I am going to be honest here, I can not sleep, we is usual for me, and I find getting ideas and thoughts out my head either personal or creative can help me relax and sleep. I also want to get my initial ideas down about the brief before they get lost in my head.
After today’s workshop and briefing with talks of thinking of demographics and audience it made me think of food, especially as a chef, and food and its surronding subjects is something I have wanted to explore in my image making and I wanted to think about how my industry affects the environment.
In my industry there was so many things I could think of which have a negative impact, such as unsustainable farming and fishing, pesticides, but also how kitchens run on high energy, and I have worked in a lot of restaurants with charcoal grills. But I also wanted to think of issues I am passionate about.
I support climate change, I have mixed feelings about Extinction Rebellion, which I will go on to into a bit. I hate plastic. At the moment I am using single use plastic bottles as I am finding them the easiest to drink out of after jaw surgery, but I am still using the same bottle over and over. I have a reusable coffee cup (I know not plastic waste, but the same idea). I always take my own bag when I do my shopping. I try not to use wipes, because I know they contain plastic however they were a must for me after my surgery because I know not a lovely thought but I constantly dribbled for the first 3 weeks after surgery, I still am dribbling now not so much. I use a bar of soap, plus bars of shampoo and conditioner, I don’t buy aerosols, where possible (spray paint on the occasion may be the only exception). I use refill shops where possible, I hate food waste (I think that is also partly the chef in me) and all my left-over food I turn into lunch the next day, and I carry my own cutlery around when I remember.
However when it came onto the idea of creating an animation my mind went onto another subject I am passionate about, sustainable fishing as we are killing our oceans. We are killing the bees which is so important for crop growth. I knew straight away these were the kind of topics I wanted to focus on. For many reasons and not just because I am passionate about them, I thought I could make a creative animation and film around these.
Last year, when the last project was Through a Lens I wasn’t happy with the outcome. I never felt like me, and I was so worried about being actually able to create an animation to a high standard I forgot who I was. This time round, even though this is a bigger project I want to create an animation again, but this time reflecting who I am and my ideals.
I know I am setting myself up for a huge task, but I want to create as much of this animation through traditional techniques. I am not a digital artist. I can use the programs to a good standard, and I do sketch and draw digitally on occasion but it is not something I am passionate about. I felt last year I found myself but drifted away from who I was at the same time.
Last year I fell in love with printmaking and I want to use this in my animation. My idea is to use a mixed print-making approach to create textures and imagery and then make the animation through collage. Therefore wouldn’t have to draw frame by frame as that would be impossible in the time, and even though I want to push myself I really need to think about my health still. Especially as I am still recovering from surgery, but I am also playing catch up from missing the first project. Therefore I need to consider my mental health.
I also have fallen in love with typography and it has started to strongly affect my work and I want to integrate it into my animation, and more so than I did in the project last year, I want to use letterpress to create texture and when I collage the frames, I want to cut up the words and text to create imagery.
The animation at the moment is to be about losing species which we rely on, such as fish and bees. These I want to print using either dry-point or hard-ground because I love the fine lines I can create and I think the juxtaposition would be beautiful and interesting.
Recently I have been inspired by the single covers of a musician called Sleeping at Last.
Sleeping at Last is a musician which inspires me not just with beautiful cover design which mixes the digital, traditional and typography. Recently I have been finding the colours stunning in the designs. But the music has been an inspiration for me for years.
I have loved music since I was very young. I started learning the violin when I was 7, and taught myself the piano from an age I can’t remember. When I was 9 I started to learn how to play the Viola. Musicians will tell you their instrument called to them. The viola was that to me, the deeply silky and sultry tones, which had so much more depth than the violin could ever. I have such an eclectic taste in music from Queen and Fleetwood Mac, to Classical, Jazz and I adore folk plus much more. I find Sleeping at Last grasps the two ends of the spectrum, I love the way classical and orchestral instruments have been integrated with more popular music.
Even after today and the mention of copyright infringement, I want to use their music in this project because I always feel this music can convey so much meaning and visually I am wanting to integrate the traditional printmaking and other techniques with the digital and moving image, and this music to me represents that in audio.