Malicious Old Knitters!

Alright, I know - it is quite late for this post - but I have never been a flawless lady. 

Nevertheless, I am proudly presenting our child, the animation we did as a group of Malicious Old Knitters, the part of project AUTHOR, representing how our society of dark creatures meet and spend time together.

The part from 00:12 to 00:24 was made exclusevily by me, in Adobe Photoshop, frame by frame drawn animation - HORRIBLY TIME CONSUMING.

The rest was made by Natalie, Grant, Christian and Jodie. Without them, it would never be possible to achieve this!

Aki's tribute almost finished!

As I am having a tutorial with Nicholas tomorrow (highly stressful event in my life) and I am supposed to make him fall on his knees with my mere artwork, I decided to share with you the watercolours which my book on the subject of Aki Kaurismaki is going to be fulfilled with.

Reflecting on my last attempt to make a book on the book-workshops we had with Katherina, this watercolours are better than the disgusting fairy blue and brothel (pardon my French, but this colour truly repels me) magenta I used back there, and they have a potential to make a good book! 

At least I hope so. 

I managed to create my own palette, full of colours but not naive or playful - definitely more 'Finnish'. I discovered the fantastic textures and patterns that spills of paint have. 

How powerful the coincidence could be - and I did not have to worry about the details. 

All I need now is a good advice and some critics - hopefully Nicholas will be able to help me with those. 

Hill of the deer.

I know, I have not updated the blog for over a month from now, not mentioning the gap between the last post and the post before this one - also over a month long - but as the Easter break just chimed into my life, I decided to waste some of the endless Internet space and introduce you to Aki Kaurismaki. 

Aki Kaurismaki is a 'celebrity' (this is probably the last word I would describe him with, but it fits the context) given to me in the project called Author Biography in which we are supposed to dig into someone's life, look thoroughly upon their character and streamline all the knowledge in one of the outcome methods. 

I am really happy to meet Aki - although he is not someone who you would like to get selfie with - the twisted atmosphere around his behaviour and work is most inspiriting. 

Let me show you my visual summary of Aki - the alcoholic, Finnish filmmaker, who loves tango.

I have decided to make at least 16-pages long book about Aki - and on the book workshops with Katharina I managed to spew out my first attempt. I will post it despite the fact I do not like it AT ALL. 

However, I have to admit I learned a lot - well, mostly about what I want to avoid during the process of creating the final piece:

- first of all - changing the colour palette! It is dreadful in the book above - I wish it could be more reserved, depressing, Finnish and melancholic - that means playing more with grey, dark faded blue, green, worn-out dark red or violet - definitely no more fuchsia and fairy blue! 

- more consistent folding - the book above was just chaotically kneaded like a piece of batter

- actually choosing the most interesting facts from Aki's life, not just mentioning whatever I could have thought at the moment - if possible without text, which always leads to understanding being too direct - or maybe should I challenge myself and find the perfect way to use the piece of writing but not obviously? 

- the only thing which I did quite interestingly was trying to hide some informations (secrets!) with flaps/extra spreads/triangular folding - and I find it considerable in the further actions 

Alright. 

The only thing to do is just start creating. Wish me good luck. 

No one believes me, but I actually did make a costume!

After planning, crying, sweating, having several headaches and break-ups, I did manage to create a costume!

...oh, well, it is not maybe the costume as it really should be, as you could rather describe it as a wearable puppet, but I actually wore it, walked about five steps before I could suffocate and then happily disassembled that into trash. 

I streamlined my needs into five definitions: people, laughter, my parents, inspiration, memories. The one which gave me most inspiration were my parents - as you can see, the creature is two-headed as well as it has two personalities - inseparable, but completely different. This is something like a visual representation of my Mum and Dad - as my Mother is a simple person (but of great character!) while my Father is kind of twisted, like I am - definitely more complicated than he is at the first sight. Using mirror as the material is symbolic as well - it reflects the World around me - mostly the people that I have chosen as my first need. 

I am glad that I could once again work in the terms of 3D composition. I was able to use my experience from metal shaping workshops I had in my high school (I know I keep talking about my high school - but it was amazing. Even though I finished it almost two years ago). I managed to follow my firstly set requirements I wanted to get stick to - the form is minimalistic, with simple physic effect of reflection, I managed not to get so-called plastic, cheap feeling. 

I am... okay... with this final piece. Yes. I am getting more confident about my work. 

Costume? Me? I can't sew!

After the primer task, which I should have posted before the post I am creating now and which I would love to post anyway later (however, we know how disorganised I am - probably will never post that in my life), we got briefed today on our new project - we are supposed to create a costume. 

Non-human representation of our primary needs, the summary of ourselves, streamlined into wearable 3D form. 

Alright! I can't use the needle - that's not the problem! As I am highly motived since we started new term, I want to blow up everyone's mind with my project this time.

This post is the starter pack. An organisation of ideas! 

Aims:

- simple form, not overdone by mindlessly creation in the heat of a deadline

- combination between the sculpture and the costume

- using physical effects, such as smoke, reflection
- being proud of your work, this time!

I try not to get attracted by the tons of inspiration which we were loaded in at today's brief - as my general love for creation absorb too much and too quickly - I try to streamline myself into specific path of thinking.

Inspiration:

Hussein Chalayan:

Visual chunks I find useful: hellium, costume absorbing the space, simplicity of form

Oskar Schlemmer and his Ballet:

Visual chunks I find useful: light as the medium, shade as the outcome

Visual chunks I find useful: geometric forms, beautiful in their simplicity, minimalistic forms with a massive expression

(on the left Schlemmer's design - on the right David Bowie in Kansai Yamamoto's design apparently inspired by Bauhaus - good to know)

Visual chunks I find useful: again, simplicity of the geometric form, but also blown up form of the leggins - making them larger gave them expression of which I look foward to as well!

Visual chunks I find useful: geometry, geometry, geometry - let's stay simple, but beautifully creative!

Michał Smandek:

Visual chunks I find useful: simple form, untold story of a mirror, dissorted reflection, texture

Visual chunks I find useful: interpretation of a smoke, brilliant yet simple idea, colour

Visual chunks I find useful: simple form, yet unrealistic, black contrasting with white, 

The last artist did not design any costumes - although, I am highly attracted by the physical phenomenons appearing in his work - it is not just the still form, made of medium which you can touch - but I am an idiot and I did not post any of his work, where you can actually see the physic working - therefore I will sent you here, as Michał Smandek is definitely an artist you should look up to. 

Final thoughts:
I already started designing my costume and despite the fact I do not have much projects, I managed to find more or less the aesthetique I want to dig into. 

Mirror, smoke, simple forms, lack of plastic feeling and colour. 

My best designs so far:

I want to use the mirror as I symbol of myself - having a mirror is one of my primary needs, but on the other hand, I wish I could not look into it at all - basically, as I have complexes, I want to use the mirror in the reverse meaning - as it is the part of the 'face' of the costume, it could never reflect me, but what I am surrounded with - people who I love, for example. I want my costume to be twice as big as average height of a human, with the mirror 'looking down' on people below. They could look up and see themselves - it is connected with myself feeling always a bit apart from reality, as my mom says: head always twenty feet above the ground. I wish that smoke would appear there too - it would steal the space around the costume. It is also symbol of evanescence to me - as I constantly feel how the moments slip out of my hands. 

Obviously, I need to develop my idea more. Collect materials.
Not get stressed!


Keep myself creative. 

Stop-frame animation - first attempt!

Yesterday I had a great opportunity to attempt the Stop-Frame Animation Workshops, along with Maya and Anna.
The really nice gentleman who name I obviously forgot, gave us 20 minutes to play with the software (called DRAGON! - sounds almighty, doesn't it?), this is what we came up with in a panicking rush of a creative cloud of inspiration.

Well, the plotline is easy - there is a white fox, sparkly one, taking a walk, falling down, sun becomes a snitch, it is hard to choose love's colour, everything blows up and hand of God wipes this miserable World out.
No, it's not really a plotline - the action in our animation is pure creation on its own, being just the decisions made quickly which we documented on the go, without hestitation. Anyway, we had fun.
Afterall, we posted the movie all over our social media.


I really hope I would use this techique someday in my future projects - the simplicity of it appeals to me strongly.

Assessment tomorrow.

As the assessment is tomorrow and I am on the verge of sanity, I decided to create the post, summing up my frustration. 

Yes.

This is a tyrannosaurus singing in the shower (digital media workshops, oh yes).

Well, wish me good luck.

Subject/Object - final poster - The Death of a Sex Goddess.

On Tuesday, we had to manage to get through alive the next crit, this time for the Subject/Object final piece - a poster about our favourite bit of news from the '28 Days News Drawing Project'. 

As I am the most depoliticised person, probably here, on Camberwell, I did not choose a topic about anything having even the smallest connection with politics. Following my unhealthy obsession with celebrities and their lives, I have chosen the death of Anita Ekberg - former sex goddess, fallen star of 'La Dolce Vita' movie. 

I was attracted by the bitter aspect of actresses, whose only talent is their beauty, and as it goes away, they lose their popularity.

 Although I was interested most by her lost popularity, I decided to show my respect for Anita at the end. The poster does not show the comparison between her as a beauty goddess and old, tired lady she became. I used the motive of 'vanitas', the motive of evanescence. As I looked on this topic closer, I found out that one of the symbols of 'vanitas' is hourglass - which is also a symbol of a perfect female body. Therefore, I streamlined both of the ideas and shaped Anita into almost finished hourglass. 

Am I pleased with the final outcome? Not really. I feel I somehow got lost in the process, as I desired my poster to be more like one of the beautiful, polish posters from the '60 or '70. I was focused too much on playing with Photoshop than the visual values of my posters. It is a lesson for me anyway - now I know, that I have to give my full commitment to any project I am working on.

Printmaking!

Last Monday (yes, I know, it's Friday today - and it was a very bad Friday for me indeed) I managed to finally got through two out of three (unfortunately only two!) of the printmaking processes we are able to make in our workshops. 

They are on the third floor, which is not very good for people running late. 

Nevertheless - I managed to learn how to create etching and a screen print - both of them were beyond my expectations of the final effect I am quite sure I would like to squeeze those processes in my future projects.

Messy, messy colours. Many colours. I am kind of a magpie for colours.

This is my screen-print, inspired by sneaking foxes I used to meet everyday on my way to work. Although they were definitely skinnier. 

Etching! I do that very rarely, but this time I managed to document a bit of a different stages in this amazing process. Probably I did it only because I wanted to post them on Instagram (shame on me).

Copying my drawing onto the zinc plate covered with a paint stopping the acid getting through the metal. The scratched places are the only ones which will be endangered to acid, which makes the drawing carved into the plate.

After acid treatment, plate is inked and ready to print! Looks cool.

One of the prints, with collage included. 

I absolutely loved the workshops (and tutors!). I look forward to squeeze myself in next free slots.