During my research one of the interesting things that's come up is marine geology, which is essentially plate tectonics. My first thought about this was the theme of resistance, which fits in nicely with the D&AD brief.... I like it as it's not an obvious idea for resistance but it fits really well. Our continents are all slowly but continuously moving due to the earths tectonic plates moving and rubbing against each other. Due to the resistance of the plates rubbing against each other, enormous pressure builds up and when this pressure is suddenly released it results in earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides etc. This could result in my work ending up looking a bit apocalyptic so I need to be careful to not go over the top....
Anyway, here's something with a bit of earthquake destruction in it.

Contact....

Just waiting for a reply now. The National Oceanography Centre in Southampton could be a really useful resource for my project if they will let me visit them.... I'm hoping they might have some sort of image bank that they might give me permission to use, but it's a long shot.

Thinking more about methods of revealing information in my illustrations - everthing we know about anything was unknown until it was discovered, and I think the best way to represent the unknown is through negative space. SO, I’ve been thinking about ways of having hidden meaning in the negative space of my illustrations, i.e. embossing, die-cutting, layering....
As one of the aims of the census is to ascertain what is ‘unknowable’ about marine life in our oceans, this could be represented by having some nonsense elements in my work in order to slightly mislead the viewer, and make them have to look a bit harder to find out the true meaning behind the illustrations.

Tutorial

Todays tutorial was really useful, and I got some positive helpful feedback that should really help me to push the project forwards. One of the main objectives of the CoML is working out what we do know, what we dont know but will know, and what is unknowable. Joel made a good point in that the easiest way to show the unknown, is just a blank piece of paper, and this could then lead to concealment, revealing information through interacting with the work...
Another point that was raised was that I could make the information presented in the CoML more easily understood, to make it more accessible to people who might not otherwise be interested in it which could give my project more focus, which it needs. What I really need to do however, is go and talk to someone involved with the project or Ocean Science in general, show them my work and what I’m about and see if they have any suggestions for direction or focus.

Just trying a couple of things out, sort of inspired by looking at my new book of maps. I'm really not happy with either of them, but they are literally just ideas...

Missioning hard

Every time I go to London I seem to spend more time missioning about from place to place rather than actually chilling at places checking stuff out. Anyway, me and Em did some pretty cool stuff yesterday - first of all we went to Brick Lane to soak up a bit of atmosphere, and found this little exhibition in the Rag Factory - 'Mr Almos' Big Pen Ship'


This is a bit of work in the exhibition from Mitch Blunt; I like his style - it's completely different from mine but it's important to me to like stuff that I would never do. I think it is to everyone isn't it?


So after Brick lane, we chipped over to the new Saatchi Gallery on the Kings Road, which was super inspiring and there was some really cool stuff there. Stupidly, I didn't note down any of the artists names but, I did manage to get some photos - here's a few of the most exciting ones;




After that it was definitely time for a quick visit to Magma, where I found a book of maps. The maps are turning into a bit of a theme, and having looked through the book today the imagery is really inspiring to look at and could be a good feature in my illustrations, especially as there are a few maps of ocean currents, surface winds etc etc.... The linework in some of the maps is incredible, so precise and methodical which suits my project perfectly.

Ocean stuff

Rummaging around in the crazy second-hand bookshop in Winton came up trumps for me today, with a couple of good finds;



The map is of the ocean currents and the worlds isothermal lines and was printed in 1870, and is just fascinating and beautiful to look at. The book is about a subject that is only just really coming into the mainstream national awareness - The Overfishing Problem. E.S. Russell was obviously an enlightened man back in 1942 when the book was printed, and as he says;

“The subject sounds remote; but it is in truth the concern of every citizen; and if the threat of serious reduction of fish stocks in the seas is to be averted, nothing short of immediate international action as soon as the war ends will do it.”