Monthly Archives: April 2018

Personal Project: Folktale Creation

I recently made my first post on Reddit, a very popular website which I’ve never thought to approach maybe this is because it was a little before my time on the internet age or that it is quite American, I’m not sure. I thought due to the fact that I was a new member I wouldn’t get any replies to my strange request of writing a folk tale, but the format of the website isn’t like say Tumblr where you need followers to have any kind of interaction. So, I actually got a response to this image!

Above is the message I wrote and the link to the image of the cat burglar.

 

 

Personal Project: Experimenting with memory

I decided to hold a small experiment by telling somebody a well known Suffolk folktale, and then ask them to retell it in the morning. The first voice note is how I tell it from my notes and from memory. The second is how well the person retells the story.

What I think is interesting from this is that no small details were remembered from the story even though I tried to keep them in such as saying “beer bread etc”. This suggests to me that to remember smaller details of a story they must be brought into the forefront.

Furthermore, interestingly the person seemed to remember major chunks of the story but in the wrong order. I think I will draw back on this information as to me it suggests that sectioning a folk tale in some way could help people identify it. Also, possibly it would help them remember it.

Personal Project: Group Tutorial

I felt unprepared for my group tutorial but tried to steer the conversation towards options I could look into for when I get further ahead in my project so to not feel at a lose for ideas closer to assessment. It was suggested to one student to have a few experiments going on at a time so they could be working in the background.

I like this idea and have decided to take it on. I’ve been reading about how folktales are closely linked to how we share stories on the internet and specifically memes. I wanted to incorporate this into my work but I knew that it wouldn’t be at the forefront, as I enjoy the authenticity of folktales too much to let them turn into memes.

However, through discussion I have been persuaded to consider using the internet to help create folktales I’m thinking of ways I could do this:

  1.  Group messages with friends, I give them a starting image they come up with a few sentences I give them another image and so on.
  2. Forums like Reddit (which I have just joined for this purpose). The same rules apply only.
  3. Find forums simply for Folklorist’s and see if I can conduct the same experiment there.

I’m looking forward to these experiments, they may be a success they may not work but we shall see!

Personal Project Tutorial

I have been playing with the idea of how I’m going to format a final piece concept from the work I have been doing and being met with hurdles along the way. I want to create a piece which encourages; the telling, retelling, sharing and visual play of folktales. Now, this concept is difficult to visualise as it looks into how humans want to interact with each other and why we no longer tell folktales.

Jeremy helped me come with some ideas including an Exquisite Corpse and a Myriorama. The myriorama suggested to me was one by Tom Gauld called Endless Journeys .

This is a good example of a myriorama, however I personally think it is slightly lacking in intrigue. I feel like the sections all look very similar which although in some ways is the point so that they can be re-assembled. Yet, I think it that the colours are muddy and the visuals are repetitive. This is all very well to say but trying to rework this myriorama style will be difficult.

Also, had a brain wave while considering the format of the project “Tell (a) Tale” will get back to that later.

 

Text and Context 7: Designing accompanying material

As discussed in my previous post, I have gathered a lot of visual material for this project and want to utilise it. Throughout my animation I have had it dotted around, however, I want the pieces to be seen as their own piece. For this I am thinking a poster zine comprised of a poster advertising the animation on the one side and on the other screen-grabs from the animation. I have a few variations of ideas that I would like to try out for this  –

  1. Design and print it out in one go, computer to print.
  2. Design the screen-grabs and the type on the Photoshop and over print the poster using a photocopy lithograph.
  3. Design one side of the poster (screen- grabs) and leave the front to be overprinted using a photocopy lithograph and letterpress the title.

In a perfect world having time to experiment with the third option would be most satisfying. Yet, it is the most time consuming – I think the most likely would be the second option but time will tell.

To help with designing the poster I have been looking at sixties posters and album cover for inspiration on what defines sixties design. Also, I have been looking

 

Text and Context 6: Happy Accidents

For my module option Lithography, I have been making photocopy litho prints – to design them I needed some inspiration and thought about my Text and Context brief. I have been making and collecting a lot of visual material for this project and was unsure if I would have the opportunity to use it all (monoprints, found material etc.) as I was making an animation. So I thought this would be a great opportunity, here is my account of the day in my Lithography diary and the original photocopies…

“As I had finished my main double layer photo-litho plate in the previous session, today I worked on a photocopy litho print. I particularly enjoyed today’s session, the time flew by as I printed page after page. The photocopy print is created by spray mounting a photocopy on a piece of acetate, this is then pressed in the printing press to achieve a perfectly flat base to work with. Next, the photocopy is gummed and inked over gently, it is then put in the press.  I was impressed by how quick and simple the process was I will be doing in again for other projects. 

The outcome of the photocopy prints has a different feel to the photolitho prints, they’re not as sharp and clean; instead their beauty is in how the photocopy degrades use after use which gives it an imperfect tone and depth. I planned to make my photocopy print in response to my Text and Context project, in which I am making a video inspired by Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I created my image on Photoshop using: abstract monoprints, scanned and edited imagery from an insect encyclopaedia, and found imagery of a sixties model. I enjoy re-introducing processes within processes and I feel that mixing the mono with the litho print gave a painterly look.

Mainly, I liked how easy it was to experiment with the photocopy print due to its ease of creation you could be haphazard with it without fear. I chose to cut it up and collage with it on the printing press, this gave an excellent embossing effect which was unexpected. I loved the prints that were made using this process and am considering making one for next week to overprint my photolitho prints.”

For the unpredictable litho prints I utilised another unpredictable method that I had come across by accident. I made a mistake while trying to export images from a PDF and accidentally exported all individual images found per page, this gave me snippets of words, diagrams and images. It gave a jigsaw of each page and some of the images are really interesting. Below are a few of my faves.






 

Rap ‘n’ Rhymers: Initial Ideas

After meeting the children, I considered what poem or type of artwork I would like to work on. Initially I was drawn to the abstract artwork poems, as I knew that children would really think outside the box and write imaginative poems about them. Many adults fear abstract art as they feel they will never understand it and therefore fear that it will make them look uncultured or uneducated. Whereas, children don’t have these imposed fears on them, instead they want to impress their peers by coming up with wild thoughts about them.

I enjoyed talking to Rhys, he wrote a poem on the painting Three Pomegranates. This particular painting is comprised of three black shapes which from the title are pomegranates. However, Rhys’ reading of the painting is humorous, imaginative and I think more interesting than the painting itself.

Below is the poem and my initial thoughts on what I could visually communicate through animation.

Rhys’ Poem

This is three pomegranates
But I don’t really agree
For in these 3 pomegranates
There’s a bit more to see

I enjoy how straight-forward Rhys is in this first verse. He quickly tells the audience that despite the artist naming the black shapes as pomegranates they could be many other things. In this verse I see swirling shapes culminating into what Rhys really thinks the painting is. The phrase “There’s a bit more to see” makes me think of the camera panning in deeper to the swirling shapes to represent looking deeper.

Maybe they’re black holes
Circulating and expanding?
Moving towards us
Soon enough they’ll be landing!

This next bit is one of my favourites, as the black shapes encircle the animation they get bigger and bigger until they transform into UFOs ready to land on the page, their lights beaming down.

Or maybe they’re blueberries
On a pure white table
Ready to be eaten,
Or maybe they’re in a fable?

I have a clear picture of this one in my mind, I want to use actual blueberries and use a stop animation of them being smashed one by one on a table cloth. The next bit “Maybe they’re in a fable?” relates to the next verse, I’m thinking that I could animate the table cloth being folded into a book shape and then written in like one. I could show drops of ink on the page.

It could be giant’s work
Testing his pen on a page
Writing a ___________________
___________________________
____________________________
____________________________
____________________________________
_____________________________________

This verse is unfinished however, I think it will be a good one. I love the thought of designing the giant character, showing him in his castle with feather and ink ready to write.

This is the”Three Pomegratates”
But I don’t really agree
For now you know
That there’s a lot more to see.

In the last verse I see the camera panning back out and leaving the pomegranates and coming back to a child’s face wrinkling his nose in an art gallery looking at the painting.  

Rap ‘n’ Rhymers: First Meeting

Our first meeting with the children was inspiring and motivating. I find that working on behalf of someone else is always a motivation, but to work on behalf of such amazingly creative children is a real drive. Meeting the children was great, I was especially drawn towards the children working on abstract paintings.

I’ve been thinking about what animation style I would like to focus on for the project. An animation which came to mind immediately was The Very Hungry Caterpillar, I’ve always loved The Hungry Caterpillar as a book but never seen the animation. It stays true to the book and I enjoy the collage style, this would be a fairly easy to animate through stop motion.