All The Way

Final week of the degree that has gone by too quickly, of the degree that I would gladly start all over again, and I'm getting my last push of inspiration and motivation from Charles Bukowski before I go diving into the world and try to support myself by artistic means sans student loans. 
(Now considering how lovely it would be to animate every Bukowski poem ever...)

This man knows what he's on about, "If you're going to try, go all the way."

Rotoscoping

For this charity animation I wanted there to be a clear connection with reality even though it's an animated film. Rotoscoping seemed like the best technique to use to give credibility to the images I was creating, as it is so recognisably based on life. There is also a more 'professional' quality to rotoscoping, as it's so precise, and very aesthetically pleasing to most audiences (younger and older). I sometimes feel like rotoscoped footage can be a bit clinical when used on it's own though, in a way it's a bit too smooth sometimes, which is why I'm interspersing other elements into my film, such as looser abstract moments based on children's drawings and doodles, and smaller, more playful characters. The elements I am rotoscoping are all moments of playfulness, human gestures to increase the audience's engagement and energetic movement.

Isabel Herguera

It's only recently that I've begun to step away from the idea that art needs to be serious to be taken seriously. I'm not even entirely sure where I got that misconception from, because the most widely-appreciated, highly lauded artists were the rule-breakers and experimenters... People like Picasso, Hockney, Hundertwasser, Quentin Blake etc all seem to be kids masquerading in adult costumes.

Isabel Herguera is an animator who seems to have playfulness ingrained into her work, even when the subject matter is delicate. The link below for Bajo la almohada shows a film she created using children's drawings as a launchpad.

I love the approach here; she spent time with the children in the clinic in India where they live, she played with them, got to know them, drew with them and so the whole film is automatically imbued with integrity but also a playful, childish innocence. There's something really lovely about getting the kids involved in the creation through more than just an interview. I think if I could do some future projects with Claire House (or another children's charity) it would be great to incorporate workshops into the creation of the piece. It's a two birds, one stone scenario as the activities feed the film and vice versa.

Bajo la almohada / Under the Pillow

Art School Adventures in London

A couple of weeks ago I went on an unofficial art school trip to London with some friends from the course. We were packed off with a list of must-sees and a hand-drawn map in my friend Dom's pocket, and the vague hope of being able to understand the tube system.

The resultant weekend consisted of some beautiful and interesting artwork (original illustrations for Alice in Wonderland, cardboard Themerson characters etc), some baffling (a pile of sand in the corner of a room entitled, Tonne??? Still getting my head round that one...), some unexpected Czech, Swedish and French friends,  general architecture and market appreciation and a healthy dose of graffiti art.

The Camden Arts Centre was possibly the best exhibition I attended over the weekend for it's collection of Themerson's illustrations, doodles, film and theatre work. I loved the playfulness of it all.

(Another post on the way soon about the illustrator/animator I befriended down in Elephant and Castle.)

Suivez Moi

So, during February I helped out a little on the creation of a music video for the debut album of a band called, Black Peaches. I was asked to help by Antony Barkworth-Knight, a local film-maker/director/animator who I'd worked with in the recent past. I created some 16mm film footage (beautiful old school stuff)  with the help of my tutor, that Antony then transformed into the mesmeric flickers and shapes you see below, all timed to perfection with the music. He also threw in some birds I animated, and created cool symbols and characters with the painter Robin Megganity.
Great music and lovely animation by ABK.
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/black-peaches-released-debut-lp-and-suivez-moi-single-video-streams/

Drawing with Stitch

Even though animating with stitch is practically unheard of, drawing with stitch is nothing new. Cross-stitch, tapestry art, embroidery etc have always been ways of depicting images in textiles, rather than printing onto the surface of the fabric. (Bayeux Tapestry below)

More modern examples of artists using stitch in their work are Tracey Emin...

Artist, Caroline Schofield, who used it in her residency at Kilkenny Arts Office, in particular to depict one man called Christy, whom she drew in pencil and then rendered in stitch later.

I have also used stitch to draw in the past and found it rather freeing. It makes such beautiful, delicate illustrations as well, because it limits you and makes you more selective. It's very much like the old art foundation technique to loosen you up, continuous line drawing, but with added texture and unpredicatablity. Maybe it's the unpredictable nature of drawing with a sewing machine that has caused the only stitched animation I can find to be digitally embroidered, thereby avoiding that pitfall. I quite like the idea of a looser style though.

Stitched Up

I might majorly regret even considering this when I'm facing my deadline and severe sleep deprivation, but I was finding myself feeling slightly underwhelmed with my current project. I guess it felt like I was playing it safe because I was sticking to the mediums I know, traditional drawing tools, and I really want this animation to stand out, for both myself and Claire House. The more eyecatching and engaging it is, the better it will work as an advert.

Animation has been around for decades and is so prevalent now that I think it's important to play around with materials and reinvent their use in order to surprise people. I've always loved incorporating stitch into illustration (one day it might be nice to collaborate with a textiles artist to create some stitched designs, but that's a future project). Last year I created a stitched stop-motion set, featuring patchwork fields and fluffy clouds, and I really appreciate the miniature knitwear used in animations such as Coraline and The Clangers. There's something homely and recognisable in using stitching and fabrics within art.
The Whitworth recently had an exhibition featuring feminist artists, many of which use textiles and stitch as their medium of choice to tackle traditional notions of womanhood, craft and art. I'm obviously not tackling any of these issues in my moving image piece, but there was something really engaging about seeing cross-stich samples and quilts presented as art that has stuck with me.

I thought it would be a a nice touch to incorporate stitch into my frames, using the threads to add weight to lines and give the piece more texture. I think this will draw the viewer in more as well because it's a medium that is largely unexplored within animation. It's something most people won't have seen.

I've found some shakey-camera attempts at stop-motion with stitch on youtube, but in the professional field I could only find a handful of embroidered animations. The three of the professional examples I found have used digitised images put through as files to a digital embroidery machine. I would just be using my sewing machine to highlight certain linework in each frame, rather than stitching the whole image as is done in these examples. I love the blend of traditional and modern in the style of these embroidered animations, especially the zoetrope on a turntable; reinventing one of the earliest animated forms in a new and exciting way...