Presentation 3.0

As always, I struggle to get started with projects so I began with taking baby steps, and just started doing some practice paintings to start producing some work. The style I work in is quite loose and rough which I tried to emulate in these but struggled with sometimes as the page size was only A3. I wanted to practice making flesh tones, so I tried doing some portraits and close ups of faces. To get me going I also did some rough sketches, to get a feel for face shapes and different angles. These tests aren't linked to fairytales, they're just a way to develop my skills and I used my friends and random photos to practice drawing/painting from.

I began using very rough paint strokes and messy colour mixing, and tried not to think about what I was painting as I have found when I think too much about things I focus on one part of the painting too much. I do think I should have spent a bit more time on this one.

This painting I spent a lot more time on, and blended the paint a bit more. I did, however end up focusing too much on certain aspects and rather than using loose free movements I ended up getting a bit particular. I liked working on the collarbones and the shadows and highlights on the neck, and struggled more with the face, as I have always had a tough time with side profiles.

I then tried out a few close ups of features I struggle with normally such as lips and eyes.

I then started planning my photoshoot, as I knew that I was going to need reference photos to paint from. I wanted to incorporate props into the paintings to add layers of symbolism, so that people could infer from that what the paintings were about, and find these meanings from within the piece. I referred back to Paula Rego to draw from, and also looked at some Renaissance art to take inspiration from the use of symbolism in the work. I looked through some images taken in various studio lighting so that me and Billie could talk about the kind of lighting used, and the sort of thing I wanted in my reference images.
I also went to an exhibition up in London to look at the work of artist Rose Wylie. Her work is very different to mine in some ways, but the freedom and playfulness in which she creates her work I really admired, and that rough, free quality is something I want to combine in my own work.

Props - For the shoot I spent a lot of time planning out various ideas for props I could use. As each painting is going to be based on Alice in Wonderland, Red Riding Hood and The Little Mermaid, I wanted to do three themed segments of the photoshoot. For the Alice segment of the shoot I brought in a lot of blue tops, a pocket watch, small potion bottles, an alice-band and playing cards. These were all things I strongly associated with Alice, and wanted to play around with. For Red Riding Hood, I bought in deep red and forest green jumpers that I used, and managed to find an old fur collar thing in a charity shop that I used as wolves skin. The Little Mermaid I struggled with, I had a load of small shells that I used, and wore a turquoise top and had damp hair but I wished there were more props to play around with and I struggled a bit with that.

I spend a lot of time thinking about who to get as a model for the shoot, and after speaking with Kathleen about why it is I have such an interest in fairytales, and not knowing the answer I thought it might be interesting (though also very out of my comfort zone) to use myself as the model, and try to explore these characters I am creating.

I spoke to Billie about taking the photographs as I know she has photography experience and we work together well. She has a lot of photography knowledge which is fortunate for me because I have practically none, and she was able to help guide me through what I would need for the shoot and how to get everything set up.

As there were many things I was unhappy with in the first shoot, I decided to do a reshoot of the images. I quite liked how the first Red Riding Hood photos came out, I think the colours and richness of the images, and lighting Billie set up worked really well but unfortunately we forgot to shoot in raw for those ones, so I'm going to replicate some of those hopefully. I don't think the shirt I'm wearing for Alice works as well as I thought it did, so I've got some other outfit choices in mind for the next shoot - booked for later this week - and the same for The Little Mermaid. I really felt the mermaid ones didn't work very well and I want to use some more props, larger shells and stuff.

I am also planning on maybe getting some video footage to play around with later on when I'm creating my projections.

I ordered a huge canvas that I was planning on using for testers/painting, and really like the idea of painting on unstretched canvas, as to me, it feels very tactile and free to work with. However due to the size of the canvas I am not sure it will be practical as when transporting the painting it will need to be folded or rolled which will result in the paint cracking, so I am going to either have to go back to my original idea of using MDF or instead just used stretched canvas. I really need to start painting but I have a little time, as I still need my reference photos.

I will then need to start playing around with projection ideas which are all still a bit loose, and need to settle on many details regarding installation... my installing ideas have not progressed very far yet, I think I will need to see the finished paintings (which I'm aiming to finish before the end of March) to fully realise how they will be best presented. I am also planning on taking out a projector to do some tests with once the paintings are finished.

I have also been working on TJ's project by illustrating his storybook for the film. TJ sent me a list of the writing that will be on each page, and a rough idea of what he wanted and allowed me to have creative freedom over the drawings themselves. The story focuses on a boy living in a house in the forest and wanting to go up to the stars all his life. With each drawing I have left room for the writing underneath, as the pages are going to be joined together to look like the boy and his mother have made the book together.

I worked on Billies shoot as a runner, which was a great experience and helped out anyway I could. I was mostly clappering and keeping the time and doing any stuff she needed at the time.

Presentation

So my final major project for third year is going to be a sound piece accompanied by a series of moving illustrations. My idea is to use links to my dissertation topic (general theme of it is how fantasy stories and fairytales effect the development of children) in my work.

Fairy tales are written by people with their own political and social agenda, to mould the views and thoughts of young minds into what society desires them to be. An example of this would be the use of gender roles in the stories, in that they have always shown the desired role for women to be submissive and polite and to do household chores and their aim in life to be to find a husband and have a family.

My idea is to produce a set of illustrations that model a different version of fairytales, not necessarily total role reversal but just a more diverse and progressive approach. For example, a female lead fighting the dragon, two princes getting married, people of different races being the hero etc. Obviously this is something that has been happening more in recent years in some television shows and films but not as much as it should be, especially in mainstream media and it's something I really wanted to explore in my work as I have a lot of interest in the genre.

I want to use After Effects to create a parallax effect in my drawings to make them seem as if they are moving, and over the top I will have a soundscape (need to work on)

I chose the parallax effect over regular animation or another technique because it's something I had seen in previous years and had always wanted to try. I want to develop my after effects skills and this seemed like a good opportunity to take to push my adobe knowledge further. 

I have also found some artists whose work i'm finding really inspiring, once of them being Paula Rego. Rego is primarily well known for her paintings based on storybooks and folktales she learnt as a child. Her work is full of symbolism and feminist undertones, which is something I am going to explore in my own work.

Swallows the poison apple

War

Snow White playing with her fathers trophies

Semiotics is something I want to look into further in my piece, as I think there will be a lot of opportunity to add symbolism into my drawings which will enhance the depth behind them. Fairytales and folklore have a lot to draw from in regards to this topic which I intend to take advantage of, using artists like Paula Rego to help me.

I have begun doing some practice drawings and sketches for my piece, and I have been trying a few different techniques.Initially I wanted to produce a really detailed renaissance vibe with my illustrations but it has been a long time since I've properly drawn and I don't enjoy nor am I particularly good at realism/detail/colouring etc. I began one small drawing of a scene from sleeping beauty which I quickly abandoned as it just wasn't working. 

I thought about how I used to work best, and that was by going straight in with pen, and drawing roughly and quickly and then adding more detail later. I experimented with this style of drawing on a character idea for one of my drawings, a woman in battle armour, wielding a sword. This is one of my base ideas for one of the illustrations, having a woman fighting a dragon.

I discovered dragons were a lot harder to draw than I thought and spent a long time practising drawing them and I think this drawing will be one of the more challenging ones of the series. I still need to figure out the rest of my series, for example how many drawings there will be and exactly what they will be of.