Progress.

A handful of collages about inventions solving problems we never thought we had.
Apologies for the shit photos. I'll reshoot when it's light.

PROJECTILE //

Taking my octopus font to 3 dimensions.

When I saw a slide projector at a jumble sale last weekend for just £15, I would have to have been mentally ill not to invest. Okay, it was a bitch to lug back from Berkshire (BERKSHIRE) but so worth it. I bought some slide cases and made my own slides by printing some digitally manipulated characters onto acetate.

The idea behind the shoot was to recreate the appearance of tattoos on the body. Contortion of shapes; the way the ink wraps around the torso and limbs in a seductive manner. The octopus holds much symbolism in Japanese mythology, and my research has pointed me in the direction of a plethora of contemporary tattoos of octopii, which both borrow from ancestors and portray the current trend of anthropomorphous designs.

Another inspiration was the discovery of octopus wrestling, a truly odd sport which originated in Japan and I found through my research of the painter Hokusai. The idea of human and cephalopod grappling on a linoleum floor whilst candy pink symbols flash up on the screen and an adjudicator watches on intently (without blinking, might I add) was simultaneously enthralling and repelling.

I took characters from my 'Fisherman's Wife' font and made a digital collage, focussing on the scale and orientation of the letters. My intention was to create a canvas from which I could extract sections for my slides. I abstracted the characters in order to remove them from the context of a font and replace them in one of far more intrigue. Hugh modelled for me, and we had a pretty successful shoot because of his omnipresent want to help a brother out. Together we positioned his upper body within the projections so as to 'wear' the shapes. I chose to shoot in black and white because the lighting was so dramatic that it created an aura of unworldiness in my living room.

JUMBAWUMBLIN //

Our ace trip to Berkshire for a Sue Ryder jumble sale.

A selection of drawings that I did of Hugh when we went to the Science Museum the other day. It was such a palaver trying to get to South Kensington, we had to take three different methods of public transport. We passed the time by doodling each other (sometimes without looking) in an attempt to strengthen our pen skills, but all that seemed to happen was that we drew attention to the fact we are socially stunted.

Fisherman's Wife

I've finished the entire specimen sheet for my font based on an octopus. I've already given you a little taster, but click on the post title or visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/sean_parker/3508477668/ to see the entire thing, as it wont let me upload it on this damn thing.

CLLGWRKSHP //

For our second Illustration workshop we were required to create three A2 collages; one symmetrical, one asymmetrical and one discordal.

Each had to involve three pictorials of modern architecture, three columns of text, a strapline (headline), three black squares of different sizes and a coloured geometric shape.

The symmetric attempt had to conform to balance, tradition and harmony, so I bided by the rule of three, which represents stability, and aids the centralising of images. This helped me to compose a spread that is both aesthetically pleasing in its linearity and striking mathematical.

When tackling the asymmetric collage, I was wary that it still needed to be rather stylized, save it resembling a mistake. By confronting the white space on the diagonal, it lends towards a more contemporary composition. The unbalance was created by concentrating much of the focus on the bottom third and juxtaposing the angular tesselation with less geometrically intrinsic shapes in the top third.

I'm not even sure about the third collage. Discord is hard to nail when, like me, you think too much.