Tutorial 23/02/2012

Tutorial

23/02/2012

10:30-11:00

Another tutorial brings another wave of self-confidence issues, reflection on my actual abilities and a host of additional work to produce. When presenting my work this far on the Grimm’s project, my tutor didn’t look overly impressed, I’ll be honest I don’t think I would have been overly either, my ‘attempt’ at work since the last tutorial has been a lame one. So I’ve discovered that magazines are where the collage lies, that is the material which, for me, produces the best results. Apologies for the lack of support on the origami paper front, it’s nothing personal, I just don’t think that the finish it is as high with the matt quality to the paper. If this is what I am going to pursue, and it looks pretty certain that I will be doing then Ian has suggested looking at Martin O’Neill. I was sure I’d seen or heard him mentioned before and after a quick Google search my thoughts were confirmed. He’s the guy who archives his magazines and ephemera in drawers and shoe boxes, all neatly labelled in a studio on the south east coast. I must admit I do much prefer this manual approach to a digital archive where I’m sure I would lose everything in a spiralling and impending doom. However, looking at his studio just urges me to want to go and tidy everything away and clean everything, it just looks so messy! Sure I like the idea of being able to live like this, but in the bijous room I have it’s just not feasible anyway. Though the idea of buying magazines in bulk from the online marketplace, such as eBay for example, and not knowing what to expect when it arrives, sounds very exciting and promising. Doing this will no doubt add different textures, paper quality and era to my work and archive.

Other suggestions were to exploit the elements I have already crafted to make them more magical and to give them a sense of purpose being on the cover for Grimm’s fairy-tales. At the moment my audience looks at the cover and sees a wolf, an apple, a fog and a mouse, but they are left waiting for something else, that something doesn’t appear. For example the wolf, could it be described by teeth alone? Does the frog need a crown if he is a frog prince? Could the apple have both a nice and bad side? These little twists will make my work more witty and gritty at the same time. There were suggestions to maybe invert some of the elements and distort them now they have been crafted. The most joyous part of the tutorial was knowing that I had now made enough elements, I just need to start utilising them better.

It was also suggested that I could look at minimalist film posters which show this visual twist. After another quick Google search I found them very interested clever witty and at times humorous, if I could replicate this in my cover I would be very proud.

One question I did ask was whether the FMP mark was focused on depth of exploration. For example last semester I skimmed the surface of several processes rather than digging deep with just the one, which Ian agreed with. My next project was to make some puppets for a short film of one of the fairy-tales only this would again mean changing process when I’m just starting to get to grips with another. Therefore it has been decided that I might yet change my proposal to incorporate the current technique I am adopting throughout the FMP. I think that this will give my work more consistency and credibility at the end.

Over the course of the next week I aim to dedicate more time to my work, but not only that but to dedicate it effectively. I’ve seen over the last week me sit procrastinating rather than doing productive work, this needs to stop and I must learn to be more disciplined. If what I am doing is not going to affect the final outcome I need to desist. I also need to work quicker and harder if I am going to achieve what I hope to achieve and be more consistent, which I think is finally coming, though slowly. I think that my lack on confidence in my own ability sometimes prevents me from progressing, though I have been reassured slightly with today’s tutorial. My next actions in completing this part of my project are to scan in all my current elements into Photoshop, polish these up and make any adjustments they may require and put them into my template which I have designed for the cover. I aim to have this part of the project completed now by the end of Sunday 26/02/2012 so that I can promptly move on to my next project. I think that I am spending too much time dilly dallying and not enough time producing actual work.