Doodle Dissertation

I decided to do an alternative submission for my dissertation as it was all about how multi-media forms of communication aid learning, with a focus on how NPOs use this to their advantage when making adverts. It seemed hypocritical and countering to my message if I then chose to present my research in the form of a written essay rather than something more multimedia. So I created a website, featuring links to my various sources and gifs I'd made, which was then used as a visual aid to a lecture I gave to the first years.

I think it went quite well, but this topic is so broad and interesting that one 45 minute lecture barely even begins to scratch the surface. It was a really lovely way to draw together everything I'd been looking into since the summer that was informing all of practice this year though, and I think it's helped me in storyboarding my own charity animation to delve a bit deeper into what has worked well in the past and more importantly why it has worked!

My research had told me that visual (particularly moving image) aids work well in holding your audience's attention, and that breaking up dense factual material with pop culture reference points and humour all works to the speaker's advantage. I tried to put this into practical effect in my talk by including gifs, audience participation, illustrations, animated films, a few jokey moments and some pop culture references, as below:

This is the website, which will now be available to the first year illustration students as a learning resource:

http://cargocollective.com/doodledissertation

The Shine Project - Zimbabwe

You never know where your next project is going to come from... Often it's the most unexpected of places! This project was pitched to me thanks to Instagram of all things! A past acquaintance of mine saw my climate change sketches on Instagram last week and approached me with the opportunity to create illustrations for a children's book for The Shine Project in Zimbabwe, which she works on.

The Shine Project seeks to improve sanitation, nutrition and education amongst children in Zimbabwe, and they wanted to create an illustrated children's book aimed at 2-4 yr olds and their mothers. Despite being incredibly busy right now (about 5 projects on the go at once eeeek) I couldn't turn this down because it was just such a wonderful project and it fit so seamlessly with my dissertation!


I'll be designing about 8 pages in total which focus on the alphabet and basic numbers in a story format. Lots of bright colours and pattern is what I'm aiming for in  the design. I'd love to have weeks/months to work on this ideally but the turn around is ridiculously tight thanks to shipping deadlines. We have to have it designed and 3000 copies printed and ready to be shipped in 3 weeks time!!! CRAZY!

In order to make it as culturally relevant as possible I've been looking at Zimbabwean screen-printed textiles and taking inspiration from the colours and patterns in them. They're just gorgeous! So I've been making images by dying paper with brusho and then using a quill dipped in bleach to mimic the batik effects here.

Fun with 16mm

So I was kindly granted access to the 16mm projector and some blue leader film to create some abstract, experimental 16mm footage for this new music video I'm helping out ABK (Antony) with. This stuff is just the coolest way of creating really beautiful, funky abstract footage in a quick way. We managed to get about 10 loops done in a single afternoon and these will be really useful when ABK is layering everything up for the abstract dance sections of the video. I love the really soft murky quality in the second video (this happened by using a non-permanent pen and smudging it onto the film with my finger).

Dancing, shapes, marks and colour - Carnival

Loose watercolour and pen sketches for dance motion.

For this music video project I'm helping out with, myself and the art director are focusing a lot on colour and movement, line and texture. Thanks to my tutors at MMU I've managed to get some 16mm film and access to a projector so we'll be making and filming some cool abstract 16mm footage for the backgrounds. This stuff is effortlessly beautiful and all you have to do is draw onto and scratch into the film itself to create abstract film that has a gorgeous grainy, flickery effect to it. It's something that you could never recreate in a digital medium, and it's much more fun to play around with real film anyway!

I'll be rotoscoping some tribal style dancing for this video too, in a really loose, painterly style and so I've been looking at 'Carnival' by RCA graduate Susan Young, which was made in 1985, and captures dancing figures with very minimal mark-making and strong coloured lines. I think this is the way we'll go, trying to abstract the figures as much as possible, and just capture the movement. I love the way Antony approaches a film like this, because he combines a narrative/figurative element with more fun, abstract and experimental filming/animation. It's really inspired the way I think about narrative structure in my own work.

This is all feeding into my designs for the Claire House Hospice animation too, giving me ideas for abstraction and characters before I know the narrative elements.

Carnival - Susan Young

<iframesrc="https://player.vimeo.com/video/43310581" width="500" height="363" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="https://vimeo.com/43310581">Carnival</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/susanyoung">Susan Young</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Abstract pattern designs for Claire House

Character designs for Claire House animation - inspired by the work I'm doing with Antony.

Abstract pattern designs for Claire House Project

Radiospiration

After a suggestion from my flatmate, I've started listening to podcasts in the background whilst doing my work. It makes a nice change from music occasionally, and on those days when you have lots of 'mindless' drawing or colouring etc it's nice to listen to a narrative. I used to do this with audiobooks as well, but the podcasts are normally based on real life so they offer me more inspiration than fiction. 

I listened to this last night and loved it. http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/strangers/love-good-and-bad
 The structure of the story-telling was really inspiring, and I think that as an audio for an animation (my charity animation in particular) this would work really well, as it's sort of a collage of people's experiences and stories, but held together with a more poetic narrative metaphor. 
For me, this is the audio equivalent of what I want to achieve with my animations; a collaged mix of abstraction and narrative/figurative elements. I think it's just really artistic as a radio piece, and the structure is so effortless. I'm definitely taking inspiration from this for my structure in my films. 

N.B. This podcast would be beautiful to animate as well with the imagery of the fog, and the sea and the loss of love. (Future project?) I mean, just look at these photos from the town in Newfoundland where the inspiration for this podcast came from! Stunning!

Outreach Arts

For the past year I've been involved in the National Saturday Art and Design Programme, which gives kids and teens across the country an opportunity to get involved in the arts and learn skills in masterclasses that they wouldn't necessarily get to sample until degree level. Today was just a normal Saturday craft session in which we made pages for a collective pop-up book.

I brought in examples of artists' books and simple folded envelopes, as well as my research file from the artists' book module last year to give them a bit of inspiration. We set them each a letter so our book would form an A-Z style collection when combined. Our group is lovely, really inventive and supportive of each other. Maybe they are always like this... (just a mellow, liberal, cool group of teens) but I feel as though Saturday Club is a space for them to be themselves and feel confident, because it's a creative environment where no ideas are bad ideas.

Today we had pop ups on every topic imaginable... football, nature, exorcism, ghosts, gay pride, wrestling, music, memes, single-parent feminist dad octopi...!

PROJECTS! MUSIC! FUN THINGS!

Soooooo I should be focusing on my own projects probably, but this small-scale thing was just too cool and exciting to turn down...

I've got some freelance work on an exciting project this month with Antony Barkworth-Knight for a 6 minute music video. I'll just be working on a bit of rotoscoping of people dancing and walking, some abstract mark-making and hopefully (if we can sort it out) a bit of 16mm film for the animation. I'm filling the role of animation assistant I guess with Antony taking the creative lead.

It's such a funky little tune and Antony's vision for the video is really cool and draws on lots of art and animation history, like this animating gem from Len Lye (the absolute god of the music/animation combo), some old school RCA animations like Carnival by Susan Young, and the works of Henri Matisse. Antony's always very keen to hear my ideas though too, and give me a bit of free reign with the drawn elements. We'll be working with a painter too, who will do a bit of character design for me to then animate in the style of. All very collaborative and professional!

It'll hopefully have a lovely, playful vibe about it, and I'm certain that the rotoscoping will be useful practice for my Claire House animation as well.

Gifs Galore

Been messing around with more gifs for both my Irrational Fears project, and to accompany my dissertation presentation. I'm hoping that a bit of comedy will help to keep everyone engaged in what I'm saying...

Animating slump

what if... 

Irrational Fears by RaeRae

A while ago I started collecting people's irrational fears and illustrating them. I've begun making them into little 10 second films and gifs now. Here are a few...

Moth and the Rainforest

Moth collective continue to be the coolest animation company I've discovered this academic year. Not only do they create lovely animations for the New York Times Modern Love Coloumn (something I devour every Thursday when there's a new essay to read), but they also work for various good causes and charitable foundations. Their latest is about the environment. How very apt considering the RSA brief I've just picked up.
It's not really a coincidence though, as artists have been drawn to social commentary and issues ad infinitum, and climate change is the one of the bigguns. As social issues go, you can't get more globally valid than our poor, sick earth needing a major dose of calpol to lower it's temperature.
While I wasn't so keen on this digital style at first in other animations they've produced, I've grown to appreciate more and more the nods to screen print style. I love the quick image cycle in the middle of this animation that shows the production line and products; it really gives the message a bit more energy and oomph! I'm not so sure about the texture on top though, I think it looks a bit too 'placed' at the end of the animation. Maybe a bit more subtlty in that area, or perhaps no texture at all as the printed feel holds true without it.
The sound design for this is wonderful though. The message is clear and the voice actor does a great job. I like the rainforest sounds at the end too, they don't sound like soundbites taken from samples (even if they might be) because they are layered up so naturally.
As always, good jaaaab Moth!

You can watch the full video here! > https://vimeo.com/147451691

Also, I love the CNN gifs they've been making and posting on their blog of the biggest stories of 2015. Keeping up with social goings on there again.

Instagram

I've been receiving some really nice feedback from the climate change sketches/illustrations I've been posting on Instagram over the last couple of days. During the ideas process it's actually quite useful to pop some sketches on this app and see whether people respond favourably or not. It seems that people are both interested in the issues AND appreciate the style and aesthetic of my sketches so I'm on the right track I think for capturing people's imagination and interest.

I'll be trialling a few animated gifs on here as well soon.

https://www.instagram.com/raeraeillustrations/

Education (R)Evolution

The other RSA SDA talk by Debra Kidd on educational reform starts off with a lovely little description of her as a child, cutting out stuff from her mum's catalogues. This idea of scrapbooking and montaging resonated with me and I thought how lovely it would be to incorporate that into my designs for the animation. It was nice to consider a different material approach to my other animations as well by thinking about stop-motion and paper cut out animation techniques. I liked the idea of combining a Monty Python style haphazardness and humour, with hand-drawn/painted elements for nice contrast of textures.

This image was a sketch for a possible 'hero image', but I think I'll take it into photoshop and play around with colour more. Part of me feels that the photo should be greyscaled and the doodles should be vibrant and fun.

RSA Student Design Awards

I'm entering again this year into the RSA Student Design Awards in the Moving Images criteria. There are two amazing soundbites available to create visuals for, one on climate change and one about education. Both are so relevant to what I've been researching this year that I've decided to try and create an animation for each.

Living with Less

This one is about climate change. Richard Sennett talks for a minute about how people need to start collectively being less consumerist and actively seek out simpler lives, in order to make a change to our endangered world. I've chosen to animate this using a simple, hand-drawn style in pen and watercolour of recognisable imagery associated with climate change to reflect the need for simpler lives.

I'm hoping the end result will be a fluid, beautiful animation.

RSA animate revolution

I watched this discussion last year when applying to the RSA student design awards, and it really stuck with me. I loved the scientific approach of testing the benefits of animation, as I think all too often the sciences and the arts are segregated from each other, when in fact, they work very well side by side. I rediscovered this in researching for my dissertation, and I think it was actually the springboard that got me interested in how people process information, and how alternative methods of communication, such as animation, can be really beneficial.

Irrational Fears...

I've started animating the irrational fears that people have told me about as 10 second shorts, which I hope are quite funny because people will relate to them. As I was collecting these little neurotic thoughts, I was struck by how many people shared similar ones. Some are just peculiar though... Like this one about ducks. It's a real phobia called Anatidaephobia...

Observational Illustrations

Whilst I've been waiting for an interview with the charity I'm animating for I've been investing some time in making illustrations observing human nature in (what I hope) is a comical way. I figured this was good practice for capturing character and a more interesting way of 'life drawing'. I've been questioning friends and family about their weird, irrational fears, what makes them happy and what little things reeeeaalllly annoy them, with the intention of documenting them all as small collections of illustrations and animated shorts.  Some of the illustrations have just been fun little notes on my own life; things that I think/hope other people can relate to. I'm trialling them out on my instagram feed to see how people respond to them/ whether they think they're funny or relatable etc, and hopefully encouraging people to send me their own weird fears so I can make even more content and have a broader range of contributors. 

Alternative Map of the Human Brain

Flatmate Life

The Papercut Theatre - Slides

For my papercraft workshop today, I made a powerpoint slideshow to introduce the concept and plan of the day, and provide a bit of inspiration with links to other papercrafters work. I showed them clips from the lovely stop-motion films of Lotte Reiniger and Andersen M Studio to inspire them that paper can be magical when well lit and given a story. I even included some mini sets I'd discovered online that were created inside toilet rolls, to show that even the most bog-standard (pun intended) materials can become magical worlds. I made my slideshow into a small movie below.

The Papercut Theatre

So today I ran a workshop for MMU's Saturday art club about papercraft and shadow puppetry. I led a group of around 13 teenagers in a 3 hr workshop, with the aim of creating several finished mini shadow puppet plays by the end of the session.

I followed the standard design procedure when planning my workshop so the Sat Clubbers had the experience of following a real design process in miniature. Normally these processes could take days, weeks or months, but they only had 3 hrs!

My lesson plan was as follows:

•       10 – 10:30am : Briefing   BRIEF & RESEARCH

We’ll look at examples of shadow puppetry and papercraft art. Separate into groups of 2-4.

•       10:30 – 11am : Storyboarding  DESIGN

Plan out your backgrounds, characters and basic story. Can be your favourite story, a new twist on an old classic or something completely crazy from your own brain. It just needs a beginning, middle and end.

•       11am – 12pm : Making  CREATE

Design and cut out your characters and sets from the paper (sometimes it’s easier to draw with your scalpel rather than sketching out an outline first). Practice your performance.

•       12pm – 1pm : Performing  PRESENT

We’ll project and perform our shadow puppet shows using the overhead projector and film them.

The session went really well I think. In spite of the limited time for each task, (not helped by the usual slow start in the morning)  the Sat Clubbers managed to create characters, backgrounds and storylines in the time. Admittedly this session could be more successful if it took place over an entire day because then there would be more time for developments and practising the performance side. This type of workshop could even be extended into several sessions over the course of a week, with whole days dedicated to RESEARCH, DESIGN, CREATE & PRESENT.

This seemed to really capture the attention of the whole group though as there was something to appeal to everyone, from the designers to the story-tellers to the makers and directors. I think it works well as a group workshop because it requires cooperation, encourages them to talk creatively and share their work, whilst still being light-hearted and fun enough not to be scary. It touches upon lots of themes from childhood, which seemed to put the Sat Clubbers more at ease. They seemed confident when I told them that they could reimagine a traditional fairytale rather than invent an entirely new story themselves, and although shadow puppetry and using a scalpel does take dexterous skill, the pressure to draw something 'well' is reduced when it is just a silhouette. Folk art seems to have this uniting, unintimidating effect on people and it's lovely to see it happen. In the end, it was all just a bit of shadow play and fun.

Timescale Issues

When most people pick their projects for third year in Art School, they focus on their own experiences, their personal stories, and things they know about. The advice for writers is to "write what you know" and I guess that applies to illustrators too.
I didn't want to do this though, and chose instead to make something for a charity based in my local area. This comes with a series of complications that don't necessarily arise when you work independently on a personal project. One such difficulty is balancing a timescale. For the past few months I've been struggling to match my own uni timescale of deadlines etc, with that of a busy charitable organisation and another family's hectic schedule focused around their sick child. A word of advice for anyone taking on a project like this is not to expect it to be a quick process; and patience, flexibility and communication are key.

Things are starting to get off the ground a bit more now and hopefully I'll be able to start storyboarding this animation soon after a meeting next week with the chosen family.

As a back up though, so I can dedicate a longer time-frame to this charity project, I've decided to enter the RSA Student Design Awards again this year as the deadline's correspond quite well with the uni authorship deadline in February. The RSA animate shorts are part of the inspiration behind both my dissertation and authorship project this year, so it makes perfect sense to get involved again this year. Not to mention that one of the talk options to animate to is focused on education and creativity (my dissertation topic)! It's nice when a problem actually leads you to something better than before!