Lotte Reiniger - 'The Magic Horse'

Today I watched a beautiful animation from 1954 called 'The Magic Horse' by Lotte Reiniger; the animation was all black and white made using silhouettes which was the way that Lotte Reiniger made the majority of her animations. I loved the title as it was so delicate and the shapes, text and music were perfect for setting the scene of the story. I thought the backgrounds of each scene were fantastic, they were really simple pale grey painted buildings and trees but the silhouettes stood out really well overlaid onto them. This was a lovely piece to watch and really inspiring, I've always been interested in using silhouettes as I've seen them used in plays and other projects (some by Containerplus for Topshop) and I think they look amazing because they're so delicate and fragile looking.


The magic horse LOTTE REINIGER
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Methane Studios

I've just been looking at some gorgeous work by Methane Studios, I found a link to their work on a Total Film email and I love it, they're an illustration/design studio that mainly produces posters and t shirts. All of the designs are very distinctive, a lot are quite similar in style to some of the posters from the Post(er) exhibition (earlier post) - they have a 60s/70s feel to them in the colours and some of the text which is something that I really like. All of the posters and prints are screen printed which I'm so jealous of as I really want to use screen print more but I'm pretty convinced I'd have trouble producing anything more complex than one colour; I think this is definitely something that I need to practise before I leave, I just wish I had more time.

Primary fun! Part 2

So last Thursday Emily and I went down to the primary school in Whalley Range again, we were in for the whole day for this session and we finally got to do some creative work with the kids. We had the task of making papier mache (I am now a pro, see illustration blog) animals which are to be used during a classroom party in May as decoration. Luckily Emily and I decided to construct the basic shapes of the animals first using balloons and newspaper, I can't even imagine how long it would have taken otherwise. It was really fun though and the kids really loved the messy part with all the glue and newspaper strips although I'm a bit concerned about my communication skills as some of them still didn't understand what to do after several demonstrations..all in all though it was a very successful day and the animals look really good, I just can't wait to see what they look like after this Thursday when we're helping them paint them. I also tried to do some basic printing using sponges and potatoes to create some patterned paper to use for more decoration however this proved to be a more difficult task and wasn't quite as much of a success. I really loved working with the children though, they're enthusiasm and imagination is really inspiring.

Primary fun!

Over the next few weeks I'm doing some work with Creative Partnerships in a primary school in Whalley Range. I'm working with an artist/illustrator Anthony Smith who does all of the illustrations at Chester Zoo and with my flatmate Emily (from Interactive Arts). The project is helping the children to illustrate some stories about animals. Today was the first day, we just had a bit of chat with the children and looked at their basic drawing skills and discussed plans for the next 2 weeks. I had such a funny time, children have the most amazing imaginations! One of the stories was a version of 'Confessions of a Shopaholic' but with Pinky the flamingo as the main character fighting it out with a crocodile over a pair of pink high heeled shoes; the story ends with a hippo (I think) flying around in a helicopter dropping money everywhere. I'm really excited about working with these children and their stories and they all seem so enthusiastic which is excellent. Emily and I are doing some papier mache animals with them next week and then the week after we're painting the animals, making masks and making decorations for an animal themed party in May. I think it's going to be such a great experience having to actually be responsible for something other than myself and having to instruct and manage the children to work to such a short deadline.

Hopefully next week I'll get some photos of the work! I'm desperate for the picture of a penguin with a bob that one child drew, just fantastic.

Terry Gilliam

This week I watched a couple of Terry Gilliam films, I've never really seen anything by him but I've been told many times that I would like his films so I watched 'The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen' and 'The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus'.

I've always been a big fan of adventure films, especially anything quite surreal or unusual, I really love the idea of fantasy worlds and the escapism that goes along with this so I really loved Baron Munchhausen, you can really see how vast Gilliam's imagination is when you see the extent of detail in the different locations of the film. I thought the sets were amazing, in particular the theatre scenery in the opening scenes which was made up of a series of flat sections that folded in and out to create movement and the suggestion of perspective etc. I also loved the scenes on the moon which were also made up of flat scenery which moved sideways and forwards to create a city. It was really refreshing to see a film with so many impossible looking scenes being made without the use of CGI and it made me feel that a lot more is possible for me to create within my work by hand. I really like the idea of constructing sets that move in quite a simple way but the mechanics of the movements would also be beautiful enough to be visible; this is something I'd love to try in an animation or film.

Dr. Parnassus was also a really wonderful film, I didn't like some aspects of the animation in the imaginarium scenes but it would obviously make sense to use more current technology but I still prefer more traditional animation methods. I thought the combination of modern day with the old-fashioned set worked perfectly and the transformation to a modern set was really beautiful. Again there were some fantastic sets and costumes which were really inspiring.

I was impressed with both films as although they are quite weird and strange they never became silly and everything seemed necessary to the story which I really admired, I would imagine that making such unusual films could lead to adding in crazy characters and scenarios just for the sake of being weird but this didn't seem to happen.

Post(er)

I went to the Post(er) exhibition last week at Rogue Studios (possibly the most hidden away gallery space I've ever experienced, I would never find it again alone), I had mixed feelings about the exhibition, some of the work by Rob Bailey and Nick Rhodes was really inspiring (see my faves in images below) I really loved the screen prints and it made me want to try doing some of my own, I have a massive fear of the screen print area though so I need to overcome that. The rest of the pieces were a bit mediocre and a lot of very similar prints were placed around the room so after about 15 minutes there wasn't much else to see. The space itself was also a bit of a let down, the exhibition looked a bit haphazard and didn't look as though a lot of thought had been put into the curation. It was worth a visit though for the work that I did like but I don't think I'd ever be able to find the place again to go back..

Prague - House of the Black Madonna

This was a really interesting collection of Czech Cubist work displayed in the House of the Black Madonna; a Cubist building designed by Josef Gocar. The last memories that I have of Cubist work are from my GCSE's being told to copy Picasso and Georges Braque so it was refreshing to see some Cubism away from high school. I found myself much more interested in the metal work and furniture in the exhibition; the paintings just sort of passed by without much interest. I really liked the sculpture work by Otto Gutfreund (below) I found the hollow eyes and cheeks of his faces fascinating and I was in awe of the way that he had turned a piece of metal into something with so much character.


The few pieces of furniture that were dotted around the 3 floors were wonderful, I loved the severe shapes and angles that were applied to such mundane things as dressing tables - it was really beautiful design. The top 2 floors were probably the most compelling, they housed more simple graphic drawings of architectural plans and some of the detailed drawings that were used to plan out the Cubist paintings. It made me appreciate the precision and the organisation of the paintings whereas before I think I just dismissed them as distortion without any real thought. The collection also contained a number of African masks which seemed to be out of place but were fantastic, it made me want to look into more tribal and cultural based art work, maybe during my next project.