Scene Shift Workshop

In this workshop, we were asked to produce 4 images that corresponds to our short stories and work well together as a sequence to represent the shifting of the plot of our story. At first I was at loss as of what to do as there were so many elements I wanted to touch upon. However, I know that if I overcrowded my images, I will end up minimising the importance of them. So for inspiration, I decided to watch Chipp Kidd’s talk on book covers. I was very inspired when Kidd talked about a theory he was taught by his teacher, Lanny Sommese about not laying everything out for the reader to see and instead, pick and select elements that really matter. As a result of this theory, I decided to only focus on Anna as opinions of her and how she is portrayed shifts as the story progresses. I knew I wanted to play on the idea of Anna’s heavily technology-influenced view of the world however I was not sure how to incorporate both a digital and handmade element to my illustration so I looked online for inspiration.

I came across a method called paint hydro printing which later on became paint dipping where artists would dip various objects ranging from furniture to clothing in paint to add a more interesting element to the object. This method interested me because I really liked how when an artist dips an old victorian painting, a very straight almost machine like line is made concealing nearly all of the portrait leaving only a part seen. This method was perfect for what I wanted to achieve with my final images as old victorian portraits where created when technology wasn't openly available therefore instead of taking a photograph of a person, artists have to try and capture the person within their painting. And when you take something so intricately made and dip it in paint, this almost 3-dimensional copy of the person within the painting has now been concealed by a solid, flat-looking colour. The solid colour also creates a near perfect straight line where is has been dipped that looks very inorganic in comparison to the portrait beneath and therefore suggests the influence of technology and machines on people.