I have ideas but then I can't get them down on paper. Which is stupid because that's what I'm supposed to be here doing a degree for. I think I'm just a bit better at more decorative illustration maybe.. I don't ever feel as though I can get much of a message across and I don't think my mind works in the right way to translate these kinds of messages into drawings.. I'm just losing any kind of belief in myself at the moment. But hey ho.
I've been working in my sketchbook and trying to just get ideas down, even if they're rubbish.
I tried to think about what advertising means to me or what it often suggests. That's when I thought of the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This guy seriously haunted me as a kid, the whole film did actually, it is messed up...
Anyway, the idea of luring kids in with songs, bright colours, the idea of fun, sweeties and lollypops - then capturing them and shoving them into a cage to whisk them away. It's the concept of preying on the innocent minds of children and taking full advantage of their enthusiasm, creativity and curiosity I guess.
From this character, I developed a creepy Ronald McDonald. He's like the biggest icon ever in terms of fast food mascots, and acts as a distraction to kids, covering up the fact that the food is terrible. In my sketchbook he's got arms like a spider and a body like a maggot, with a sweat stained face and nasty teeth. I want him to look as repulsive as the food is.
This could be pushed forward for one of my publication ideas of 'truthful advertising' - showing the true nature or value of the products through the way I draw the mascot.
I sketched out a potential concertina book which could feature truthful mascots and advertising. But again, not tying myself down to any ideas just yet because I need to develop them further. I wanted to keep drawing and generating ideas.
Then I hit a point where I started using collage and realised that this was far more effective in conveying messages. I think I'd been struggling with what kind of tone to use, I don't often work with colour so putting this into my work was also difficult. However, using collage provided me with the images that I could then cut edit and compose in my own way to explain what I was trying to communicate. Plus, it was more fun. I enjoyed the process of finding images and making illustrations from them more interesting at this point.
It inspired MORE ideas for publications. However, I'm gradually running out of time so need to be making decisions about what I'm doing so that I can start the production of the publication.
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