Author: Rhianna Catt

I then started taking these basis’ I got from my research and then started to try and piece together an idea. The idea of music notes really got me thinking, I thought about who is making the music in this case and of course it is the women. I then thought about if I was placing it in a green space. I asked myself the question, what creates music in a green space, and straight away thought about birds. I started experimenting with that idea.

I then started to work out the size I wanted, small and hidden in trees or larger and being more of a statement. This is when I went to research the Snow Dog and Snails in Brighton. I wanted something to become a conversation and that wouldn’t happen if they were so small. They needed to make a statement.

I then couldn’t stop thinking about the idea of a conversation, and the discussion of women’s rights, as the language seems to be a brilliant representation of the work women have done, standing up and making their voice heard. So I had the idea of having the conversation on the bird. That there would be a few chained markers to the sculpture and a little placard about saying what you want to say about women’s rights, if that is how far we have come, the right to vote etc. Or if you want to say we still have a way to go, for instance in developing countries.

But then I had to design the bird.

I really struggled with this. Did I wanted the design to be more complicated, bold, or did I want it to be more simplistic? So, I decided to look at the letter forms, and I loved all the gentle curves and lines, so I thought I would mirror my design after the letter form. I then wanted to use a brush calligraphy style to draw the letterform down the back as that would interrupt the conversation being had.

But this was the idea I went with, but it wasn’t my only idea. I experimented with placing small birds in trees around London, I then thought about printing the letters and framing them and hanging them from trees. I also had the idea of laser cutting them out of acrylic, again handing them from trees but then at night placing small lights everywhere and seeing all the different reflection. In the end I went with my final outcome because I knew it was something, I could make a prototype out of and achieve financially, but also within the deadline and to a high standard.

Paula Scher

I have always been someone who read, and words and stories have a special place in my heart and the idea of typography has been so intriguing to me because of the idea of using words and language and using design to reinforce and enhance.

Paula Scher is a graphic designer whose work has really stuck with me. Using typeface to convey a message I found really inspiring. And how her pieces use type as images and added illustration anything else seems unnecessary. Every little detail is thought through.

I watched a documentary called Abstract: The art of design. One of the episodes was about her, and seeing the ideas and thoughts she used behind the work and in her process, I found more inspiring and useful. It made me consider what is necessary in my work and what belongs and taking out what doesn’t improve enhance or belong in the piece. Stripping it back to what’s important. But also seeing her personal work and the obsessive nature of it. I can connect to that however it was really inspiring because it was the opposite of her professional work and the work is interesting because of all these little details.

I wanted to embrace the idea of how to apply an image to paper and even though it directly affects my final outcome. So, as I enjoyed printmaking so much in my Side Hustle and Act 3 projects, I wanted to learn more about these techniques. So, I signed up to more workshop inductions. So far, I have done a hardground etching induction, and induction on the flat bed lithography press, and stone Lithography. I also went and further experimenting with letterpress and not just printing text, but printing lino prints and creating my own designs with laser cut acrylic, relief printing, and screen printing. This was important because it helped when deciding how I was going to affectively use colour when creating my storyboard, because when printing as you must do each colour separately, so it makes you consider what is necessary when using colour.

It also helped me understand more about the method of creating an imagine and made me think more about the image being creating and made me more open to using other media than what I am used to. Before this course I considered myself a painter, I hardly used any media apart from watercolour and on occasion other paints such as acrylic and oil. It developed my style and ideas and embraced the idea of this unit. Which is using different methods and practises.

Nüshu was one of the first languages I came across in my research when I was trying to find unusual languages, and I found it incredibly interesting. The history behind it was incredible and amazing. It is a language only for women, created by women for women.

In China for centuries women were banned from learning how to read and write. Women rebelled and decided to create their own language. The took the characters used in Mandarin and Cantonese and made it their own with their own meaning. The letterforms are much slimmer and more delicate. They are extremely beautiful. I decided Nüshu was the language I had to use because I wasn’t just inspired by the beauty of the letterforms but the beautiful history behind it.

One quote I discovered was beautiful and truly inspiring and progressed my project where ideas started to solidify and come together. It was ‘musical notes flying along on the wind’ and was said by Tan Dun, it brought the idea of music and who creates music and that linking to location where my final piece would be situated.

The brief expected us to find an alphabet unfamiliar to us and use this as a basis for creating a 3D piece and locating it either in an urban space, a green space or a personal space.

My first response was to start researching, I wanted to find an alphabet which had an interesting history behind it so I had more to work with and to inspire me. This was more important to me than what the alphabet looked like.

I knew straight away I wanted it to be in a green space. Even though I live in London and come from a city, Brighton. I have always felt at piece in green areas or rural areas. I go travelling whenever I can and always try and go off the beaten track. Because I always more connected to these areas I knew I would be able to gather more inspiration and my work would fit with this area.

At first I thought I wasn’t familiar with 3D and I am not particularly, but I used to do a lot of pottery, but only hand-throwing on a wheel, but I knew that may help with spacial awareness, and I have made a lot of cakes and wedding cakes over the years, I can make flowers in my sleep, but I wanted to avoid them because then I wouldn’t be learning anything, and I didn’t want to try and make research fit what I knew how to make. I have done sugar sculpting during my pastry apprenticeship, and I knew I wouldn’t be a material which would work with the brief, but just knowing I have created even small things in 3D before gave me a bit more confidence that I could create something.

At first, I wanted to avoid using my fears as I felt too difficult so I decided to focus on the song to discover and decide on my narrative. I experimented with the idea of a puppeteer over your life, because with the song Samson I had a constant reminder and feeling about cancer controlling your life and even being in a relationship with someone who has cancer your life disappears. So, I experimented with that idea, that you are controlled by this puppeteer and I used the idea of split frames and using repetition to show the monotonous nature of this.

Eventually I decided not to use it, because the result with too monotonous, and I decided to use my personal experiences to make better work, and I went back to my character design and worked out how much I wanted to use and how to make it in to a concise narrative.

After creating my monster, I had a comment from a fellow student about my character looking like a mermaid and because of my fears and sometimes it can feel like I am drowning, I thought the metaphor of water could be interesting to use. So I started developing my character, and I looked at what I wanted to keep from my monster and what I did not. I used these basic sketches to decide on this. In the end, I decided to keep the darkness and use the other ideas I had to work on the storyboard and the narrative instead of being part of the character.

When working on my storyboard I started with very loose small thumbnail sketches this meant I could work through a lot quickly and it retains the fluidness of the sketches and it avoids my final images becoming stiff. As I scanned them and then worked on the digitally to create the final draft for my storyboard.

I then used my thumbnail sketches to create 5 frame storyboard which also outlined the style and the movement I was going for. I then printed these 5 out and experimented with markers on them. I decided to use markers on my final storyboard, because I could only use dry materials and I normally use paint, so I knew I could still get tonal values with the markers because I could use the colourless blender to pick up colour from the marker and create lighter tones and I could get an affect near watercolours, because I knew that was an affect I wanted because watercolours suit underwater scenes so well. I then broke up the first frame I did into 3 and then I and added two more in-between frames. I then I printed all 9 off at the correct size and transferred them onto my final storyboard using a lightbox. To make sure I didn’t make a mistake I did some warmup exercises so I was relaxed and not worried, and like working with watercolours I built up the layers and tone slowly so I didn’t make a mistake it would be easier to correct.

After the Juke-Box live workshop I originally wanted to use the song – The Swimming Song – as it was an obvious choice for my mermaid character. But I didn’t connect to the song. So I went through the playlist of songs again and the one which stood out was Samson by Regina Spektor. This wasn’t obvious for my character but the emotional side of the song connected with me and my fears. I knew the basic story, as it was a song I had heard before and I knew it was about cancer.

But I researched it further and found pretty much what I knew but more in depth. It was about the singer, Regina Spektor being in a relationship with a man who had cancer. The wonder-bread being the Chemo and the idea of cutting the hair because chemo makes your hair fall out. The cycle of life what cancer gives. You get you chemo, you cut your hair, and you to bed and repeat. And to me reading into lyrics more, it made me feel that idea of being trapped, the world getting smaller around you because of this trauma. But not just his trauma and how cancer changed his life, but how she felt trapped, the guilt and in the end,  she had to leave. And that heavily related to me. I wanted to illustrate the emotions of the song rather than the literal story, and just that single idea and the swirling emotions of being trapped.

The Hand and Eye brief asks for us to experiment with the creation of an image and making us make more thought out decisions regarding design, concept, research, colour, and methodology. We started off by created a character based on Frankenstein’s Monster. Where Frankenstein made his monster from several component parts. We started off by making our own monster by filling our own silhouette with depictions of our own fears. When then took the life size drawing and made it micro and worked on character development to then use the character and a song and created a 9-frame storyboard.

This brief and project were for us to develop our skills in 2D work and starting to understand the limitations a brief in the professional environment. But also letting our experiment and use the workshops provided to us through the university. Giving us the opportunity to understand several ways images can be made and use them for ourselves.

It made us start thinking about narrative how story telling can be used. Giving us a basis by giving us a choice of song and restrictions to help guide us instead of giving us so many options decision making becomes overwhelming.

My first response was fear. Which is quite ironic since we were working with the theme and idea of fear. I didn’t expect to be scared of confronting my own fears. In the last 18 months I been through an awful lot. And that trauma has given me fears I never thought I would have. I was raped and then soon after I started a new relationship which ended up as 6 months of sexual and domestic abuse. I have always struggled with social and general anxiety however following this my fear of people grew even more. I have a fear of being touched, connecting with people, trusting people etc. Fear of the same trauma happening again. Doesn’t even start on my fear of failing, not being good enough. After years of being told that exact thing.

When starting my monster, I had to confront this. My fears are not the generic fear of spiders, or water. But serious and rational. I had to honest when doing this project otherwise the result wouldn’t be honest, and I wouldn’t produce my best work and then I would realise the fear of not being good enough because I wouldn’t be doing my best.

My monster was full of typography of names I have been called over the years, and things which have been said: Loser, loner, idiot, dyke, failure, no-one will ever love you, worthless, cry baby etc. It contained a bleeding heart, surrounded by moths, as moths symbolise the idea of healing to be, because even though they spend so much time in the dark they are drawn towards the light. I used silhouettes of hands to depict the fear of being touched and a collage of crowds, one due to the fear of people I have, I also have a fear of crowds after being stampeded on as a teenager.

After this I knew no-matter how difficult it would be, I had to be honest a face everything. It would produce my best work.