great work! yYah she's got a got a real eye for
this kind of thing. Great to see her work coming up here as well. Okay I think I'm
about ready to maybe sketch out my first initial ideas just as a rough thumbnail.
Looking at album artwork didn't necessarily give me anything. Maybe
how the text will be in relation to the artwork although, I might just add that in
digitally afterwards rather than adding it to the actual painting. It did help
though to spark that memory of that artwork by Lois van Barle.
That really helped. I think that's a good a good place to start.
So I know it looks like a mess but this really makes sense to me visually. I can
really see it and it's great when you get an idea instantly and you can just
run with it, but I do think it's important to explore other avenues just
to see if there's anything that I'm missing. I really want to take this idea
and run with it but I'm just gonna take some time to see if there's anything
else in there and-... you know what, I am going to separate myself from this very
solid idea by removing myself from this environment. I'm gonna go for a walk, I
have a library book that I need to return so I'm gonna pop out and when I
get back we'll see if I've got any new ideas.
Right so I'm back with two new
books and two new ideas. Actually it really was a struggle to draw up
something new but I'm sticking with the hotel theme and I thought of doing
something kind of similar to something I've done before, like an outdoor view of
the hotel looking at it in a sort angular way with the balcony coming off
it somehow or a few different balconies maybe, just playing on the
angles there of the architecture. And then otherwise, I was
thinking still again going with the hotel theme, something more... like a different
view of the hotel room. Maybe a close-up of looking down
on the record player- she talks about listening to records on repeat in the
song- so kind of looking down, I need to work on the perspective...
but I think maybe have the sliding door here
out to the balcony, just a smaller view of it and you can just see some of the
mess on the floor just showing this kind of scene of
neglect in the room I suppose. so those are the ideas I've had so far, I still
very much like this one the most and I think for the sake of time, I am gonna
stick with the original idea. Maybe this one could come into play if I do decide
to do the back cover, although I do think for the back cover it would be cool to
do like the opposite view of the room so the rest of the bed here looking lonely,
chair... and that's if I even do the back cover. So the next thing I'm gonna do, I
think I have enough references around to get started on just refining the initial
thumbnail sketch and then I guess we'll just take it from there.
It needs some work for sure. If this were a project for a real client, I would be
spending much more than one day on the finished piece, just getting in that
detail and really refining it. I learned along the way that I really need to work
on my drapery, so getting realistic creases and
lighting in those curtains, so I would probably spend a good few days just
doing studies in my sketchbook of curtains until I had a better grasp on
how to get the look I wanted. Also since I'm in a bit of limbo with my art style
at the moment, I think that resulted in a kind of formlessness here but I suppose
I could just say that that's the style I was going for. I mean, if I really wanted
to I could go in and add the details but I know in the future I will try and have
a better idea of the finished style I'm trying to convey even if it isn't
necessarily *my* style. I think some guidance there will help shape the
decisions that I'm making while I'm painting and in the end I'll get a piece
as a bit more to say. It almost reminds me of that episode of Spongebob, I think
it's called 'Normal' where he loses all his texture and is completely smooth. I
think I've used that as a comparison for something before on this channel.
Honestly, anything in life can be linked back to SpongeBob if you try hard enough.
But overall, I love the atmosphere here, the colours... it's actually pretty close to
the scene that I envisioned in my head while I was listening to the lyrics. And
this was such a valuable practice in painting a scene and creating something
not entirely from reference. If I had time, if this were an actual client, I
would chalk this round down to a practice. As I said, I know I need to work
on now, getting more detail in there and learning more about how fabric falls but
since I am the client, I am going to give myself a pat on the back and move on.
That said, I will be working on the things I need more practice with in my
own time so I'll be better equipped for the next project. And that's what these
practice commissions are great for. You put yourself in creative situations that
you might not ordinarily work with so you become aware of strengths that you
didn't know you had or weaknesses that you need to work on.
And then when it comes time to work with an actual client, you are that much more
experienced and confident in the work that you're going to put forward. So I
would love for you guys to give something like this a go, spend some time
working on your own album covers whether it's for like your favorite song,
favorite album, or something that you just make up completely and if you could
share it with me on Instagram that would be great. I'll make up a hashtag and I'll
put it on the screen and down in the description so that you can share it
with me and I'll share some of my favorites in the next commission video.
Next tim,e I'm thinking... I have a big personal commission I'm going to be
working on next month so I would love to share the process of that with you guys.
And then after that, I think it'd be cool to open up what we do in these episodes
to a poll. Maybe every time, we'll open it up and see all the different
kind of projects that you guys would love to work on together. But I think I'm
getting ahead of myself. For now, thank you so much for watching, thanks so much
for joining me. Really hope you enjoyed the video and I will see you soon for
the next one. Bye!