FINAL DESIGN BOARD AND FEEDBACK

For my final board I digitally arranged images of my own work, other illustrators work, and a series of different costumes along the bottom. After adding the text, of which there wasn't much, I printed it out and added the extra parts of research.

final design board with textiles and small bear mock up

example of digital printing 

This included an example of digitally printed silk, which featured a woodcut design of some magpies cut by me a few years ago. This was to show what the outcome would look like if I chose to print my illustrations digitally onto fabric.

different costume concepts 

 Velcro-ed onto the board I had the different bear costume ideas, which I made interchangeable so you could see the different head and body options paired together.

different textiles

I also wanted some real textiles on my board instead of just flat images, so I featured some samples made by me and some other examples that I own. The green and red weaving and the graphic shaped embroidery I did myself, and the top embroidery is from Lisbon. I have mentioned in the blog about 70s aesthetics, so I wanted to feature some of my psychedelic fabric collection. This also might be an important part of my final piece, as using and manipulating found fabric may be cheaper for me in the long run. 

the bear mock up

On Monday I made a maquette (which I had to google after George's instagram post) to go with my board, as a small scale example of what the final costume could look like. Although in the early stages and with a lot of experimenting and research ahead of me, I felt like it was important and beneficial to create something 3D for the presentation as I am producing something 3D for my FMP. 

I also took in some of my research images that I could refer to during the presentation, featuring photography, theatre pictures and my early drawings of bears. These images I found helpful in backing up what I was saying and also shows a range of different storytelling mediums which is what I want to explore with my final piece.

I was worried that my presentation seemed a bit all over the place as I had so many reference images with me, as well as a pretty busy presentation board. I hope this showed that I have a lot of inspiration and research involved in my FMP, and not that I am unorganised and looking at too many things! Because I have a wide range of research I think this will allow my project to keep growing, as there are so many different avenues I can explore. I could go down the folk art/ craft route by looking at the British and pagan rituals and their costumes, or after some experimenting it could become a more contemporary piece. I am hoping that I can bring everything together to  create something traditional with a contemporary twist, a piece of work that explores storytelling through almost archaic means- word of mouth, costume and wordless imagery.

Fumio asked about the purpose of my piece and why I wanted to make it- and I was drawn to do something like this for a few reasons. First of all I think this is linked to my practice, I enjoy making things and I hope I can use my skills in illustration to cross the borders between different artistic practices, such as textiles, prop making, photography etc. The subject matter is also something that has always been important to me, bizarre animals and weird looking people have played a part in my work throughout my time at university, and I think the naiveity and 'unprofessional' nature of my illustration skills has been influenced by the homemade, craft inspired look of folk art- I draw and make the way I do because it's enjoyable to me and produces something that I think is honest and interesting. Lastly I want to explore storytelling beyond childrens' book illustration and graphic novels, looking into theatrical inspiration and photography, whilst also telling the audience a sad, old story that will be of interest because it's local- and everybody loves a local myth or legend. It will also bring attention to a story that some people may have never heard of, or had forgotten. Some of the audience may have heard the story themselves and will be interested to see it come to life.

Fumio encouraged me to keep a space in my project for it to grow, and to maybe develop why I am creating this piece (we mentioned a kind of social criticism/ tragedy genre when talking about the story of 'Who killed the bear?') and George also brought up different forms of printmaking when it came to making my illustrations, looking into aqua-tint to recreate some of the watercolour, painterly marks- as well as printmaking and other 'lost crafts' being relevant to my project, especially if you think of some forms of printmaking feeling like a ritual (in particular etching, the candles, the soaking of paper, the heating of ink all feels like some ancient ritual- I can image Mark in some monk like robes!)

Overall I think my presentation and design board were successful, and although I have a lot of images and references from all sorts of places I also believe I have a solid idea for my FMP which will allow me to have a lot of fun with the research and design development.

I was so proud I lifted my leg in delight

... and then it really hurt

ouch