Final Major Project 

Research

 I started by creating a spider diagram to explore my concept. I started by looking at 'Escapism' because play is a form of escape and once we stop playing in adulthood our escapes change. They become leisure activities such as exercise, sunbathing and reading, but sometimes our escapes can be detrimental to our health such as drugs, gambling and other addictive behaviours. But play is unique to all the others, it engages both mind and body in imaginative and uninhibited games.

My second spider diagram depicts the research processes I could explore for this project. To get a rich body of research I would want to include both primary and secondary sources. Primary sources I will explore are using questionnaires, observing play and leisure in children and adults, and visiting exhibitions, as well as my own personal childhood memories. Secondary sources will include artist inspirations from online, or in books, or film.

Before setting out to research play and artistic responses to it, I created some mood boards to focus on my themes; childhood, escapism, play. The moodboards are vibrant and colourful, containing children at play, fantasy elements and photoshoots, and illustrations.

"A child sees everything in a state of newness... Genius is nothing more or less than childhood regained at will"

-Baudelaire, the painter of modern life (1863)

This quote is the perfect summation of my intentions within this project. I will start by studying artists who also have attempted this philosophy. Artists such as Kandinsky, Klee, Matisse, Picasso, Miro and Dubuffet closely studied and imitated the distorted, spontaneous work of children. They believe that children's work engages the unconscious mind. They were inspired by the easy access children had to their unconscious and attempted to capture their inner child, by unlearning their years of artistic study. I am also inspired by the freedom and expression of children at play, and in their drawings. Drawings are very personal depictions of children's thoughts, emotions and imagination, as they draw the first thing that comes to mind, thus engaging semi-conscious ideas they have.

The effect that transitioning to adulthood, and how our perceptions and behaviours are changed can be observed in this 'Homeroom Exhibition'. 20 artists were asked to re-imagine their childhood drawings, and redraw them.

HomeRoom Exhibition

The difference between the two are drastic and strongly indicate the social learning we absorb as we develop. The adult sketches, whilst significantly more technically advanced, lack the spontaneous elements of the child's work. It appears that the imagination and creativity have not been lost, but the delivery of the ideas have changed. The adults, after being trained, produced risk free images, perhaps working hours over an extended period to create them, with a clear plan and intention of their final result. However the children engage much more with the moment, focusing on the present rather than the final outcome, its about drawing what comes to mind at the time.

Grayson Perry

Grayson Perry is an artist renowned for his vibrant, imaginative ceramic vases. His textiles, designs  and patterns have autobiographical elements, and honest self-expression. His clothes designs are often for 'Claire' his alter ego, and they are playful and uninhibited. From an early age he like to dress in women's clothing and soon realised he was a transvestite.There is a strong element of escapism within his work, his prints convey his inner desires, emotions and fantasies. It is the playful, honest and spontaneous nature of his work with inspires me. His approach to his designs is very childlike, and he is a modern artist who has recaptured his inner child.

Paul Klee

"The most significant work (i have made) until now" - Paul Klee referring to his childhood drawings.

Klee was fascinated by the emotional rawness of his childhood drawings, especially when compared with his post academically trained work. I went to an exhibition of Klee's work because he approached his style in the childlike manner I was interested in doing in my project. In his piece Tent City with Blue River he closely copies the outline of one of his 12 year old son's paintings, in an attempt to capture the juvenile style. He also made toys and hand puppets, including ships, trains and characters. The style is crude and uses an eclectic range  of materials from beef bones, plaster, pigskin and cloth. As I shall be designing a set I am interested in his characters, materials and style for creating these toys.

Lyonel Feininger and Alexander Calder

Feininger and Calder were artists who were also inspired by children, toys and their work. They created little toy model sets. Feininger's Toy Town is like a 3D depiction of one of his paintings, involving characters such as; Priests, Fishermen and German policemen. The toys are out of proportion with oversized chimneys, and crudely carved and made with play-like ease. His toys peak at 1 ft in hieght. 

Calder strongly linked art and play, and it is evident in his work. He made miniature circus performers which were originally displayed within an open suitcase. His characters included; zebras, wire acrobats, lion tamer, sword swallowers, lassoo cowboy, knife thrower. Most of his toys were constructed from metal and wire.

Set Design

After looking at a range of artists who are interested in the themes of play and childhood, I decided to study some set designs in the fashion industry as I will be creating my own set. I visited Oasis in Oxford street because they have playful, elaborate sets within their shop, presenting the clothes. I love the playful colours and almost fairytale sets involving stars, wendy houses and lamposts. With the candy colours and floral prints the atmosphere is sickeningly sweet and really transports you to another world. I find the incorporation of fashion into the sets eg. Denim lampost, an interesting technique in reminding the shopper that the shop is still primarily selling clothes. As I will be making a garment I could consider a similar technique in displaying it rather than using an actual model.

Shona Heath and Tim Walker

Shona Heath is a set designer who has often collaborated on projects with Tim Walker, a fashion photographer. The themes of their collaborations are surreal, abstract and fantasy. They experiment with playing freely with proportions, sizes and shapes to create abstract results. There is a strong playful element to their work as models are often posed as or with toys eg, the doll, giraffe and rabbit. As a result, the line between fantasy and reality is often blurred. This element of their work really interests me, I would like to experiment with the boundaries between reality and fantasy, hopefully incorporating it into my final piece.

Questionnaire

Using inspiration from my research I wanted to start creating characters. I started by conducting some research myself, I created a questionnaire to gain some understanding of toys and the imagination of people when they were children. 

I asked these three questions:

1. What was your favorite toy as a child? Please Draw it from memory
2. Did you have any imaginary friends? Please draw them 
3. Did you make any games up as a child? Can you explain their rules

Results of question 1:

Results from Question 2:

The results to the study were very varied, to my surprise I found that most people did not have imaginary friends, but rather spoke to themselves. Almost everyone however made up games with themselves, their toys and friends (imaginary and real). By getting people to draw their toys and imaginary friends from memory I get a range of sketching styles of varying ability. It would be interesting to base my characters off of sketches, similar to Feiningers Toy Town as a 3D painting.

Children's Sketches

After conducting my questionnaire I have decided I would like to study the sketches of children. The freedom of their drawings, drawing what springs to mind, alot of artists lose this ability when they develop their skills, technique and discipline. I share Klee's view of the significance of children's work, and how through sharpening our techniques we loose the semi-conscious stream of honest imagery that children produce. My next step of the investigation is to study childhood sketches. I asked people to show me childhood self-portraits they had drawn. I chose self-portraits as a control factor to this study, because I wanted to study the style, pencil stroke and technique for now. Fortunately I also found a tea towel my primary school produced with self portraits on. So I contacted some of the people and asked them if I could use their work for my project. This is important because their drawings may be used in the final result so it needs to be consensual.

Finger Puppets

Inspired by Paul Klee puppets I decided to experiment with  creating characters which could potentially be used for my final set. Using the sketches drawn by the participants in my questionnaire I decided to make them into 3D characters. This will give me a chance to experiment with using different materials and overcome the challenges of converting simple 2D designs into 3D models.

For each design I started by using a fine wire to create an outline of the 'sketch'. I used padding and small wire cages to make them 3D. For each design I used different materials to overcome the problems of converting designs to 3D.

For the Rabbit 'Kipperty' I wrapped tissue and tissue paper around wire to create the body. For the beard I used thick string which I coiled around the wire framework.

Final characters include; Qandeel's fish, Matthew's Barbie, Katherine's rabbit kipperty and Bella's bunny. I used newspaper padding to fill out the stomaches, thread to stitch paper together, and a ball of string for Barbie's head. I like the results and think that I have successfully overcome the challenges in this experiment. The results are small but have taught me a lot about materials that I could use. Wire, thread, and string are strong versatile materials, and whilst tissue, and newspaper are good for padding they will not be strong enough to support full size prop. I will have to use stronger materials such as cardboard or Styrofoam.