Research and Concept Development
Like in the previous project I started by collecting the images of the existing product. The covers are purely photo based (except for one drawing of Robin on horseback) and is very strongly linked to the TV-Programme "Robin of Sherwood" of which Legend is the soundtrack.
What I've noticed while watching Robin of Sherwood is that the songs are used at very particular times, just like most movies it's not random. I watched bits of the programme, skipping through the majority without sound, to figure out when the songs were used. Some of them were a wee bit hard to find but I got them in the end. I mind-mapped this while watching. As I really want to base the project on the combination of the programme and the music I thought it was very important to have this properly figured out.
I also made visual mind-maps of the different songs, as they all have their own atmospheres and relevant characters from the programme. I included pictures from the programmes, art works and concept based pictures (the trees, which I'll get back to in a moment). From doing this it became clear to me that some of the songs aren't visually particularly important or interesting. It may be better in the long run to visually support five songs and make those really interesting and good instead of doing ten not so good images.
I made a mind-map of my general thoughts on the programme and music. Although at this stage I was very clear on what each song stood for I didn't really have general idea/concept to hold it all together.
I decided to have a look at the song lyrics. I hadn't done this earlier as I wanted to focus on the tv-music connection first. Although some songs hold little content, for example in the first song "Robin, the Hooded Man", is merely repeated throughout the song. When I got to number ten though, "Ancient Forest" I found something quite meaningful and relevant. Here are the lyrics:
Ancient Forest
Came upon an ancient forest
A guiding power that led me there
Walking through the mystic forest
The legend tale of times gone by
Once its whisper in the black night
Reflection deep in wooded lands
A floating mist that circles shadows
A legend tale of times gone by
Giant trees are falling night and day
For many years and ages past
Will they ever share the answer
Of legend tales and times gone by?
Walking through the mystic forest
I'm walking through the mystic forest
They really summed up that the whole story was a reflection of an old myth. While reading the lyrics, I could imagine walking through a forest and having this amazing story of heroism and bravery revealed to be by the trees. I felt that this could be a theme that would hold together all of the elements. I looked at the inividual songs and connected types of trees or tree forms that went with their own themes. "Herne" got an old gnarly oak (Herne orignally showed up first in Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" as a ghost. There is a larger story but it is said that he was hung from an Oak Tree for thievery. That oak still stands at the grounds of Windsor castle.), the oak being a tree connected to the Druids as these trees held a huge amount of knowledge due to their age. (There are naturally many other factors of their Druidic importance but I won't get into that now.) "Scarlet Inside" got a split tree. This song is played when Will Scarlet is throwing one of his tantrums generally due to an argument with Robin or while he is melancholy about his wife who was raped and murdered by the Sheriff's men. I felt that something split or broken revealing it's inner self was relevant to the theme. In this way they all got their own tree related theme. (I haven't made a selection on the most visually interesting songs to focus on yet but will be doing that when I start up this project again.)
Friday, 13th of April
Start of Artwork Atmosphere Sketching
I often have the comment from teachers that I still don't have a style which is uniform across all of my work. I think it's mainly because I like doing so many different things. It generally comes down to relatively realistic acrylic painting or pen line drawings. I've generally kept these two things seperate and have only combined them now and again but not really develloped the combination properly. I really want to focus on doing this so that I have more uniformity in my work. I tried to at least make a start at this on Friday and although it still needs work (obviously) I think it was a good start.
I decided to start on Herne as this was a subject I had tackled before and thought I would be able to focus more on the atmosphere. I started by doing a pen drawing of Herne and then I seperately made four more images: ecoline inked figure colouring, ecoline inked background, acrylic painted figure colouring and acrylic painted background.
I then scanned them all and photoshopped them together. I continued to add more detail and adjust colours in photoshop, still not quite finished with that but good enough for a sketch.
I think it definitely has the right atmosphere due to the colours, lighting and shadows. I also feel this is a good way of combining my skills and love of different materials and digital/photographic work and certainly a good step in the right direction. The colouring of his face still isn't right, something that will need working on for the real images. More detail in the original painting I think might do it, a wee bit too much reliance in the computer in this sketch.
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