Walk the Line: Outcome 4

Due to time being too short before the hand in, I only managed to prepare 2 screens for print and then only actually print one of them. The result came out really nice though and I am very happy with it. However, I did realise that two of my designs might need some tweaking in terms of how big or small the halftone image is (the size of the dots I mean) because I did have some difficulties washing out the emulsion from the screen with the dots being so small. I decided I am going to redo all of them for the final hand in before the summer because I would really like to see them all screenprinted, it just makes the colours so much more vibrant and alive. Something that digital print cannot do- especially if you want that electric blue and red colour I am after which I took from my “child water” gif because I think that colour combination really works and looks great on a poster. I did try some other colours as well, more pastel-y ones because I have used that quite a lot in my gifs but I couldn’t get it to have the same kind of punch that I got with the vibrant red. I also thought of inverting the red and blue elements but that made my thread poster look like blood running down from the top. So I decided to leave the red background with blue objects for all of them as that was most effective and looked best. 

Walk the Line: Outcome 2

First gifs done, I did an experiment with some coloured pencil shavings I stuck in my sketchbook the other week when brainstorming connections to “child” thinking about how children always create stuff and the mess they leave behind. I thought it would be funny to make the shavings move and made one where a bit of it rotates but finishing that I just felt like it didn’t move too much and the image as a whole was too static so I made another one that’s more twitchy and communicates better with the paper one I made just before.

Pencil shavings gif 1 and 2, Lisa 2017

It kind of looks like someone is moving the shavings around on a light box and I think it looks really nice: like someone fiddling with something.

Final one I managed to do today is another thread one. For this I pulled apart the yarn I had to create thinner strands of thread, mixed two colours and spun them around on a coloured piece of paper, scanning it as I went along. This gif is like a combination of all my words with the thread that I have been using for “old, the paper for “may” and the moving around for “child”. Twitchy and changing ripples basically. Wrinkles on a worried forehead, sound waves of a child screaming and the connections and intertwines of something old.

Wobbly gif, Lisa 2017

Five gifs done so four left now! I think it’s starting to come together.

Walk the Line: Outcome 3

Posters for the gifs! Something I hadn’t really thought about at all until last week. Trying to get some ideas I started out sketching small images of different layouts I thought could work. I liked the images but couldn’t get the type right so I started experimenting with the type instead to see if I could get anywhere with that. Well, I didn’t. Thinking about movement, repetition and layering I tried drawing type, collage, cutting up type, blurring type, stitching. Didn’t like any of it. The only one I did like was the “may” in blue and yellow, however when I tried the same technique for the other words it just looked really gross.

Sketches for posters, Lisa 2017

Walk the Line: Outcome 1

So progress with the gifs has been a bit slow of late due to lack of inspiration and nothing looking like I wanted it to. Until today! Making a gif out of the crayon tests I did some weeks back didn’t turn out well and it just looks way better as a still image/images than a moving one as it’s not flow-y enough (seen below). 

Walk the Line: Development 4

Child! Children are crayons. Because crayons are something you use (or at least I did) throughout your childhood but then you don’t anymore. Children are also movement, never sitting still, puzzles, colour, shapes and not thinking too hard about the world they inhabit. Wrote down ideas and connections to “child” and then went full on crayon mode as seen below.

Crayon sketches and tests, by Lisa

Walk the Line: Development 3

More stitching! So came up with the idea of having something that goes back and forth for my second “old” gif, thinking about “old” as something that is continuously changing and how all new things eventually become old. I thought I could do something with lines spreading out so that it looks like a spotlight of sorts to symbolize how we choose to highlight some old things, while other old things appear to be not as important.

Sketches, by Lisa

Walk the Line: Development 2

First gif is done! (if I don’t change my mind later on) Sowing turned out to take a lot more planning than I thought hah and I had to throw away a lot of tests before coming up with a plan that worked so everything looked cohesive. At first I just tried my hand at freestyling the lines but oh my did they come out wonky so that was a bad idea. I also realised I had to map out exactly where each colour should go in my gradient so I didn’t waste any thread (didn’t have a lot) and that was more complicated than I thought it would be. So, after drawing a little template on lined paper and marking where the holes should go, I taped it to the paper I was gonna sow in and made the holes with a needle from the start so it was just a matter of threading through the yarn later. 

Walk the Line: Research 4

More gifs! This one is based on an image made by me and Oliver taking turns to draw on a long sheet of paper, creating an abstract cityscape. 

Walk the Line: Development 1

After an intense brainstorming and idea day last Friday I have a lot of concepts for both “child” and “may” but not really any more for “old” which was the first word I started to think about. What I have is the research I did with lines and string but I don’t know how I am going to make it into gifs or if all my gifs for that word should be line based. I also keep going back to thinking about how all the gifs will look together and how they will relate when the words are so different and will be made in different ways. It’s blocking me a little bit.

Opting for the “just do something and see where it goes”- technique, I put needle and thread to paper and just started doing. These are the yarn sketches I made and the things I learned from doing it:

Embroidered sketches, by Lisa

Walk the Line: Research 3

Looking more into GIFs! Something I hadn’t really thought about making gifs using photography but finding artists like Francois Beaurain (below and featured image) I’ve decided it’s something I’m going to use for my gifs as well cause it’s super cool. Just can’t stop staring at it.