First Set of Designs

Ooookay.... So this session we were to use our automatic drawings to  get some refined designs but it didn't go to well at first,  however I think I know why. I started this session still a bit unsure about what subject area I wanted to go down: Masks or Set designs/painting - so I started out with two ideas for the masks and then..... nothing. I didn't have another ideas about masks.

The first one was based on the horse that I saw on the Parade performance video - I wanted to make a mask that covered the face and was a tad exaggerated in in size, also I wanted the design to have a sort of cubist look with a lot of sharp angles since after looking at the costume in Parade that was the general style, it was of course to be expected since Picasso was the designer.

After figuring out how the mask would be held in positions and possible extensions to the mask I went back to see if the shape of the mask coudl be changed to be a big more exaggerated and funny - again I stuck with very share like and tried to avoid curves - since the design ended up looking like a bear.

I found I really like the deigns that had more of a triangular nose shape and a more sleek face shape - I thought that these two shapes were the best.

Poor drawing on a large scale I know - but this design came directly from my automatic designs, the Tiki mask inspired design - I thought that this would be a full body mask that could be used as some sort of chant-dancing piece (don't ask me why.)

I thought this would be a better as a full body piece but I looked at this possibly being just a head piece as well - there could be fur sewn around the mask so it covers the back of the wearers head.

Just like the previous deign I played around with he face shape, I still wanted to keep the sharp angles and cubist look from Picasso's designs but I found that I was limiting myself creatively but I had a epiphany....

..... Maybe doing mask wasn't the area I really wanted to look at. So even though it was a bit of a waste of time, I found which area that I could go down and not dry up on ideas after two goes. I also though that I was limiting myself a little with decided to just going down just the mask area - so yay for that. 

So with that I got on and got started with looking at designing set designs.

I did start with this to be a sort of night and day themed but it became more weather based when I moved to draw the right side of the design - I really liked the wavy-ness at the top of the set and the two big features either side so I think I'll try exploring this a bit more in future designs.

Right this one was a lot more of a day v night and again went with two big features on either side and I really like the twisting and flowing nature that I got around the top - I also designed that either side would have coloured curtain that could be drawn when the performances is over etc.

I tried to get a little asymmetry in this design since I noticed I kept using the square shape - this design wasn't really all that good, what I was going for was like a semi-inspired Phantom of the Oprah design but it didn't work at all. This design is definitely getting shelved.

This design I tried my best to just use a bunch of shapes and try to make a bit of a abstract/cubist piece which I thought looked okay but it didn't wow me all that much.

Purely circus inspired these two ideas - these weren't particularly inspired by the automatic drawings or by the Parade performance but rather the word of Parade, which to me is a grand show that has a lot of performance and theater. So not related to the topic but I still wanted to get these ideas out of my head an onto paper.

First reflection that I didn't really use my automatic drawings as a inspiration - which really was the whole point of this so I will have to keep looking at my automatic drawings so my ideas are translated better.... but for that I have to get better at automatic drawings. So improve that first and then improve in using them in my designs.

I also noticed that with each design I mainly focused on the front part of the stage for no reason but I kept with it since each design was mainly based around the arch/square that framed the stage, but I could make some new designs that weren't based on a traditional square stage.

I was more happier with my drawings after starting set designs and even though maybe not all of them were linked, I'm happy that I found what I wanted to do.

Now what I need to do is some research and experimentation into how colour and shape is used to help guide a viewer around a large set piece and also I could possibly look at travelling plays and how they use the front of a set to describe a performance in such a small area space.