Developmental - Ella Preston UAL Foundation diploma in Design and Media | Ravensbourne University

Though I don't enjoy essay writing as much as creating art, I'm happy with my final essay. I had an idea of what I wanted to say in my essay, but struggled most with writing a titular question. Once I thought of a question, the rest of my essay was much easier to structure and write. I would hope that this essay clearly describes why I think Burning Dreams is an effective photograph.

Speculative Futures

Brief: "Using research methods, either solve or exacerbate a real-world problem, to show a movement of time 10,000 years into the future. Work in a group to show this fantasy timeline through film-making or animation methods only"

We chose to investigate the issue of over-crowding in cities. Cities and urban ares attract large amounts of migration, while there isn't the space to house that many people. Furthermore, many cities are expanding upwards, rather than outwards. We wanted to explore a future where the entirety of the population lives in cities made up of high-rise skyscrapers, while rural areas are neglected and empty.

I storyboarded a scene from a science fiction movie as practice for our animated film. I chose Rey's opening scene in Star Wars: The Force Awakens because it introduces the character entirely through her setting and actions, without using any dialogue. I also found that this scene uses a variety of shot types, including many extreme wide shots.

Research into how people will look in future can help inform our character designs.

I organised the group's research into the categories "What's it like inside the city?", "What's it like outside the city?" and "Why does the city exist?". This is so all our research could be put into context and easily referred back to. It also allowed us to start fleshing out our future more.

I compiled a selection of photos of dense cities from around the world that could provide inspiration for our film: Hong Kong has the most skyscrapers in the world, at 552 (Wikipedia Contributors, 2020). Dubai and Shenzen are both surrounded by contrasting environments, which is similar to our future. Chicago and Shanghai both have interesting silhouettes or architecture, which could be useful to take inspiration from.

For the outskirts of this city, I did visual research of places that have been overtaken by nature. Although this may not be so prominent in our film, I wanted to make sure it was realistically designed.

While researching, I discovered Houtouwan, a village in an island off China, that has been completely overrun with plantlife. "Houtouwan was once a prosperous fishing village, with a 1980s population of more than 3,000 residents. However, because of its remote and hard-to-access location, its residents started to move out in the ’90s. In 2002, the village was officially depopulated" (M H Wong, 2022) As well as providing a good visual resource, it also shows how the events of our film (rural areas becoming completely depopulated) are actually plausible, therefore making our future seem more realistic.

I disagree with some of the images in Sav's moodboard because I feel that they have techno Orientalist aspects (see below notes) like Japanese lettering and neon signs. I would hope to take inspiration of the buildings and packed cities from the photos for our film, not those features.

Framing our World

• It's Earth 10,000 years into the future but the entire population is living in packed cities, the rest of the world is uninhabited (by people)
• The cities consist of many tall skyscrapers. They're in such close proximity that people can quickly travel between buildings but there isn't much outdoor/green space.
• The people are living in very cramped conditions, since there isn't enough space to adequately accommodate everyone in the world
• Jobs are primarily in the secondary, tertiary or quaternary sector. Any food production/agriculture must happen at the base of the skyscrapers.
• The levels of the skyscrapers are divided by class: working class live at the bottom, so that they're near to their jobs. Poorer people live in the top of the towers, because the air quality is worse and they can't afford any better. The rich, upper class lives in the middle of the towers, as there are the best travel links to other cities there?
• Buildings are also organised by use, i.e. residential skyscrapers, corporate skyscrapers, school skyscrapers, etc.
• Even though the city's building's are close together, it takes a while to travel anywhere due to the amount of people.
• Outside of the cities is abandoned, everyone migrated to urban areas. Any settlements have been consumed by plant-life.
• This has also caused wildlife populations to boom, so the rest of the world has many more animals than today.

Culture & Inhabitants

• Inhabitants of the city are humans. They're pale and malnourished, due to a lack of fresh air and long periods of time spent indoors.
• Everyone is used to spending time with other people constantly. Since people are rarely alone, they're more reliant on company.
• Abundance of office jobs, jobs in the tertiary sector.
• There are strong class systems.
• Some people prefer to live in the city, others would rather start to inhabit rural areas but are unable to, due to the lack of income there.
• Arguments over space - should it be evenly distributed per person or should the rich be able to buy larger spaces to live in?

Characters

• The main character is of the working class, who lives near the top of the tower and travels down for work.
• They work in accounting and have lots of indoor plants in their home.

Other people's ideas

• The rich have many more opportunities and are able to influence the government; they have more power over the poor.
• The plantlife has become so overgrown that people can't leave the city, the environment outside is too harsh
• The government is composed of one person from each floor, to ensure that it's more evenly representative, however the rich hold more power.
• Buildings are made from triangles or hexagons, as they're the strongest shapes and will be better for tall structures.
• Since fossil fuels will have run out in 10,000 years, these cities will be powered by solar panels on the roofs
• Technology isn't as common because it could pose a fire risk, and this would be more damaging when everyone lives in the same building. To prevent this, specific buildings are designated for technology use.

Summary

Over time, cities became more attractive places to live, and rural areas went into decline as everyone migrated away from them. To protect the natural environment and prevent "urban sprawl", governments decided to take inspiration from England's Green Belt initiative and start expanding cities upwards, rather than outwards. 10,000 years later, this has lead to the entire world's population living in cities that are spread out across the world. The cities are made up of many skyscrapers and have developed their own class systems, with rich people living at the top of towers and poor people at the bottom. Outside of the cities, the land has become so overgrown with plants that it's now inhospitable, with animals repopulating the area.

Parallax Animation

In animation, a parallax is when elements of a background move at different speeds depending on their perspective. Eg: if a camera moves parallel to the landscape, objects closer will appear to move faster than objects further away. Although, the examples we looked at were horizontal, I decided to create an animation with vertical movement - this is so I could challenge myself, while also linking my animation to the project. I wanted the animation to have the effect of an endless skyscraper, similar to the ones in our city.

Using Illustrator, I created this image to base my animation off. I used rectangles to design the buildings, so that they would be easy to animate, while making the background slightly more detailed.

Above is my first attempt at creating the animation using After Effects. I thought it was unclear that the rectangles were separate buildings in the foreground and background, and it looked like they were attached. I reorganised the composition of my piece to resolve this. I also thought the animation was too short.

For this animation, I had adjusted the skyscrapers so that they were more obviously multiple buildings. I also edited the Illustrator file so that I could make the animation longer. I think my efforts were successful and I'm happy with the outcome, but to improve my animation I would make it loop.

Concept Art

Our character designs are based on the idea that the people in this city don't go outside much, and are very used to living in cramped conditions.

I wanted to imagine how the world would look from the windows of different levels of the skyscrapers; the top of the skyscrapers have the most idyllic view, as they're occupied by the upper class. The middle levels are smothered by clouds and therefore have the most smog and air pollution, so this is where more poor/lower class people are occupied. I initially thought the view from the bottom of the tower would be of the wild nature outside the city, but I later realised that that would only be visible from the outskirts of the city, and a view

I drew this picture of the city from a side view so I could more easily visualise how tall it would be - the skyscrapers stretch above the clouds and into the sky. The pencil sketch shows the way the buildings are linked through lots of bridges in more detail. I also drew a diagram of the city from above, showing the different areas within it: the centre of the city is where the richest people live, it has the tallest, largest buildings and best travel links. Surrounding that is where the majority of people live and the city outskirts would be more agricultural or industrial land. Since I drew this to visualise the different layers of the city, it's not accurate - the city is more likely to be an odd shape than perfectly round and the buildings themselves would probably be more random and packed than the way I drew them.

In these images, the environment surrounding the city is quite wet and swampy due to sea level rise, which would also have occurred in the future. The second picture shows various living conditions - both shopping areas and bedrooms are built to accommodate many people. The city's layout was supposed to be very interconnected, with different buildings for different activities and travel links between them. We also experimented with the idea of making the buildings hexagonal, since hexagons are the strongest shape.

Storyboarding

For the story for our film, we decided to do a "slice of life" approach, following a resident in their day to day life around the city. My initial thought was to have a character escape the city and go into the wilderness, but my group and I agreed this would take away from the city itself and themes of overpopulation. Instead, our main character wanders through the city in search of a place without anyone to bother them, which proves challenging, since there are so many people. We chose this plotline because it reinforces ideas about overpopulation while showing off different aspects of our city.

Above we storyboarded a few rough ideas for scenes or things that could happen in the film then used these to build a list of plot-points. For instance, an elevator scene was something all our storyboards had in common, so this was a large plot point for our final film. The intro was also taken from my initial storyboard, while the ending was taken from Rosie's, for example.

Our final storyline:

• Scene 1: the main character wakes up to a room surrounded by people. Irritated, they get up and leave.
• Scene 2: the character steps into a lift full of people and gets off on a floor that appears to be an indoor market/shopping district. They seem curious at first but after being jostled by a large crowd, they quickly retreat to the lift.
• Scene 3: a montage of the lift door opening on various floors, such as a farm and hospital waiting room. This serves to show off the different areas of our city.
• Scene 4: the character finally finds an empty room, but it's from a very rich area of the city. They get turned away by a guard for being too lower class. We had the idea to give characters badges showing what number floor they live on, and the higher the number, the higher the status.
• Scene 5: just as the character becomes disheartened, the lift takes them too a deserted tunnel, where they sit and look out the window. We initially planned to have them look sad but instead wanted them to look more relieved, giving the film a more hopeful ending.

Character

We played Dungeons and Dragons as a group as practice for writing characters and seeing how they react when placed in different situations. Although the writing for character part was difficult (all our characters were too neutral), it did help us flesh out our world, with facts and figures about our city.

This character was developed from Sam's previous design, as we felt the simplistic style would be easier to animate. Based on our research of what happens when people don't go outside, the character has a sickly, pale skin tone and bags under their eyes due to a lack Vitamin D. Their hair tuft gives them a distinguishing feature without being too difficult to animate. We also felt that they should wear quite cool, light clothes due to the global warming that would have occurred in the future.

Before animating, I did a few quick sketches of our character so that I would be familiar with drawing them.

Animating Our Film

We then divided the scenes from the storyboard into our group, so everyone would be animating. Me, Rosie and Sam all did character animation while Sav did the complex backgrounds. We decided as a group for the animation style to be quite rough, so that we wouldn't have to spend lots of time refining it and could instead focus on telling the story. We also planned to all use the same art style when animating, so that the finished film would be consistent to watch.

Shot 16 ended up being cut due to time constraints. Luckily I don't think this impacted the overall story very much.

The most complex scene I had to animate involved the character walking down a corridor, towards the camera. I did this rough animation of a stick man walking beforehand so that I would have practice of the walking motion.

Here I compiled all the scenes I animated myself (cut to black indicates where someone else's animation would go) As well as animating, I also drew a few backgrounds because I finished the animation early.

Animation Workshop

To practice drawing people, I did these quick sketches of people in various positions. I focused on the shapes they were made up of, rather that drawing details. This activity was interesting to me because I found the more dynamic poses actually easier than ones with people just standing there.

As well as humans, I practiced drawing animals with these quick sketches of cats. I'm most proud of the kitten in the first picture.

Here I did a drawing exercise for snakes where you sketch out circles for the body. The size of the circles vary depending on how close that part of the snake is to the viewer, and afterwards, you outline the circles to finish the drawing. This exercise was meant to provide practice at drawing tube shapes however I didn't find it very useful because the circles' sizes also vary depending in the width of the snake, as well as the perspective.

Here I imagined a box from different perspectives to draw (I drew a view from above, below and the side) I then drew a horizontal line and used the previous box drawings to help me imagine a city skyline. I drew the same image from a high angle and a low angle, which I am pleased with.

For this activity, I had to choose some illustrations that inspired me, because of their style or content, and sketched out the shapes in them. I chose a character portrait (fanart of Marge Simpson by @sangseong05 (twitter)) and a landscape illustration (from Don't Call Me Grumpycorn! by Sarah McIntyre) because they're both quite cartoony in style and very colourful. I found this activity quite interesting - I'm often drawn to images because of their bright colours so focusing on the shapes and compositions of these drawings was an unusual activity for me, which I enjoyed. I then did a sketch combining the two illustrations, which I'm happy with.

To practice dynamic posing, I took photos with myself, Alice, Connor and Sam (pictured above) then used these pictures as reference for a storyboard. In order to connect these photos, I made my storyboard a quick snapshot in which a character tracks down another character so that they can fight them and steal something important from them. Since the storyboard had to be 6 frames, I left the ending open. To extend this, I then drew over frame 3 in red, to show the motion of the punch in more detail. I think my outcome was successful because I was not expecting to find a way to relate all the photos into a cohesive story, but I did.

Final Film

We chose to only add sound effects rather than music to our film; city sound effects and large crowds chatting can be heard throughout the film to reinforce how busy everywhere is. This noise abruptly cuts off when the character reaches the rich area, making the difference in business much more noticeable. Rosie did the sound design and editing.

Here I took 3 images that inspire me for their colours and used the eyedropper tool to create colour palettes for them. This is so I could easily see the kinds of colour they use and take inspiration from it for my own brand. The images I chose all use vibrant, rainbow colours because they're what I find most interesting to look at.

This is the colour palette I chose for my brand. I found this task difficult because as much as I love bright colours, my own art is not that colourful. Because of this, I didn't want my brand palette to be too vibrant, otherwise it would be inconsistent with my art. I chose the pale blues because they're my favourite colours and blue has positive, joyful connotations. I chose purple because of what my classmate said, grey to keep the overall palette from being very vibrant and yellow to make sure it wasn't too cold.

I wanted my logo design to be a penguin on a scooter. This is inspired by the username for my art accounts on social media "scooterpengie", as I wanted to reference my social media presence without outright plugging my accounts. I also think this visual is simple but catchy, and encapsulates the cheerful vibe of my art. However, I'm unsure of what I want my brand name to be - I chose "Ella Preston Designs" as a default for now, so I could experiment with fonts and text placements

Final Portfolio

Above includes different ideas on how I can make my work inclusive to a wider audience.

Video we watched on the Dangers of the Single Story, and how you should hear about all aspects of a topic rather than one, as that will lead to large generalisations and stereotyping.

Planning

I listed places where people congregate then separated them into the ones that were specific to me and the ones that were more general. I then mindmapped my ideas, so I could see how these spaces I have visited were or weren't inclusive. I chose to further investigate the Ravensbourne crochet society, because the people there seem like they'd be helpful and it's the only group that I'm actually a part of. I also think it would be interesting to look at the street corner where my sister and her friends congregate, because it's a space that isn't actually meant for socialising. I think it would be more effective to interview people I had some relation to, as strangers may be less willing to spend time being interviewed.

I wrote some generic questions that could be used in an interview about the space. As well as using more direct questions like "do you know if anyone is excluded from this space?", I also wanted to get a sense of the group's connection to the space, and why they choose to spend time there. I considered using the question "What kinds of people do you usually see in this space?" to get an idea of the demographics for this space, but this question may force the interviewee to make assumptions or generalisations about the people they see, which is unethical, so I chose not to include it.

I took the above photos to experiment, in preparation for my final photo. Through these photos, I realised that I prefer to shoot with light to the side of the subject, as I think this makes the photo less flat and more interesting. For the photos of the rooms, I tried shooting from a low angle so that the photos would feel more immersive, as if the viewer was in the space. Photography is not one of my strengths so I found this practise useful.

Interviews and Photography

I interviewed my sister and her friends while they stood on their street corner. I thought basing my project on this space would provide me with an interesting new angle, since a street corner is a space that isn't actually meant to be used as a place for social gatherings. However, I found from my interview that by making a place inclusive to literally everyone, it has become inclusive to no one, since the people who do hang around there receive judgement from passers by.

• The street corner is a public space, meaning it's open to anyone.
• It's evidently inviting enough that teenagers feel comfortable using it as a place to socialise after school
• However teenagers using this space actually makes it less inclusive to others, since they may be wary of large groups of teenagers hanging around on the street.
• Although this could be due to negative connotations around loitering teenagers
• This interview could show how when you don't use a space for its intended purpose, it becomes less inclusive.
• However, I also think it's interesting to see how a small group turned a space that wasn't built for any community into somewhere for socialising

Since my participants didn't want to be photographed, I instead took photos of the street corner itself. Someone in the interview actually mentioned that the corner gets good sunlight, so I took my photos when the sun was out.

I found my interview interesting because I didn't get what I was expecting. I wanted to discuss the space as a meeting place for crochet society, but since that area is also used for eating lunch, my interviewees ended up discussing it in a more general way - the overall opinion on the space was that it wasn't inclusive because it didn't have enough room for everyone to eat lunch in.

• The 4th floor in Ravensbourne is not inclusive because it doesn't have enough space for everyone to eat lunch there
• This is bad because its main purpose is to provide a lunch area for students
• Other than this it does make a good space for students to socialise in

I found it quite difficult photographing Ravensbourne in a way that looked interesting and original, so I tried to get around this by shooting close up details or using more interesting angles. Overall I'm not entirely happy with these photos.

Though both my interviews were interesting, I'm not sure either were entirely successful. This may be due to my questions, and in future I'll think more about what kind of information I want to get from people before interviewing them.

Evaluative Paragraph

Having done two interviews, I decided to choose the Street corner interview to use in my zine spread. This is because I think it's a more unusual space to investigate, and I also think my photos of the street were more successful.

I thought looking at a space that wasn't meant to be congregated in but has become one regardless would be a unique perspective to investigate, so I interviewed a group of teenagers who hang out on a street corner on their way home from school. Street corners are public, and therefore inclusive to literally everyone, which made this one an inviting place for my interviewees. However, by using this space to socialise, passers-by can actually feel uncomfortable, making the street consequently less inclusive. Therefore I discovered how not using a space for its intended purpose can actually affect its inclusivity, for the better or the worse.

My Manifesto

I often use my art as a means of escapism and for this reason I believe in creating stories with positive messages like hope and redemption. In my opinion, real life is often quite depressing or dull so why would I want to see those kinds of things in my art too? I prefer it to be more uplifting. In the context of the media, I believe stories and characters should be more diverse and representative of minorities. As well as ensuring all people feel heard and respected, I think this will help create stories that are also more interesting.

I think it’s important that I show original ideas in my work. Being someone who watches a lot of TV shows and cartoons, I’m always inspired by what I see, but I also notice what kind of stories aren’t being presented. I would hope that my ideas are more unique and interesting.

My work is important to me because it’s mine. When I’m passionate about what I’m creating, it improves the quality of my work and in turn makes me care more about it. I try to create work that I’m proud of, as this will make it more important to me.

My work is generally very lighthearted, I want people to feel happy when they see it and I often try to incorporate comedy in my work. I have previously touched on more topical issues in my work, but even then, I try to do it in a quite subtle, sensitive way so that my work can be enjoyed by a wider audience.

Although I like using a range of media, my main medium is digital art – this is so I don’t have to worry about using excessive amounts of paper or running out pens. However, drawing digitally does require electricity which in some ways makes it less sustainable. During my FMP I will continue this practice, but I won’t produce any work that’s very wasteful.

While I’m currently unsure on what I’ll make for my Final Major Project, I do know that I want to make something narrative based, either in the form of an animated short or a book. I’ll make sure to use a diverse range of characters and try to avoid overused tropes.

Final Zine Spread

When editing my photo, I mainly wanted to make the photo less yellow and give it a more grainy texture.

For my outcome, I wanted to make a 3D model using cardboard. Though the figures themselves would be 2D cardboard cut-outs, I planned on arranging them in a way that added perspective: in the above drawings I colour coded the background layer yellow, the midground layer blue and the foreground layer red. Although I think the bottom design utilizes my chosen media more, by having the dogs visible through the archway, I worried that that would be too difficult to see in practise. I chose to create the design at the top because I think the composition is more striking - placing the corgi front and centre immediately catches the viewer's eye.

Final Outcome

I chose a primary colour palette for this piece, taking inspiration from Banksy's Monkey Queen and the Union Jack flag. However, I coloured the corgi yellow, since yellow is not in the British flag, to emphasise its exclusion from the rule of law and therefore British values. I also drew Buckingham Palace in yellow in the background so that the connection to the monarchy was slightly more obvious.

I'm very happy with how this piece turned out. It has a very whimsical look that the viewer would hopefully find funny, which was my intention. I wanted to make something that draws attention to the fact the Royals are above the law without being outright insulting to them, and I think this piece achieves this. I also think the visuals can be enjoyed on their own, without the viewer needing to know the context behind the piece, which is something I'm proud of. I like the way the black outline on the characters gives them a cartoon-y effect, which juxtaposes the fact that the piece is actually 3D. Buckingham Palace is quite hard to see in the background, since it stretches around the sides of the building but I think this also works well.

I think this outcome is unique because it uses my art style and manages to criticise the British monarchy in a non-confrontational way.

Energy

Project Brief: "Using modes of testing and creation, respond to the word 'Energy' Your response must include a 1 minute soundtrack made from gathered or created sounds, alongside an animated or filmed music visualiser that loops."

Research

"Energy is defined as:

1. a) dynamic quality; narrative energy, (b) the capacity of acting or being active; intellectual energy, (c) a usually positive spiritual force; the energy flowing through all people
2. vigorous exertion of power; investing time and energy
3. a fundamental entity of nature that is transferred between parts of a system in the production of physical change within the system and usually regarded as the capacity for doing work
4. usable power (such as heat or electricity) also: the resources for producing such power"

(Merriam-Webster, 2019)

I decided to represent energy as "a usually positive spiritual force" (Merriam-Webster, 2019) in my project because this was the idea I had the strongest connection with - I was immediately reminded of the Force in Star Wars, which was described as "an energy" that connects all things and brings balance. (The Last Jedi, 2017)

To help refine my ideas, I found a list of adjectives used to describe sound and ticked off the ones I thought would describe the sound of energy. From this activity, I realised I wanted m soundtrack to be overall calm and a little melodic, but with parts that are more dramatic and pulsating.

I also wanted to use a part of The LEGO Movie's soundtrack as inspiration because it sounds how I would imagine energy to sound in places; at 2:50 to 3:25 in particular. The mid-tone is a solid chord that sounds almost eerie, with higher, electronic sounding pips occurring systematically over the top. Though this is music and therefore more tuneful than what I will create, I still think the technique would be effective to take inspiration from.

As a group, Alice, Chili and I went and recorded various sounds as practice for our final outcome. We struggled using the recorder at first (that's why the first few files are so quiet) but quickly improved at recording. I enjoyed this task, and may use some of the recordings in my soundtrack.

Sound Design

For my soundtrack, I tried to use mostly primary recordings. I recorded my laptop fan, a slinky, myself clicking and used the Ravensbourne ambiance from our previous recordings, but used a found recording for the primary note in my soundtrack. I tried to make the sound quite muffled and echoing - this was also inspired by the sound design in The Last Jedi; when two of the characters communicate through the force, their voices echo and outside sounds become more muted. I tried to use the slinky and clicking sounds to create the pulsating sound effect I wanted.

As can be seen above, I used the students chatting (yellow track) and laptop fan sounds (dark green track) as continuous noises that run throughout my soundtrack. The music note (magenta track) is also continuous but I put a key change (blue track) around halfway through to keep the track from becoming repetitive. I then put in slinky and clicking noises (purple and green tracks) sporadically throughout the soundtrack, to diversify and add more detail to it.

Animation - Music Visualiser

I decided to animate a looping gif that would play alongside my audio.

Above was my initial idea. I thought it would be interesting to have particles travelling towards the viewer. I chose not to continue with this idea because I thought the visuals were too exciting and action-filled, whereas I wanted the tone of my animation to be more calm and eerie, to match my sound.

For this idea, I used a similar concept to my previous animation, with a particle moving towards the foreground. However, this time I had the particle spread out across the screen, as this feels more calm.

The colours and shapes in this animation are based on what you see when you close your eyes. This is because energy is not a physical thing you can see. In the final film, I put grainy filters over the animation, so that its texture would match the audio. I also chose to use frame by frame animation because I wanted it to look less smooth and more flickery. The cyan blobs in my animation represent the energy of different things, and when one spreads out across the screen, this is meant to suggest being immersed in something's energy; this concept was also taken from Star Wars and how the characters use the Force.

Final Outcome

(Note: YouTube has deteriorated the video's quality)

Overall I'm quite happy with my final outcome. I enjoyed recording all the sounds myself and this is something I would like to do more of in future. I think the soundtrack and the visuals compliment each other well - at times they synchronise and the slinky seems like a sound effect for the pulsing circles. I added the clicking noise at the end to prevent the soundtrack from being too monotonous but I'm not sure if it fits the rest on the audio. To improve, I think my soundtrack could be more diverse, with a larger range of sounds and noises happening in it.

My goal with this project was to experiment with bringing some of my interests into my work, but without making the reference obvious to listeners. My soundtrack is unique because it uses primarily sounds that I recorded myself. I wanted to practice creating ambiance through sound design with this project and since my strength is in animating, I decided to develop my animations by adding more texture to them.

Lumen Printing

For my lumen print, I tried to find translucent objects that related to my ideas about energy. Since the energy I'm focusing on represents life, death and balance, the objects I chose used mostly plant based imagery (the flowery pouch and crochet square). I thought the dandelion clock in resin suggests these ideas well because it's something that was once alive but is now dead and being preserved in resin. I also added some gemstones because some people believe these have energy.