Monday, 28 October 2019

LAUIL503: Studio Brief 2 - Dracula Contextual Research Part 2

Podcasts


Music


"Your pulmonary trembles in your outstretched arm"

"With a pale white feline face"

"Mistress to the horror kid, cemetery of the white love ghoul"


"Lying cheek to cheek in your cold embrace, so soft and so tragic as a slaughterhouse"

"If I was your vampire, soon as the moon, instead of killing time we'd have each other 'til the sun"

"Death waits for no one"

"Taking your smile apart with my spade tongue and the hole where the heart is"

"We built this tomb together, I will fill it alone beyond the pale, everything's black, no turning back"

"Bloodstained sheets in the shape of your heart, here comes the moon"

"We'll burn and I'l eat your ashes, it's possible we're seducing your corpse"


"Under Saturn's rays I rest in eternal sleep"

"Clawing from the grave, my batwings spread"

"I hunt the streets at night, terror from the sky, in bat-form I strike"

"Your naked body dragged back to my darkened crypt"



"Light now slips away, manipulate your mind, darkness is my slave"

"Taste the sins of Hell, the blood that I so crave"

"Bloodsucking creatures of the night, nocturnal spectre hiding from the light"

"Death plagues the streets in which they dwell"

"Addicted to your blood, at dawn they sleep"

"Unveil the hidden coffin, lift the lid of terror, feel the deadly cold freeze you from inside"

"Driven by the instincts of centuries of horror, implanted along the brain of the sickening parasite,
linked together by one trait, the Hell-filled need to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill..."

"Swooping down from shadowed skies, taking simple human form, shed their wings to stay the mortal man"

"Lock their jaws into your veins, satanic soldiers strike their prey



"Spreading the veil, he'll spread his wings"

"Leaving at sunset, fly high and low, back before the sun's glow"

"Sucking your blood through your veins, there's only one way you can stop him"

"You gotta trace the vampire to his lair, oh yeah, and you gotta drive the stake right through the heart of the living dead!"

"Vampire I'm losing control, vampire just give me your cloak"

Illustration / Graphic Design


Dracula cover illustration by David Mackintosh. I love the textured effect used on the cover design, it's very grungy and dirty to give the sense of ageing, decaying and weathering as well as visual interest to the areas of plain red, helloing to blend the darkness of the character in. The three way colour palette of red, black and grey to portray blood, lust, shadow and a dark character minimalistic, understated and doesn't overdo it - successfully creating a visual language of horror. The grey is especially nice as it's more muted, than if it were to be white, where the main focus of the image would then be on the stark contrast of the white text on the black of the background. The font choice is really pleasing, it's a classic-looking gothic font pairing well with a classic gothic literature. The larger 'D' makes good use of the left side of the canvas and, again, ties the blackness of the character into the image. The character design of Dracula is particularly well done - small, lithe features and a classic Nosferatu head with a huge batlike cape too big for the canvas. His gesture and movement from his feet show him to be prowling, spindly yet graceful like a spider.

 

Dracula cover by Luke Parker (Art of Parker), used for the Kindle 2014 illustrated edition cover, sold on Amazon. I like the basic 3 colour way, clearly representing the red of blood, the black of the cape and the white of a pale vampiric face. The red eyes against the white face bring automatic attention to the character and the demon eyes of the vampire - very clever use of colour! The simple shapes are strong, bold and angular; the harsh lines of the shoulders of the cape, the angled widow's peak of his hair, the triangular eyes. There's nothing soft or round or comforting. The use of negative image within the cape is also really clever, starting from the mouth to look like gushes of blood and extended outward to form something else. A river of blood? A mountain? It almost looks like an angled upwards view of a church steeple but I don't think that's what it is. It would have been really clever if that's what it was, or even one of his bride's extending an arm outwards to his mouth to look like blood. On the kindle edition I'm not a fan of the Dracula font at all. I used to use something very similar when I started using Photoshop in 2004 at 14 years old. It's very dated, very MySpace, and the extra space between the 'd' and the 'r' is rather annoying and serves no purpose. It's either a design error or part of the font. I wish something else had been chosen as it ruins the professionalism and immediacy of the illustration. 


Minimalist movie poster design for Frances Ford Coppola's Dracula by Will Holdsworth. Again, less is more! Using a flesh colour for the majority of the poster and red circles with lines to portray two puncture holes with drops of blood is very subtle but very immediate and effective in its context once we "get it" and understand what's happening with the help of the type. The type, again, is simple. No overdecorated or over-ornamented lettering. It's nice and clean... aside from the blood. One puncture hole dripping longer than the other gives a simple sense of movement and leads the eye down towards the title of the movie.

Sunday, 27 October 2019

LAUIL503: Studio Brief 2 - Dracula Contextual Research


Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula (1931)

• My first immediate thought when Dracula as a project was mentioned
• He is the classic, the original and a childhood hero of mine
• He created the blueprint for Dracula making him sexy and captivating
• Really strong aesthetics with the Star of David, large bat-like cape, gentlemanly tuxedo underneath
Strong black and white imagery that I feel does not age it at all; it adds to the horror themes, the mystique, the "unknown" of the character. There needs to be nothing more. The beautiful simplicity adds to its charm


Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

• Aesthetic!
Sexy, dark, sensual and magnetic performance
• Creates such a beautiful and iconic silhouette in that costume. Can I use this in my work for this project? Strong lighting and shadows? Simple shape for recognisable characters?


Dracula in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2000)

Comedic elements playing on what we know of vampiric lore and Dracula as a character in pop culture at this point in time
• Dracula now for teen audiences
• All the tropes of Dracula (Xander becomes the Renfield character, Dracula's brides try to seduce Giles - Buffy's Watcher - to weaken Buffy's defences).
• Dracula is openly seen as sexy and commented on it as such by many of the characters much to the annoyance of the male characters in the show. A running gag of sorts!
• Many classic symbols are used including mind control, Dracula turning into bats, controlling the weather, having a weak-minded servant, being transported from Transylvania and so on.
• In true Buffy style, a damsel in distress is not on the cards here and Buffy is the one to drive Dracula out of town and away from overpowering her. It turns the trope of the defenceless female on its head and Buffy is fully and modestly clothed for many of the scenes. This is not aimed at a male audience or catered to the male gaze.
• Dracula cannot be killed and even though Buffy defeats him keeps that part of his character. Another running gag and part of the comedy, he keeps coming back!


Dracula in Van Helsing (2003)

• The movie was a bit of a dud but it was this scene in particular and this pairing that I loved along with Dracula's brides.
• Once again Dracula is sexy, charming and magnetic. I loved him as a teenager in the early 2000s when this was released (showing my age here! But the character has been with me for a long time and through a range of movies and media so this project will be incredibly enjoyable.)
• This ballroom scene was such a visual treat. It was Dracula's time to shine and try to manipulate. The lighting, the colour palette, the costumes, the choreography. Can I incorporate this into my work somehow?



Dracula in Hotel Transylvania (2012)

• Portrayed as a loving father and the main protagonist of the film
• Dracula for children and transcending media into modern children's films

• Incorporates the classic Bela Lugosi Dracula appearance ingrained into pop culture which drew me to the film originally and which I found incredibly charming; the tuxedo - this time black - the cape, the dark hair, pale skin, blue eyes, the thick expressive eye brows
• Crossing over into comedy as well as family genre, with romance. Not much horror at all, no objectification of female bodies for the male gaze or female victims - very unusual of the character!


Dracula in Penny Dreadful (2016)

Handsome
Gentlemanly attire
Hypnotising the lead female
• Again beautiful costumes and characters, another sexy portrayal that I enjoyed well into adulthood and past my teen years into my mid twenties.
Romance and horror themes are prevalent in the show

Similarities:

While picking childhood and recent favourite depictions of Dracula I have noticed that these portrayals are:
All male
All white
All European features / European looking
• What does this say about the character? About the film and television industry and their perception of this character? Abut my exposure to Dracula? Is it limited? Are there are any other representations out there?

Words, objects, symbols and personal feelings
synonymous with Dracula:

Bats, blood, candles / candelabras, darkness, coffins, onions, wooden stakes, holy water, mysterious, sexy, magnetic, charm, hypnotic eyes, handsome, tall and dark, young women, fangs, eternal life, demon, undead, supernatural, Transylvania, bite, crucifix, immortal, psychic, harmed by sunlight awake at night

Type

I believe type will be used in this brief somehow so I want to look at what was used in the Dracula portrayals I have chosen for my personal study to get a better understanding of what is successful and what isn't, and why, to help with my own type selection when it comes to it.


Understandably, being from the 30s, this is the most "dated" of the typefaces. It is successful in creating an aura of mystique and the unknown because of the curve, the translucency evoking thoughts of ghosts and apparitions, and the jagged points of the lettering.The texture is quite nice too, paired with the jagged points of the "R" and "A" it makes me think of a wooden stake. The curves gives a sense of Dracula's cape extending outwards. I think it would have looked better without the curve alignment though and the translucency to make it more immediate, more bold, against the dark background. The alignment isn't central which may have something to do with film making techniques of the time. 


The brown tones and the leather-like textures give immediate thoughts of ageing, something that is old. I like the texture and think it really adds some visual interest, breaking up what would be a one colour screen with a gradient, and gives thoughts to journals and books and diaries. The typeface itself is rather interesting evoking feelings of ancient symbols as Dracula himself is an ancient being. I like that parts of the letters are missing, again suggesting decomposing and ageing or a forgotten language of symbols, but I think the font itself it very... it looks like something that would be preloaded into Photoshop or Microsoft Word like Lithos Pro or Papyrus. It's rather dated and not in a good way. The bevel and emboss adds to this. It's very "Photoshop 101" adding too many effects at once. The DRaCuLa alignment of having bigger letters amongst smaller ones is quite annoying from a design point of view. Taking off the embossing and changing the sizing would perhaps make this more successful and pleasing to the eye. 


Iconic! Simple, not overdone but with enough effects to make it easily recognisable, unique, easily applied to a range of products, media and merchandise. The type of "Buffy" gives immediate thoughts to dripping blood because of the dots and tapered ends  as well as a sense of motion and action because of the brush stroke in the "B" and the first "f" being slightly bigger and dripping longer. Also thoughts of wooden stakes with the shape of the "f." "The Vampire Slayer" uses a more classic gothic font synonymous with the genre and underlining the "vampire slayer" with a pointed line gives a sense of balance, central alignment and thoughts to more blood or a spike / weapon. The ghosting around it is a nice touch for the title screen against the night sky and taken out for merchandise to keep it simple. This was a redone typeface as the original series used a Lithos Pro-esque font that looks extremely dated now. 


A simple and bold font giving immediacy to something dark, cold and perhaps horror-themed with the sharp points. The metal effect given by shadows and reflections is effective for silver as Van Helsing is bitten and given the werewolf curse and there is also a werewolf controlled by Dracula in the film, whereby silver is used to kill werewolves. The sharp points are reminiscent of fangs, spies and weapons. I like this a lot, it isn't overdone and rather subtle when out of context or if applied to different words but the cold metal and sharp points will still bring about imagery of weaponry, action, war.

Saturday, 26 October 2019

LAUIL503: Studio Brief 1 - Lino Experimentation

I didn't have as much time in the print room with lino as I'd like, with having a small group of people also using the facilities and a limited amount of time for demos on cutting, inking, using the press, hand printing and cleaning up the inks and tools. It took me a little while to carve out my lino stamp just how I wanted it, with limited vision and no sighted assistance, which I am very proud of! I was able to complete one hand print, one Albion press print and one ghost print along with one red and blue print for the group collage. As soon as those were done it was time to clean and out things away.

I would have loved to experiment with lino printing more as I was really getting into it! I mocked up a few things in Photoshop that I would have done if I had more time:

 

I love how playful these are, adding another dimension to my sculpture park experience, mixing colours, angles and ghost prints, and filling the canvas in different ways. 

Each one tells a different story, some with iteration and repetition, some completely by chance and random alignment, some with order and structure - kind of how I approached some of the tasks that day. Some were ordered and I was methodical in my tackling of the subject (creative writing and photography, for example) and others I was more experimental (rubbings, using the prompts to draw in a different way, recording sound).

I do wish I had more time in the print room but I'm happy I pushed my designs a bit more. What I think it really successful about my stamp is that it isn't just a square, I cut away at it to be more mask-like like what I had seen at the clay exhibition which makes it fantastic for repeats and layering!

Friday, 25 October 2019

LAUIL503: Studio Brief 1 - Spatial Archives Outcomes and Reflection

Risograph Outcomes


Lino Outcomes

Collaborative Lino


300 Word Reflection

I the prospect of "experiential art" much more than I initially thought I would. The Yorkshire Sculpture Park was a beautiful location to just enjoy making and creating in different ways that I wouldn't have associated with my practice a number of years ago! Responding to sound, texture and my own words, rather than the visual, really pushed me out of my comfort zone but it was rewarding to find I can still make art with other processes. My initial worry was that this was going be an observational drawing exercise and, as someone who has lost the majority of their sight this past year, the trip filled me with slight terror. Learning more about experiential art, logging my personal journey and my own responses made this so much more individual and integral to my self-growth as a person and an illustrator. Being outside and amongst nature, rather than in the studio, was extremely therapeutic and advantageous for my outcomes and my mental health showing a positive effect in my work. To be working with constraints of particular colours, sizes and within a certain time frame helped me not to overthink these aspects, as I often do. I found the collaboration part of the brief difficult as it is hard to relinquish control of my work but I was surprised by the outcomes of the risograph prints and how well my pieces work well with someone else's in terms of the composition. The lino collaboration was a struggle as someone had printed twice instead of leaving a space for me and when we tried to redo it, not everyone reprinted. This has soured my feelings of collaboration and furthering thoughts that mistakes are made in groups, rather than working solitary, and not everyone is mindful of others and their abilities. To be made aware of a collaborative booklet with my peers, putting my work into a printed context, conveying visual language of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park is a delight. We all went to the same place but experienced different things!

Wednesday, 16 October 2019

LAUIL503: Studio Brief 1 - Yorkshire Sculpture Park Visit

Photographs


(more photographs and audio recordings available on a USB key for submission)

Drawings

Reflection

• I enjoyed the trip a lot more than I thought I would!
• I originally had hang-ups that this was going to be all about observational drawing, which I really struggle with now that I cannot see much at all 
• I was pleasantly surprised to learn more of experiential art and responding in my own way - through textures and imprints, collecting objects that I will use to collage with, recording sound, creative writing exercises 
• Using Tami as much as possible was great for me, and rather experimental, as she is very much part of my experience. Her body collected a lot of muddy water and made for some fantastic impressions of her paws and her fur! I also took a video of her guiding me through the sculpture park, recorded her whinging noises and took photographs of her against tapestries. I would like to incorporate her into my work, perhaps as one of my risk prints, to document her experience.
• Being outside and amongst nature, rather than inside and in the studio, was really advantageous and beneficial to my mental health. Being in the crisp air and the Autumn sun gave such positive outcomes to my work
• I really enjoyed the creative writing tasks and want to use my responses somehow in my final rise outcomes

Friday, 11 October 2019

LAUIL503: Motif Mash-Up Workshop

New York City Mice May Be Evolving to Eat Fast Food Like Pizza

Chris Baraniuk

There are always better restaurants in the city, and that could be making the town mice of New York
genetically distinct from their country cousins. Stephen Harris at the State University of New York and Jason Munshi-South of Fordham University in New York City caught 48 white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) from three New York parks and three nearby rural areas. The mice are native to this part of North America, so the pair wanted to find out whether some had begun to evolve for city living.

They examined the mice’s RNA to see if the rural and urban populations expressed different genes.
Ultimately, they homed in on 19 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs): places in the genome where a single letter varies from mouse to mouse. Several SNPs were in genes associated with digestion and other metabolic processes. One highlighted gene was used to produce omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. A version of this gene appears to have been selected
for in humans as we moved from hunter-gathering to agriculture. The work is “at the forefront of biology”, says Jonathan Richardson at Providence College in Rhode Island.

The cheeseburger hypothesis. The survey also highlighted genes linked to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which may result from having to process a lot of fatty acids. This could be due to a diet rich in fast foods. “The first thing that we thought of was the ‘cheeseburger hypothesis’: urban mice subsidising their diet on human food waste,” says Harris. If so, the mice may be like “Pizza Rat”, a New York rodent videoed carrying a whole slice of pizza. In line with this, city mice had larger livers with more scar tissue, says Harris, who was at the City University of New York when most of the work was done. However, the sample size was too small to be sure. Besides, New York offers other foods, like seeds, nuts and berries in its parks. Such resources are more plentiful than in rural areas, where there is more competition from other species.

The mice may be enjoying an eclectic mix of urban food resources, says Richardson, occasionally boosting their calorie intake by dining on human food waste. The next step will be to examine the function of these genes more closely to assess their impact on fitness and selection, says Hopi Hoekstra at Harvard University. Hoekstra says the work is part of a wave of studies investigating examples of rapid adaptation. “That provides us with a really cool way to study evolutionary change, sort of as it’s happening,” she says.

Keywords
• Restaurants
• City
• Town mice
• Country cousins
• New York
• Genetics / Genes
• Evolve / Evolution / Evolutionary Change
• Digestion
• Biology
• Cheeseburger / Fast Foods 
• Fatty Liver Disease / Disease
• Human Food Waste
• Pizza / Pizza Rat
• Scar Tissue
• Competition
• Adaption

My Quick Responses to the Article
Scan and put in sketchbook 

Planning and Development





Lots of annotation helped me, questioning to myself and using the prompts, iteration of ideas, can things be made larger or smaller for effect? What purpose will that serve? What tone of voice do I want to use? Modify, minify, magnify, substitute, rearrange, reverse, combine, adapt, point of view. What can these things mean?

Final idea


• Genes (turned to jeans)
• Levi jeans are a hugely iconic American brand
• Crocs are an American brand, based in Colorado where I have just come back from on a short trip, where they are extremely popular for their comfort and sense of home pride. There is a bit of negativity towards Crocs elsewhere because of their ugliness, garishness, having been turned into a bit f a meme on the internet, associations with children, lazy people, people with no fashion sense and people from poorer backgrounds.
• Tapping into nostalgia changing the "pizza rat" into Steamboat Willie and the steering wheel into a pizza (Steamboat Willie being an American short animation by Walt Disney and the beginnings of Mickey Mouse), with a slight looks of Scratchy Mouse from The Simpsons (another iconic American animation and brand), changing the pizza slice in jeans to a Spongebob Squarepants-style character holding his spatula (yet another iconic American animation with ties to fast food).
• Comedic, nostalgic, friendly tones and voices filled with lots of ideas of Americanisation and fast food.

Reflection
After returning the the course after an extremely tough, oftentimes traumatic, year this was a really nice session to return to, to get used to generating ideas in a really quick way with no technical proficiency required - much of which I have lost in my sight loss journey over the past 13 months anyway. I'm not confident in my editorial illustration abilities and this broke it down into easier and manageable chunks; focusing on key words, playing with those to come up with weird and wonderful ideas beyond what you would originally conceive, and collaboration.

The collaboration portion was much more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be. I originally had a negative feeling towards the word "collaboration" being mentioned on my first day back but this enabled me to get to know someone on my course because of it and feel more comfortable in the studio environment again. I loved the unexpected outcomes that we got, changing the tone and context of what I had originally had in mind when drawing my original character or idea, and I loved using the chubby sticks - a medium I have never used before. The entire session was very playful,  very freeing, very loose and married nicely with the chubby stick and my silly ideas generations.

In regards to ideas generation, the prompts really helped when I got stuck in the session and to just keep going no matter how simple or abstract an idea got and I want to take aspect for the future so I don't allow myself to get art block again - or at least to minimise it as much as possible. From planning, development and the final idea I do think I overworked the final outcome. I was nervous and knew others would do the same, making something that looked great to show everyone else, and I felt a sense to prove myself after a year of being out of the course. I wanted to show that my work is okay looking and that I deserve to be here despite being the girl with the Guide Dog that no one knows, despite a finished outcome not being required. It isn't finished and it isn't the best thing ever but it is overworked. Some of the charm was lost in making the Spongebob Pizza character more three dimensional rather than the flat doodle he originally was and I should have kept it simple.