 a strongly divided and vertical composition seems vital for communicating the ideas of oppression & hierarchy |  the main challenge I'm working on is to create a set of plausible character vignettes |
Saturday 6 November 2010
Getting the Gist: Hard Edge of Empire I
Though I'm rather stretching the brief the editorial I've chosen is author Charles Stross' essay The Hard Edge of Empire, in which he decries the divorce of modern 'steampunk' fantasy fiction from the harsh realities of the Victorian world it hearkens back to. As with the previous history of illustration exercise, I immediately saw something that I wanted to express and what I could add to the dialog of the work. I want to express Stross' idea that no matter how romantic the trappings of a fantastical age of 'science adventure' may seem, an honest appraisal would require much more attention to be paid to human suffering & brutality. For that reason, and because of his clear links with Dickens whom the author references I'm being influenced somewhat by Hogarthian moral images of human life swirling together in a chaotic mêlée of interwoven incidents.
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Hi James,
ReplyDeletethis is a very brave and ambitious image-conceptually and technically and many aspects of this are very successfully handled.Overall I feel that the ambition is well beyond the expectation at this stage of the course-this is commendable but I wouldn't like for you to be overwhelmed by challenges you are setting yourself. The positives of mood and expression and drama conveyed by the composition are inhibited by the restricted understanding of the figures. An image of this complexity needs careful development and this is largely done very well. As an "old hand' I would need to spend time posing models to make the poses convincing and expressive.The faces are revealing and this is a strength. The media is handled in a convincing way overall but it will be worthwhile you exploring how to introduce a wider range of marks and textures and exagerating the tone in certain areas for greater inpact. I would be very pleased to have created this piece which has many merits and the developments I propose are to take forward to future pieces where the learning of this can be expanded.As a general point it will be good practice to keep drawing figures in your sketchbook(quick 5 minute studies of people on trains etc as well as friends and family in day to day settings). The more confident you are in understanding the structure of the figure the greater flexibility you will have in constructing future narratives.
All the best
Jo