Wednesday 16 October 2013

16.10.13 - Working on BA7 - Back to the drawing board

So today myself and my collaboration partner decided that we would both take a day out of the week to continue some much needed BA7 work.
On Monday, i had a quick chat with one of our lecturers this year Chris Gibbs about the project proposal. I knew going into it that my project proposal was all wrong in the sense that i had written it thinking about my whole year not 5 weeks
We spoke about narrative illustration and came to a conclusion that the project proposal should be completely rewritten to suit my work and briefs.
To cut out a lot of the wider scope of research and really get it down to something i can actually tackle in 5 weeks not 2 years.
The whole project started with wanting to look at the stories so I'm taking it back to that.
From Ted Hughes "Tales of Ovid" i plan to do a series of interior illustrations depicting some of the really visual lines in the tales.
Now thinking back to the chat with Chris, it was a difficult thing for both of us to approach really, he knew nothing of my work and i didn't know how to explain my project very well, so i think we sort of went around in circles talking about things to do with the broader aspects of my project.
I'm tempted to go back, some point soon and have a chat with someone about maybe specific things i should be thinking about right now, but its third year, i think I'm supposed to do that alone now.
So today, I've went through about 2/3rd of the tales again, taking out lines that really stood out to me that i think  could work with visually.

So far i have these:

Phaethon

"And now, Phaethon looked down
From zenith -
And saw the earth,
So far below, so terrifyingly tiny
His whole body seemed suddenly bloodless
His knees wobbled his eyes
Dazzled and darkened
He wished he had never seen his father's horses"

"Until at last Phaethusa
As she flung herself to the ground
Cried out that her feet were fixed of a sudden
And Lampetie, as she stepped to help her,
Found her own feet rooted immovable
A third, tearing her hair,
Brought away handfuls of leaves
One screamed that a tree bole
Had imprisoned her calves and thighs
Another was whimpering with horror
To find her arms crooking into stuff branches
And as they all struggled in vain
To escape or understand, tree bark
Rough and furrowed, crept on upwards
Over their bodies, throats and faces
Till it left only their lips, human enough
To call for their mother.

And what could she do
But stagger to and fro
In growing terror
Torn this way and that
Kissing the mouths she could still find?
And when she tried to free her daughters
Ripping at the bark, and snapping the branches
A liquid like blood
Came welling out of the wounds

And the mouths screamed
O Mother, do not hurt us
Though we are trees
We are your daughters-
Oh now we must leave you"

Callisto and Arcas

"Callisto was a bear.
Yet her mind was unaltered. Her lament
Was the roar of a bear - but the grief was human

And though they were a bears forepaws
That she raked at heavens face with,
Her despair over Joves Ingratitude,"

The rape of Proserpina

"Terrified, she screamed for her mother
And screamed to her friends. But louder
And again and again to her mother
She ripped her frock from her throat downwards-
So all her cherished flowers scattered in a shower
Then in her childishness
She screamed for her flowers as they fell,
While her ravisher leaped with her"

"Cyane bewailed the rape of the goddess
And the violation of her fountain.
She wept over these wrongs
In secret, as if her heart
were weeping its blood
Nothing could comfort her
Gradually, her sorrow
Melted her into the very water - first
Her slighter parts, her hair, fingers
Feet, legs then her shoulders,
Her back, her breasts, her sides, and at last
No longer blood but clear simple water
Flowed through her veins, and her whole body
Became clear simple water. Nothing remained
To hold or kiss but a twisting current of water"

"Absently straying through Plutos
Overload orchard, she had plucked
A pomegranate. Picked its hard rind open
And sucked the glassy flesh from seven seeds
Almost nothing, but more then enough"

"Scooped a hand full of water
From the infernal river Phegethon
And throwing it in the face of that blabbler
Transformed it to an owl's -
A face all beak and huge eyes"

"Ascalaphus fainted
He came to
Between big brown wings,
His human shape gone
Now nearly all head"

"And maybe that spy got his deserts
For his mischief
But what did the daughters of Achelous do wrong
They too were turned into birds
In everything but their faces."

"The goddess who shares both kingdom, divides her year
Between her husband in hell, among spectres,
And her mother on earth, among flowers.
Her nature too, is divided. One moment
Gloomy as hells king, but the next
Bright as the suns ass bursting from clouds"

Echo and Narcissus

"And so artfully, Juno
In a rage turned on her, 'Your tongue
Has led me in such circles,
Henceforth
It will have to trail
Helplessly after others, uttering
Only the last word, helplessly
Of what you last heard"

"No, he cried no i would sooner be dead
Than let you touch me. Echo collapsed in sobs,
As her voice lurched among the mountains:
Touch me, touch me, touch me, touch me"

"But love was fixed in her body
Like a barbed arrow"

Semele

"Her eyes opened wide, saw him
And burst into flame.
Then her whole body lit up
With the glare
That explodes the lamp

In that splinter of a second
Before her blazing shape
Became a silhouette of sooty ashes
The foetus was snatched from her womb"

Acteon

"Out of his forehead burst a rack of antlers
His neck lengthened, narrowed, and his ears
Folded to whiskery points, his hands were hooves,
His arms long slender legs. His hunters tunic
Slid from his dappled hide. With all this.... Human tears shone on his stags face"

Arachne

"With the injustice. Making a noose
And fitting it round her neck
She jumped into air, jerked at the ropes end.
And dangled and spun.
Pity touched Minerva"


So errrmm, yeah only just realised typing them out that there's quite a lot there
I think my plan of action is to make some very quick, small sketches of all of them and see which ones i think could develop into something further and i can see potential in.

I think what i also might do is take them to my review day on monday and speak to everyone about what ones i should take forward and which ones really stand out from the rest.
Its about 6pm now so i think im going to try drawing some of them out very quickly, dont shoot me if you don't see an update soon though!

Update soon?

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