Saturday 31 December 2011

The Black Swan

We got a new brief, and we had to choose a film, so obviously out of the choice given, i went for the Black Swan, it's such a good film. The reason I chose The Black Swan was because I found the whole concept of being forced into good and bad a bit confusing at first and I wanted to learn more and understand the meaning of the movie. When I thought of the Black Swan I also found it easy to find inspiration from and it really appealed to me. After finishing the film for a second time, I went straight on the internet and after having seen some great images on Tumblr I instantly knew what I wanted to do. 

The film is about a young woman who is a ballet dancer, and a very dedicated one at that. Shes a good dancer but she's too worried about being perfect to let herself go. She goes through a dark journey that the people around her force her into, but being willing because she strives to impress and wants very badly to get the lead role of the Swan, which means playing both the Innocent swan and the dark side of the swan. She becomes disturbed because of a chain of events.









All pictures from Tumblr: Black Swan search

My ideas are to have a 3D head, whether, I get it from a shop, find one in a hair salon, buy online or make it out of paper mache it must be smooth and able for paint to work on it. I've been to the hair salon in the college and they've told me that they have spares that they could give me for free, which is really useful for me.
I plan to paint the head, similar to that of Natalie Portman's when she plays the Black swan, with the red eyes, deep red lips and contrasting colours on her face.


I want the idea to be that she is being controlled by the dark swan which is going to be a hat on her head - so it's almost in her mind kind of thing. I'm going to make the swan hat myself, then have it photographed when it's complete.



Friday 30 December 2011

Martin Haake

Back in the first year, I had to e-mail Martin Haake for some information regarding a piece of his work.

I e-mailed him asking about how he made a piece of work, a general who was on the cover of the 3x3 magazine. I wasn't holding out for a reply because i know how busy they can be, but i was astounded by the detailed e-mail i received very shortly after. 

I asked Martin what his inspirations were, how, and why he made the work. 

He replied:

"Hi Rachael,

thank you so much for your mail and your kind words regarding my work!
I'll try to give you a little bit of info about the 3x3 cover.
Charles Hively, the editor of 3x3, wanted to feature me in his magazine and asked me to do the cover.
The brief was totally free. The only thing I had to think of was the number "11" I had to integrate into the image as this was the cover for issue No "11"...
I wamted to do some decorative illustration that stands for its own and I always liked the decorative elements of uniforms so I decided to do a
portrait of a general. But it should of course be no "militaristic" man but more of a outsider-art-general as I love the work of outsider artists like
Martin Ramirez, Bill Taylor etc. And I also wanted to create something more graphic and simple like the wonderful dolls of Alexander Girard.
The "11" I put on one of the medals.
I painted the background, cut out elements, did some drawings and put everything at the photoshop.
Some weeks ago I was having a lecture and was also speaking about this image and prepared some images...Here they are:

Alexander Girard's doll:


my first rough:



some generals I used as a reference:





some medal doodles:



and the result:

I hope this helps!

If you need some more info please let me know.

All the best!
Martin"


It was so kind of him to give me everything i had asked for and more, so many roughs he'd used and even pictures he used for reference!







Christmas - My New Book!

I got this amazing book for christmas, i find myself sat here staring at this book for ages.... so many pretty patterns.. can't handle it! :)




My little collection of arty books, it makes me happy, they're practically new and smell so good. I love the smell of books.

My favourite pages.....











I love books, and scandinavian design, seeing as soon i'll be doing a brief with scandinavian fairytales it's a good job I got this! :D

Tuesday 20 December 2011

Tim Walker & Update!

Our work is well on it's way now, having taken inspiration from every corner and sharing our knowledge of designers, I've come across Tim Walker! We're using his work to take ideas and combine them with our own for example his work where there are dresses hanging from the tree, we're going to make realistic washing lines and have all sorts on them!



And on the subject I've started to make my jar of wishes that's going inside the window! Here are some of our works!


Hmmm hanging in the windows?




Some finished pieces of work!



Templates!



Saturday 10 December 2011

Reflecting on the Shop

Over the next few days we began to think and brainstorm our own ideas and then meet up and put together what we had come up with and decide together on what would be most apropriate. My ideas were perhaps a little bit too "out there", but different and bound to draw people in for sure. I thought that I would get child mannequins and then paint them, perhaps not as children with children's faces, but with decorative design: shiny things, decorative clothing like what would to see on dolls and action men perhaps, but more creative and not so mainstream i suppose like Burton. It would go hand in hand with an event for the children to help paint and make attire for the own mannequin. I don't know about anyone else but that would be MEGA fun, even now!

Meeting up the next day i learned that my initial ideas of fairytales were more appropriate and similar to my groups ideas as they had more in common with the fairytale ones, so my group decided on that. Though I was happy with our decision, I still felt that it lacked in meaning. I would probably have prefered to work in a group of two rather than in a group of four and have it more my style, as in a group it's difucult to show your style of working when four people have an input on one idea.

 Picture from:
http://baublesbanglesnbeads.multiply.com/journal/item/58/Specially-Made-Handpainted-Accessory-Mannequin


Picture from:
http://selfishseamstress.wordpress.com/tag/monarch-butterfly-dress/

Sunday 4 December 2011

Shop Visit

After today's crazy antics we decided to go straight to the shop to save time and to get a head start. When we were there we had a look at the outside, it was nice, but it did lack in creativity. The composition was not so good and it gave us a better idea of the task we were given. We took measurements of the windows and took note of things which may pose problems e.g posters, signs hung on the windows and toys which must be displayed in the window. We went inside the shop to firther extend out knowledge on what kind of products the shop was selling to have a better idea of how to show and bring people into the shop. The toys ranged from baby to around a young teenager and they were all out of high quality. There were also some instruments so there would be any educational value in toys.


Later we decided to go into Manchester, check out some shop window displays and take inspiration from the creativity in the windows. Also we looked online at some more 'out there' kind of shop displays aswell, which would perhaps leade us toward an idea for an event that we also had to hold at the shop. A workshop day for the children.


Toys & Tales:









Sorry some of them are sideways but they were taken on a phone so not much i could do!


Manchester:















I know they're not from toy shops, but the ideas and themes are useful, even though we're told to stay away from seasonal themes, it does help.