Rachel Dunn @racheldunnillustration - Tumblr Blog

Evaluation

Exploring meaning through narrative. Rachel Dunn My starting point to this project came from Julian Opie's work exhibited at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery's 'I want! I want!' Exhibit. The name of the piece that inspired me the most was called This is Fiona. It consisted of a simply computer generated face, staring at the viewer, occasionally blinking. I loved the simplicity of this piece and that it was one of Opie's first pieces using digital gif work. The exhibit was targeted around modern technology so for my project to begin with a gif and end with a gif is quite fitting I think. Opie's other work of walking people inspired some of my sketches of observing people. After I spent some time researching animation and techniques and processes for making gifs, animations and flip books I started to practice making gifs. To look at two of my early practice pieces to the one I created as my final piece, I am pleased there has been an advance in skill and the final outcomes. I chose to produce my work with a focus on the issues with social media and networking. I have aimed my work at a young audience of people ranging from 14-35 which is the age range I know to spend the most times on social media platforms. I did research online and also from speaking to people within these age ranges, and from simply observing people in the street. I found it quite sad to see the amount of people with their eyes glued to their phones so this is what I cantered my work around. Pawel Zuczynski is a Polish artist and philosopher whose work really inspired me and urged me to want to put a message in my work. He draws and paints satirical illustration to convey strong messages about politics, war, society and social media. His drawings are simple and so effective. My initial idea for a flip book as my final piece involved character design and working in a representative way which I am not that familiar with. I designed some characters of young girls as I feel Iike young females resonate with most audiences in some kind of way. I enjoyed these drawing exercises however something didnt feel right to me about what I planned to do. As I usually work quite conceptually, I decided to play with paint and colour to convey my messages and I began creating work a lot easier. I love the raw wet paint finish that my experiments and final pieces have, I have been able to incorporate colour, texture, motion and narrative in my work. My final piece depicts two circles next to each other, one representing our real world and the other representing a 'social media world' that some people live in. The 'social media world' revolves a lot faster than the normal world, implying that this is the priority for some people, I think the piece is mesmerising in the looping motion it has. The colours in the 'social media world' represent the colours used in a few very popular social networking applications. Overall I am very pleased with my work. I feel comfortable in the media I have used- the gif consists of over 90 images so to make it a working flip book wouldn't be so effective. I have experimented with cartooning which I have really enjoyed as well and I will use these skills I have learnt into other projects with me.

Final Gif. (Quality significantly reduced) The real world vs The social media world

Adding colour to figure experiments in extremely simple way. I like the contrast of the messy and simple block colours contrasting with the careful precise line.

Extended character design Here are two drawings I have made in different styles. I haven't ventured into colour much however with the image on the left I have started to use shading techniques which I think work effectively in the style of drawing I use. I have used much more detail when drawing the girl on the right, I really love this outcome and style of drawing however I am not sure how effective all the detailing would be on a smaller animation/flip book scale. I have had a lot of fun experimenting with character design and portraiture here.

Jackson Pollock Jump in The vibrant colours and clear thickness of the paint has inspired my work, I love to be able to see texture, even after photographing.

Real world vs world of social networking. Again I am working with thick acrylic paint, working in circular motions. I aim to animate each of the circles next to each other, rotating, however I want to have the 'world of social networking' moving at a much quicker pace to the 'real world' in order to show young people's priorities. I really like the vibrant colours. My only issue is that if I use this as my final piece, it will not work effectively as a flip book because the 'real world' will not be close enough to the edge of the page- unless I shrink them down very small but I still want the viewer to be able to see the detail and texture of the paint.

I didn't want to restrict myself to working flat with pen and paper with this project, I love using paint and I can show texture with my work by using photography. I am inspired by my last piece to use the vibrant colours of the most popular apps currently. To decide which apps really were the most popular I spoke to a variety of 17-30 year olds who agreed with me that the most popular apps currently are: Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Whatsapp, Instagram. I did not want to paint perfect, smooth lines, I wanted to have texture, imperfections and roughness to portray how damaging these social media platforms can be. The circular format mimics the world, this represents how these social media platforms can seem like the world to young people.

A quick digital drawing of myself. Depicted in a bubble. Isolation of being engulfed in social media and networking.

Experimenting with character design Drawing human form, both cartoon-like and representational. The first image I tested lots of different possible characters for a female teenager transfixed on her mobile phone. I liked a couple of the outcomes I made as they had character and I don't often work representationally. These were only starting points so were far from perfect but I was pleased with the efforts I made. Towards the end of doing these designs I created the silhouette drawing, with the thought in mind that it wasn't necessary to define the character as a particular type of person, because the message that I am trying to make is a large audience so I would rather it resonate with more people with a sense of mystery behind the character, so it could be anybody. The second piece is where I copied the layer multiple times of people walking oblivious to anything apart from their phones. This represents the bigger scale of things to the amount of people this problem effects. The third image I was working with a character more detailed and human like- the thought behind this was that the more human-like figure may resonate more with the audience.

Ideas and thoughts for my flip book.

I am going to address the issues surrounding younger generations' addictions to social media and networking. I loved the simplicity of Julian Opie's animations, and how he uses digital platforms in order to create work in an seemingly effortless manner. I think I will use my iPad Pro and iPencil so I can easily reproduce and edit pieces to make a professional looking flip book. When I speak to people about the issue of social media addictions people say that young people's lives 'revolve' around their social media. I was thinking of incorporating the word 'revolve' into my flip book animation by possibly drawing a person rotating with the most well known social media platforms surrounding them. I was also thinking of drawing a young person with their eyes transfixed on a phone whilst lots of events and opportunities are going by beside them. I do realise that this idea will be fairly difficult to create in the detail I am imagining. I know that I want there to be a lot of movement within the pieces i want to create. Normally I am one for working in a more abstract or conceptual way but this will challenge my drawing skills whilst incorporating minimalistic styles.

Parkour flip book. Not a conventional flip book but very effective, however if I made something like this I feel like it would be difficult for people to use it themselves, because this is mainly really effective at speed. I love how it escapes past the single page and really explores narrative.

Flip book practice no.2 I used pencil this time to draw a falling ball bouncing and then going off the page, this was a quick experimentation to make and I found it a lot easier to be precise with my spacing because I could see exactly where the next one should go. I used sticky notes an they are good for making quick outcomes however the paper is very thin and you can see the drawing from the next page through the one you're on so doesn't look very professional. However my confidence is growing with creating physical flip books.

Physical flip book experimentation no.1 Instead of drawing I thought I could play with cutting out of the paper. This would work better if I spent more time focussing on making the spacing of each hole perfect distances apart. I used a hole punch to do this.

http://www.designorate.com/how-social-media-affects-creativity/

This article ways up the pros and cons of social media and its effects on the creativity of artists. To summarise, social networking is a good thing for getting your work out there- to people and places you may never reach in reality. Social media is also a source of inspiration, platforms for artists to discover ideas and inspirations easily and a place for people to be able to collaborate with other people and get feedback and criticism. Promoting tools are also important, designers often use social networking for advertising themselves and their work. Some issues with using social media are that so many people use the same platforms and it can be hard to be able to get noticed. Ideas can get stolen due to a lack of experience and knowledge of the artists. Image quality may be reduced, losing a sense of real life, that art exists else where in reality, and wasting time reviewing social media when you can be creating are also reasons.

8/5/17 Observational drawing of people, in other worlds. Not a single person I captured was present, other than elsewhere in their minds. The rough sketch of these people represents my frustration at their obliviousness. I thought it wasn't necessary to draw their surroundings as none of them were aware of it at all.

Is social networking becoming damaging?

Social media and networks take up a lot of almost everybody's time, and especially in younger generations, where it is seen as un-cool to not be up to date with the new platforms we seem to obsess over. Personally, on average, I would say that I spend about two hours a day devoted to social media, whether that is scrolling through instagram and Facebook or watching YouTube videos- and when I say this, I am not including the compulsive checking that occurs just out of habit throughout my day. The sad thing about admitting this, is that most of the people I am associated with often spend far longer devoted to these platforms than I do. This addiction to being knowledgeable about the least important things may result in the loss of more valuable opportunities including physical exercise, putting mental and physical health at risk. I walk past hundreds of people in the street in Birmingham City Centre and I can confidently say that at least 50% have their eyes glued to their screen, not realising what culture and opportunities they may be ignoring around them. In a survey carried out by the University of Salford, 50% said social networks have made their lives worse. 'Self esteem falls because of constant peer comparison, 66% lose sleep after spending time on social networks, and 25% have work or personal relationship problems because of online confrontations.'* Despite this, it is encouraging that people are starting to realise how damaging this is to themselves and are starting to take action to relieve some of the damage being caused by this. In my own work I wish to be able to convey this message to an audience between 14 and 35 especially in order to hopefully enrich the real world more and realise the importance in human face-to-face relationships. *http://www.adweek.com/digital/social-media-become-addiction-infographic/

Aleksandra Mir World Map of Social Networks, 2009 Felt pen on three sections of Fabiano paper This was one of the pieces within the 'I want! I want!' exhibiton where the impact of technology was more obviously shown within the work. The traditional format of maps investigates social networks and contemporary and urban life. 'The individual lines and strokes present in a cultural and political critique of the flow of information in our cyber age.' The lines are synchronised and in order, implying the entire planet is moving in the same horizontal direction. This hints to me an indication of brainwashing and formality that takes away from artistic and creative freedom, that social networking has captured us in this horizontal way of thinking.

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