Self-portrait 

For my first task this semester I had to create 10 gifs of varying frames, which are based on the events of 2020, such as the lockdown due to the covid19 pandemic. Many of my gifs are based on personal things from my lockdown experience, as well as the periods in between when restrictions were eased. For example I started to learn to skateboard when the rule of 6 was implemented.

Skateboarding - 20 frames

After experimenting a bit with the paper dolls, I tried making the paper marionettes that I used as an example in the previous post. First I just wanted to try and get a feel for the structure and figure out how they were made, so haven't gone into a lot of detail with this first attempt. However, I am not a huge fan of this puppet, it is very fiddly and time consuming, and I'm not sure how I will get in all the features of the characters with this method.

Due to the pandemic, access to the studio space is uncertain, so I decided to focus my efforts on a material that is accessible and easy to work with, which is paper. When looking for paper dolls, I came across these paper marionettes that are presented bellow. Preferable I'd like to try making a wooden marionette, but these is the better alternative considering the circumstances. 

In previous projects at college I made paper dolls, and know they can look very eye catching, however, they can be quite fragile, and finding the right size slip pins can be challenging. However, with this knowledge I would like to try this again and maybe improve on the things that went wrong previously.

The movie I was given for this project is the Werewolf of Washington, which is about a man, named Jack, who is sent to Hungary on an assignment for the American government. While on his trip Jack is bitten by a wolf, who actually turns out to be a man. After being bitten he is approached by an old woman who explains he has been marked by the beast and while giving him a charm he is told to be careful or he too will suffer the same fate as the wolf. Once back in America Jack starts to feel different, along with changes around the time of the full moon. With each full moon there are also numerous murders, all occurring in Washington. Jack becomes convinced that he is turning into a werewolf, and tries to inform his superior, who doesn't believe such things. Towards the end of the movie Jack attacks the President, and is killed by a silver bullet that releases him from his curse, but ultimately leads to his demise. However, at the end of the movie it is revealed that the curse has now been passed on to the president of the USA.

one of my favourite kind of puppets has to be marionettes, which with the lockdown situation might be hard to create, as I don't have access to the studio, and nor do I have the tools to do it at home. However I would like to attempt to find a solution to this issue, and maybe try to make them out of something other than wood. The plan is also to explore other type of puppetry, which might be more achievable with the lack of studio access.

Initially I was considering a typeface made using flowers, however after finding smashed pottery on a walk, I decided to try using it to make a typeface. I do plan on exploring a type face with flowers , however this idea peaked my interest more so, I will work with this.

Using another handle from my pile of pottery I tried to see if it was possible to form previous letters that had failed. I do think it could be possible, but I would need more broken handles and specifically thinner handles in smaller pieces. I will try again if I'm successful in finding more broken handles, however I'm not sure if ill find more where I found the rest.

Another idea that I had for the pottery was to take close up pictures of the pieces and then manipulate them using photoshop into the letters, numbers and punctuation. the only issue I've had with taking the photographs is getting the camera to focus when getting so up close to the pottery pieces. 

After messing around with some of the close up pieces and trying to find letters within the images, I decided that this idea wasn't the best. The photographs I collected are poor quality, as I don't have a camera that can focus as close up as I wanted to go, which means the letters range in quality, some worse than others. There was also the issue of trying to make each letter stand out so it is clear to the reader, but also maintain the texture of the pottery.

Another idea, completely different to the pottery, was using the figure and light to create shadows of the letters. There was some issues trying to get the right shape to make each letter obvious, for example not being able to contort the body into the right shape, or needing more than one person.

Since I liked the idea of the pottery with the shards and the handles, decide to combine the two. I think this was a good idea because the handles were very useful for creating the punctuation and the numbers, which might have been more difficult with just the shards alone.