josephine owen illustration

researching and recording

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Mexican Muralists research

after brainstorming some ideas for how we should perform our presentation, we came to the conclusion that we should make some puppets of Rivera, Siquieros and Orozco and have the puppets describe our manifesto.

Our manifesto: 

The Mexican Revolution has finally come to a close and our country is in turmoil, our people have suffered immensely, but the introduction of our new government, the PRI, holds great prospects for our future. As muralists, Our primary aim is to create works of art which will help destroy all traces of Bourgeois individualism. We will fight for a more equal, fairer society, a better quality of life for the common man. We no longer want our soldiers to become executioners and our working class to be starved by greedy profiters and politicians; we need to end this! Therefore, its paramount to us that Art and design has a purpose, we will create art for the people, not just the greedy bourgeoise. It should educate and inform, and be accessible to all, unlike the intellectual art of the aristocracy. Our murals will allude to our rich, cultural past and shall act as propaganda. We want to reunify our country, remind us of our shared heritage, and make us proud to call Mexico our home.

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Drawings of dancers: Tate exchange, Laban creative collision

I went to a Tate exchange event where Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance were putting on an improvisation contact show. I drew the dancers whilst watching their bodies tangle and untangle themselves from each other, it was very challenging to draw moving figures! This was such a good experience and I hope my images have captured the frantic rhythm of the dancers. 

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Collage inspiration: Antti Kalevi

I found the artist Antti Kalevi on Its Nice That and I really enjoy his work. I’d like to make some digital or scanned collages using bright, bold, block colours like him and I think his work would look nice with a hand drawn line added on top of his bold backgrounds. 

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Developing work for my new animation: ‘Premonitions’ by Carol Ann Duffy

We first met when your last breath cooled in my palm like an egg; you dead, and a thrush outside sang it was morning. I backed out of the room, feeling the flowers freshen and shine in my arms.

The night before, we met again, to unsay unbearable farewells, to see our eyes brighten with re-strung tears. O I had my sudden wish - though I barely knew you - to stand at the door of your house, feeling my heartbeat calm, as they carried you in, home, home and healing. Then slow weeks, removing the wheelchair, the drugs, the oxygen mask and tank, the commode, the appointment cards, until it was summer again and I saw you open the doors to the gift of your garden.

Strange and beautiful to see the roses close to their own premonitions, the grass sweeten and cool and green where a blackbird eased a worm into the lawn. There you were, a glass of lemony wine in each hand, walking towards me always, your magnolia tree marrying itself to the May air.

How you talked! And how I listened, spellbound, humbled, daughterly, to your tall tales, your wise words, the joy of your accent, unenglish, dancey, humorous; watching your ash hair flare and redden, the loving litany of who we had been making me place my hands in your warm hands, younger than mine are now. Then time only the moon. And the balm of dusk. And you my mother.

I’m hoping to make an animation to this poem and here are some of the stills that I’ve drawn to go with the first stanza. Hoping to shoot it on dragon frame and work in it over the summer!

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Developing our game: Whirlwind Romance

Here are some photos from when we were developing our game ‘Whirlwind Romance’ for the last brief of the year! We decided to base our game around the idea of finding a husband to get married to and trying to get the least amount of exes. We all had to make character cards with different boyfriends on them and make up scenario cards which make you move forwards or back on the board or dump or keep your boyfriend. Whoever gets to the church with the least amount of exes wins!

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Drawing today in the Natural History Museum

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Reportage lecture

In the reportage lecture earlier in the year I took a great deal of interest in the topic of reportage, in particular comics journalism. When researching this topic further I discovered the work of comics reportage artist, Dan Archer who developed work for the article “I was 14 when I was sold” about human trafficking in Nepal. The work of Archer really interests me, particularly in his ability to create a very human, emotional side to telling the stories of the victims. One way he does this is by illustrating himself in his own comic strips which can be seen in the first panel of the second image. 

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Storyhacker workshop

On Thursday and Friday of last week I took part in a storyhacker workshop where we learned all about using VR and AI in videogames and interactive theatre. I think that what I took away from the experience most was Myra’s work in interactive theatre working with the company Somnai. Below is an example of one of her projects and another project that I attended in 2015 which involved immersive non scripted actors involving you in a reenactment of the Grimm Tales fairy tales. 

Somnai aims to recreate the experience of lucid dreaming. You get to experience a series of dream worlds which have been recreated using VR and AI. The experience challenges you to make time sensitive decisions which shapes your own unique experience. 

Above is an experience I attended in 2015 which is similar to Somnai. Set in a warehouse, actors fully immerse you in the retelling of the Grimm tales fairy tales. I loved the set and prop design in the experience and felt as though I was really involved in the storylines. I think that immersive theatre is something that I would like to explore some more in the future.

To see my powerpoint presentation with the concept for my group’s immersive murder mystery theatre experience here is the link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rkEzNnZgxfMZRfV0I4hj4NRsZFeAFwJIOWOSXfXwcEY/edit?usp=sharing 

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Fund to boost female and black physicists article: experimenting with editorial illustration

Here is a piece of work that I produced in response to a BBC article called: Fund to boost female and black physicist numbers.

I was particularly inspired by a quote in the article by professor Bell Burnell where she speaks of entering her lecture hall and being the only female student so the other students would shout and wolf whistle at her. 

"When I was an undergraduate studying physics at the University of Glasgow in the 1960s, it was the 'tradition' that when a woman entered the lecture theatre, everybody whistled and stamped and catcalled.”

This is my editorial illustration responding to the quote. 

Article can be found at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47612806

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My final animation!

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Mono printing hands for my animation

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Mono printing for my animation of hands!

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The Man with the Beautiful Eyes animation inspiration

The man with the beautiful eyes is an animation by Johnathan Hodgson and Jonny Hannah. I love this animation and have been watching it over and over because the colour palette, tactility and compositions of each frame are so inspiring to me. The frame with the blinds (second image) inspired a frame in my animatic where a window opens up and you can see Farquhar falling through it. In the future I’d really like to make an animation inspired by the frames with the mother and father in (first and third image).

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Here are my drawings of the hands in every position. I did 36 drawings which is 3 seconds of animation. My next step is to mono print every frame and invert the colours on photoshop.

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I want to experiment with animating a short section of my animatic by using mono prints. The first thing I did when starting this challenge was choosing which section of my animatic to animate. I decided on the part where Farquhar breaks his hands free from the rope underwater. I used pencil to plan out the positioning of the hands and recorded a video of myself acting out the motion.

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My final animatic.

Feedback from crit:

Things that went well...

My timing is well executed

The effect of the mono prints turned out well 

I have lots of strong imagery 

Repeating hand motif is successful 

Things that could be improved:

The sound of the gunmen could be thought through some more, perhaps I could have used an instrumental sound instead?

The words on the screen sometimes appear too repetitive, the words should have changed more and there should have been more of them

The change between underwater and above water was a little confusing 

Perhaps the final image could have been changed? Maybe bringing the inside the water darkness/panic to the surface of the water or outside of the water

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The Screen: Abstract mono prints for my animatic and working with text

I knew I wanted to have some abstract imagery in my animatic to demonstrate fleeting panicked thoughts that have popped into Farquhar’s head whilst he falls deeper and deeper under the water. To portray this I decided to create some totally abstract mono prints...

Then, when adding the text I decided to hand draw it and use photoshop to overlay the layers whilst adding filters to merge them together. The hand drawn text effect I believe adds a human quality to the images which really demonstrates the sensation of being scared. These were inspired by my original mono prints.

Here are the final frames after I edited them: