Forgotten corners and the unfinished. Layers and textures in wasted spaces.

I’ve been exploring the neighbourhood in more depth with my children, specifically looking for overlooked corners, alleyways and paths that lead nowhere in particular. Through doing this I’ve discovered forgotten, neglected spaces with unfinished activities. There are intriguing layers and layers of clues where humans have been. A mix of man-made and natural materials, tangled and interwoven, abandoned buildings where a business has failed, gaps in fences to overgrown gardens, plastic mesh rolled up and left to disintegrate while dandelions push through concrete and grass that hides sheets of rotting plywood.

In and around my neighbourhood there is evidently a dissonance of community and underground reprobation. The local park is frequently searched by sniffer dogs and there are narrow paths that lead towards hidden spaces where dodgy goings on occur. Either sides of all walkways on the brambled hill are sprinkled with rubbish. There are people around, myself included, who voluntarily litter pick in an attempt to maintain a space that’s safe to roam around and pleasant to be in. Reminders of how the system fails many people in the UK are all around us. How our national government forces local councils to chip away at the resources that should tackle social issues all whilst barely maintaining public spaces. Empty buildings and unused car parks, places that hold so much potential, now stand forbidden for use because of inefficient red tape and doomed to decay.

I love the dichotomy of the orderly man made with the sprawling natural. How winter has stripped the trees and shrubs of their leaves to expose their delicate line structures. There is a corridor made by a chain link fence and a privet hedge, a garden fence that’s a made using disconnected materials, serving the purpose of a barrier without the luxury of aesthetic appeal. The sign has been taken from the old factory shop probably as a memento, leaving behind an X mark of the glue which once held it in place. Redundant signs are reclaimed for graffiti tagging. Plastic pipes are cut to ground level and left to collect rain water.

Applique paper collage

I’m moving the collage theme into applique territory. Something usually done with cloth but I like the brittle quality of paper and how it behaves when stitched. It’s is also more stiff and rigid, making stitching pieces together more quick.

I’ve also attempted to give these abstract images a bit of meaning by naming them. I think it can guide the viewer to look at it beyond random looking shapes.

Some of the paper used came from mucking about with my kids. The quality of mark making is nicely fluid and ad hoc.

Spearhead. Crayon, felt tip, paper, thread and sequin

Mountain and Lake

Ripple

Ripple 2

Collage

I recently started to amass bits of paper based experiments, many of which come from trying to engage my children in arty activities. Rather than store them indefinitely or throw them away I decided to use them as materials for new projects.

Collage is such a quick and gratifying way to create imagery. I think it also helps train your sense of composition for future works.

Here’s a few I’ve been working on :

Collage is probably one of the most playful art forms. It’s also a great way to generate ideas when you’re stuck. I can explore imagery by placing pictures in different contexts and changing their meaning. When there are are set limitations such as colour and found pictures it inevitably results in more creativity.

Butterfly Automaton

https://www.edp24.co.uk/going-out/the-forum-mechanical-circus-christmas-2018-automata-gallery-1-5805195

Inspired by this exhibition at the forum in Norwich I wanted to try my hand at making an automaton. I saw some great DIY ones made from old junk at Norwich Science Festival last year. They involved cogs and all sorts of bits I don’t really have time to make/collect. However I saw this type of automaton on either Instagram or Pinterest and knew it would be achievable in an evening.

He was a beautiful butterfly!

I based the design on The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle because my son is a big fan and this was my justification for making what is essentially a toy. What took the longest in its creation was copying the wing colours from the the illustration in the book. The mechanism is so simple. I used a pipe cleaner on the underside of the wings to push them up and pull them down. After I’d made this one I showed my nieces how to make them when they came to visit. It was a really fun way to spend the afternoon. Even my sister and brother in law made their own!

The clothes peg automaton has a lot of potential. I recall a local crafter selling loads of different peg automatons made in wood when I was a kid. They had designed so many different characters doing different actions just using this one simple mechanism.

The Work of Drew Tyndell

https://blog.needsupply.com/2014/09/28/interview-drew-tyndell/

Drew Tyndell is a sculptor, painter and animator from Portland. He is the creative director of the production company Computer Team. Computer Team’s commercial work includes music videos for Beck and Washed out, stings for Nickelodeon and ads for Adidas.
I follow Drew on Instagram and Vimeo. He posts some beautiful looped abstract animations that bring to mind the work of Oskar Fischinger and Len Lye. They are like moving surface patterns and have a hand painted quality, which they are but via digital tools. The palettes he uses indicate a comprehensive understanding of colour and the combination of shapes show that he has a design background. His paintings and sculpture match the style of his animations and I’m sure they likely inform one another.
Below are some quotes from interviews with Tyndell. It’s interesting to read about his influences through his childhood and family and how one’s habits of play may indicate how you make work later in life. Perhaps looking at these things can help to narrow down one’s interests and strengths in terms of artistic practice.

‘I remember as a kid playing at my dad’s drafting table…ruining all his pencils and erasing everything I could with his electric eraser. House plans were always something laying around our house and I think it’s easy to see that in my work. My grandfather also designed log homes, and developed new ways of stacking logs that I always found interesting. It wasn’t until later in my life that I looked back and connected all the dots. It’s cool to see its influence now.’
‘I like processes that take a lot of work. I think they’re the most rewarding, especially now when software is making it increasingly easier to make a slick-looking product. There is a realness to traditional methods that I love.’
‘I aim for simplification. I enjoy the challenge of breaking down structures, landscapes, and typography down to their most basic forms.’
https://blog.needsupply.com/2014/09/28/interview-drew-tyndell/

‘Nashville-based artist and illustrator Drew Tyndell creates these looping animations which he paints frame by frame in Photoshop. He was first inspired by a Stan Brakhage piece he encountered at an animation exhibition at the Frist Museum in Nashville. After creating a 64-frame animation of a cube by hand-painting each slide, he then decided to go digital, exploring forms and shapes found in some of his own geometric paintings on wood. To see more of his animation work check out his Loops gallery. (via The Fox is Black)’

Looping Illustrations by Drew Tyndell

“I designed a mural for Dolby Laboratories’ new headquarters in San Francisco. Kevin Byrd headed up the project and picked different artists to make art for the new office that was inspired by music (mostly classical and some Philip Glass). I drew blindly along with the music and ended up with shapes I wouldn’t normally have drawn. I collaged all the weird shapes I made into the final piece. The outcome was way more organic than my usual work, which was really refreshing and fun.”

“I’ve been really into early abstract animation, especially Walter Ruttmann’s work from the 20’s. I like how low-tech it is — hand-painted and not perfect. So much animation you see today is so perfect and computer-y which is great and all, but I get kind of bored with that style. I love seeing evidence that something is handmade.”

Portland Artist Drew Tyndell

http://drewtyndell.com/

Dominica Harrison and Using screen print in animation

A long time ago I made an animation based on some screen printing I had done. It was shown in an exhibition at Norwich Arts Centre of animations and their processes. I later used the footage for some VJing and a music video.
Mixing media, analogue and digital techniques is a theme in most of what I’ve made and the tangibility of screen print marks on paper is very attractive. I like the bold block colours and the grainy texture it lends. I’ve used it as a way to make abstract and colourful backgrounds but never for the entire image.

While curating for a Film Club night I was sent a film by Dominica Harrison (who has since worked on Loving Vincent) called Misshape Happenings. I was blown away by the aesthetic and the fact that every frame was screen printed. It’s the first time I’ve seen this technique used and I assume Harrison invented it? It’s clear she has a background in printmaking. The level of skilled organisation and time put into the design, process of putting image on to screens, printing on paper and then scanning and editing is exceptional. The end result is a one of kind animation that seems to have more value because it was hand printed. An original crafted item.

I so want to try this technique though I fear with a one year old in tow and being out of practise in the print room it might be more than I can manage at the moment. But if I was to find the time I could go to Print To The People in Norwich and perhaps enlist some technical help from a freind or two.

http://www.printtothepeople.com/home

The Pallas Cat Figurine

 

The manufacturer of this figurine is called the Imperial Porcelain Factory, which is based in St Petersburg, Russia. Originally opened to exclusively provide the Russian royal family with porcelain pieces including dinner ware and ornaments, it was founded by Dimityr Vinogradov in 1744.

During the Russian revolution it was not shut down but instead used to produce propaganda figurines of political leaders and commemorative plates.

In 1993 it’s name changed to the Lomonasov Factory, after Mikhail Lomonosov who was a polymath, natural scientist and 18^th cent writer. Lomonosov was of humble origin, he made it his ambition to become educated. He was disillusioned by the academy he studied at and the incompetent nobility assigned to run it. After one violent outburst too many he was placed in prison. The work he did in the years after his release contributed to the modernisation of Russia.

The designer of the the piece Boris Yakovlevich Vorobyov, a sculptor who began his carreer in 1936 at the factory. He designed animal figurines with passion and finesse.

‘In each work the artist put a deep understanding of both the value and vulnerability of the natural world, a serious and thoughtful approach to their models.’

-http://artinvestment.ru/en/news/exhibitions/20111228_boris_vorobyev_hermitage.html
The “animalier” had been given the undeserved label of a “light genre.” Boris Vorobyov’s work is full of a deep and sincere approach to sculpture. Highly valuing his characters, he aspired to place the world of “out little brothers” on the same level with the human world, or even higher. Boris Yakovlevich Vorobyov felt that the aim of his work was to make sure that “these “porcelain animals” showed people the beauty of nature, forced them to listen to the voice of nature and fall in love with it.”

-http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/what-s-on/temp_exh/1999_2013/hm4_1_296/?lng=

 

 

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Mikhail-Vasilyevich-Lomonosov

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RUSSIAN-Imperial-Lomonosov-Porcelain-Figurine-Sculpture-Pallas-

Boris Vorobyov

Ivanovich Riznich

250 Years of Lomonosov

Revolutions Come and Go, but a Porcelain Factory Endures

Imperial porcelain

“Russian Decorative and Applied Art of the 20th Century. China and Fabrics”Since the 1st of December till the 20th of January of 2013

‘Porcelain plastic works of the Porcelain Factory of Mikhail Lomonosov are known with theme variety. Since the 1930s animalistic theme began to develop in art practice of the factory. Boris Vorobyov’s works compositions are based on lively and exact remarks, detailed study of mores and life of animals.’

The Hermitage, Leningrad Russian Art and Culture Tenth to Early Twentieth Century

I emailed the Hermitage Museum to ask for some more info on the designer,here is the reply:

Hello, Alice.
We have a lot of porcelain sculptures Boris Vorobyov (1911-1990) in our museum. He is a well known sculptor-animalist in St.Peterburg. From 1936 Boris Yakovlevich combined his studies at the Academy of Arts with working at the Leningrad Porcelain Factory. For more then three decades of his work in this factory, he created a great number of fine examples of animal sculpture.
Images of wild animals, including wild cats, occupy a significant place in sculpture Vorobyov. In 1959 at the international exhibition in Ostend (Belgium), he was awarded the Gold Medal of the triptych «Black Panthers». Figurine Pallas Cat (Jungle Cat) was designed and produced in 1960s. Underglaze painting of this figurine had been created by the artist V.M. Zhbanov.
We can show you a photo Pallas Cat from our collection.

With respect, curator Natalia Shchetinina.

Since 1936, with the start of study at the Academy of Fine Arts, Boris Vorobyov began working at the Leningrad Porcelain Factory, by linking it with his creative life for more than three decades. He made a lot of models, factory filled up Gold Fund, and until now, many of them are duplicated and are always in demand among fans of porcelain. Contrary to the academic tradition, the artist remained true genre animalism, revealing their creativity in a variety of materials: porcelain, pottery, ceramics, glass, wood, metal.
https://artinvestment.ru/en/news/exhibitions/20120922_vorobyev.html

Animated Text and Subtitles

In the early stages of my project I experimented with animated text using salt and powdered dye. This was before I considered a voice over for the film. It was an alternative way to include the words and in a way it seemed simpler. But it would have changed the narrative and the way the verbal metaphors were portrayed. Using animated text changes the visual narrative and would have separated the two if I had used it in the way I experimented shown in the clips below. I decided that my writing style was too ‘Words and Pictures’, it was difficult to write clearly and with stylistic finesse in salt. Also I didn’t want to split the animated scenes from the words. It could have resulted in a silent film style cutaway. Cutaways could have worked but I think it would have upset the flow of the film itself.

https://vimeo.com/103744581

I made an attempt to integrate the text with an animated background in the clip below. I think it’s got something nice about it but it’s missing the visual metaphor and that’s what I want in my film. Animated visual metaphors spark imagination and surprise. Animated text could do that  but I am not a graphics designer. I looked into motion graphics and found it a bit dry and uninspiring. My work references imagery in a more painterly style, using freer techniques of mark making.

https://vimeo.com/95502916

I tried and English version of the poem read by an actor but then on learning that he spoke and wrote in fluent French I thought there might be a more poetic alternative, which could also expand my audience. He translated the poem and we recorded it, thus a new problem arose: how to get across the meaning of the poem for English audiences.

 

Instead of animating words over the film or between scenes I decided to use plain, simple and standard looking subtitles which wouldn’t distract from the animation. Creating my own subtitles would have involved much more work and integration into the film. It would have been a quite different project. Also I had decided to use a French voice over quite late into it and after having planned scenes.

I tried a few things and looked into various ways of subtitling before settling on using FCP titles with outline. I spent hours in After Effects completing a set of titles before it crashed and wouldn’t open again. I then had a look online at cheat subtitles programs which would have added a dark band across the bottom of the screen, cutting out some of the film. Then I discovered that Final Cut had the option of outlined titles which I needed because the back ground changed from light to dark in places. Phew!

Closed caption subs:

http://www.synchrimedia.com/

 

FCP subs:

file:///Users/macuser/Desktop/Creating%20a%20Subtitle%20Template.html

Animation tests and techniques

Making salt move like water

I tried out a few ways of making slat and pigment move like water. Some of the images in the sequence below are based on some drawings I had done earlier in the project.

Using the multiplane under a rostrum I set up a scene with a background, midground and foreground, animating on the top layer of glass. In the first part of the clip I had to imagine how the foamy water would wrap itself around the boulders and carefully maintain negative space on the glass, around the outlines of the rocks.

In the second and  middle part of the clip I tried out two different textures in the salt, using my hands and fingertips to make lines and dapples. I then tested compositing the two textures, one atop the other and vice/versa. I didn’t use this footage because the compositing was messy and and also I feel it didn’t make a good enough image or fit in with the rest of the animated scenes.

The last part with lines across the composition I felt was the most successful. It has perspective and texture and an abstract simplicity which merely implies the presence of something and accompanied by a soundtrack acts to build a scene through subtle simulation.

https://vimeo.com/103642040

 

This next clip was slightly problematic to produce. I had created an image of a profile in a cliff and animated the wave coming over it on top, then animated the face crumbling into the sea. The animation of the face crumbling was not successful and I cut it and quickly decided to set up another face in the cliff to crumble. I kept the first part of the original animation because it seemed to work. The clip is cut just after the sea recoils from the face and the cliff texture changes then crumbles into the sea before the sea comes back for two small licks at the end.

https://vimeo.com/103641877

With the hands clip I covered one layer of glass in pigment and coated my hands in the same, then took a shot in Dragonframe, which I then imported back into the workspace and traced around in the pigment. I then worked on the layer of glass above it and made a pool of ‘water’ trickling through the hands. The double layer of hands in two different images makes a 3 dimensional image, and it was a shortcut in not having to make a detailed picture of a pair of hands in the pigment.

https://vimeo.com/103641932

 

I did a similar thing here with a shell, only I separated the two images and animated the drawn one diminishing in the sand.

https://vimeo.com/103641967

 

Below are some tests I did for a clip towards the end of the film. It was for the line ‘I will yield up to you my secrets’ and I wanted something living from the sea to appear. So I chose to animated a fish. I was playing with some shells and it struck me that they could make up the parts of a fish. I animated the shells moving about and coming together in formation. The animation is clumsy at the start and when I keyed in the fish over a background it wasn’t smooth enough.

Next I tried using some beads to make a shark come out of two shells. I really like the animation but I think introducing a new medium and texture at this point in the film would compromise it’s integrity and seem arbitrary.

 

I settled on drawing into the pigment and freestyle animated two fish swimming out of the shells:

https://vimeo.com/103642013

It’ a little rushed but it fits in with the clips involving hands and shells.

 

SHH

At last the poem has arrived!

My sister, the talented Helen Jaeger, published writer and teacher of writing wrote this for my film. I briefed her on the project and described some of the issues and themes and I asked her to write some verbal metaphors to do with erosion, impermanence and geology.

She wrote a piece which looks at the sea as a lover and it works brilliantly. I’ve got all my visual ideas for each verse in the grid below the poem.

Here are some key descriptive words Helen thought I could have animated over the film if I go for a voiceover speaking the poem:

For 1: kiss, power, yield, caress, ecstasy

For 2: wild, destroy, death, memory, monster

For 3: secret, leap, surrender, breath

 

SHH

Shh,

Come to the shore And listen…

Here, where the rocks Have been cut and shaped By waves,   Where my wild water

Kisses your land,

I will yield up to you My secrets.

Like a lover’s embrace,

I can give and I can heal.

Surrender your body

And in one breath,

I’ll caress and hold all of it.

Yet remember, too,

That I have the power

To take away and to destroy.

Keep me within your bounds

And I will breach them.

Tame me And I’ll leap beyond your limits,

Claiming and reclaiming

What is mine.

You cannot grasp me,

Even in your strong hand,

But –

Shh.

Come to the shore And listen…

There I’ll yield up to you my secrets.

 

 

shot list sea