Monster Collage
I’ve feeling just a little lucky and a whole lot of grateful to have been commissioned to create a puppet film for schools, which coincided, neatly, with the third national lockdown in the UK starting. I’m relieved to be able to relax and escape what’s happening around the world (just a little bit) while making something sweet and puppety. If I’m stuck at home I need to be working on something, otherwise I can easily start to feel frustrated and isolated. I’ve decided this is a good project to document my process with, just in case it’s interesting!
What I know so far is that this film is going to be populated by monster puppets and I wanted to try something a little different when designing them. I’ve been pretty inspired by “writer who draws” Austin Kleon lately so I decided to have a go at collage as a starting point. So, instead of sitting down and drawing some ideas of monsters, I grabbed some old magazines and impulsed bought a CBeebies Art magazine.
As I sat down and flicked through, I found myself drawn to photos that had bright colours, textures and organic material.
I ended up cutting out a lot of sequin dresses and other wintery clothing (luckily left over from Christmas magazines!) that looked like they felt chunky and fuzzy. I could imagine how they felt.
I think this might be a good thing to focus on when I go into the next stage of puppet design. To make puppets you can imagine feeling. Already it’s feeling a bit poetic and hopefully that will draw children in a little closer to the story.
This is something I would have never have discovered from my usual designing process. Usually I’m more concerned with the puppets joints or any mechanism I want to add.
Once I had my cut out, I took a blank piece of A3 card and started glueing bits together, turning pictures upside down and embellishing them with googly eyes and stickers. All while trying to find bodies, legs, wings, horns and faces amongst the randomness.
I think I’m gradually finding the shapes I want to use, the colours and proportions. I sometimes don’t give myself the luxury just to have fun and play, to be led by colour and texture. I usually want to get into the practical side first, I want to get the puppets done quickly. My brain wants to do the hard work as soon as possible and get it out of the way. It feels sometimes that the creative process needs stress at the start to get going and it needs to get done now!
But this different approach, simple as it is, has given me a new perspective and it has slowed me down. I can just enjoy the process of finding things my brain seems to like without immediately asking if it will work or jumping into the next step . If anything, this feels like a step back but one that has let me see all the resources and ideas I can access, which I can gradually start to gather. I feel like this simple change in designing is letting my whole practice breathe.
I think one lessons to take from 2020 was a need to slow down, take time and be more mindful with my creative process. I’m glad to be taking this thinking into 2021
