Wes Anderson Just This- Abstracted and Wordless Versions...

So due to the way that the Wes Anderson version of 'It's Just This'  was coloured on the computer (to get those lovely colours), i found it interested that when i took away the lines layer in photoshop it created a abstract version of the comic. In the same way that i was explaining before with creating abstract versions this way. I think in this case it is quite effective as you can gage the narrative quite well when left with the text...or at least the tone and the surroundings.

The colours are more pronounced and part of the story telling process when it's like this as well i have found.

ABSTRACTED:

I also thought this story would be a good one to experiment with form by making it wordless. I think the tone and atmosphere still come across quite well. The narrative can still be guessed more or less as nothing really is happening in the narrative anyway.

WORDLESS:

EXPERIMENT: COLOUR: Connotations and abstracting to the absolute further...

'In just a glance, colour defines things in a viewer's mind before they have a chance to interpret words or images. It can even change the meaning of an image or a word entirely.' (Marks, 2006: p9)

Still working with the absolute and abstraction, I've started looking into colour. From research and previous knowledge, different colours have many different meanings. Most people have similar connotations attached to certain colours. 

So it's about the context a lot of the time.

Using research in the context of turning my story 'The Cats's Dead', i've used some common associations of certain colours.

Pale blue: calm, uncertain, underlining sadness

Increasing Grey: sorrow, somber

Pale yellow, nerves, anxious, slight worry

The darker blues: sad, loss

Greeny greys: calm sadness with increasing sadness

Light red: tinge of anger

Dark red: strong feeling, sudden, anger moment...more specifically in the case of this story it is the abrupt statement laced with accusation.

The shades of purple: confusion, slight questioning, worry is present.

Turning to grey: nerves turning to sorrow

I really like the idea of doing this to stories. I'm not sure how well the viewers will get the emotions unless you explained the context, due to the number of connotations each colour can have. But it's an interesting idea non-the-less...

COLOUR CONNOTATIONS: A Thought.
What came first our associations with the colour, take bright green, as 'go' because of it's use representing 'go' or us thinking it was 'go' before. It's a circle. What caused it...?
In some cases it's more obvious like green also being 'the environment/environmental', which makes sense as the physical thing is mostly green.
But with feelings and emotional representations it's a bit more to do with psychology. Where did those preconceptions come from...? I'm going to go completely of point if i look further into this. I just thought it was interesting.

Anyway i think abstraction has gone as far as it should for this project's timescale. When you get to the point of just drawing coloured boxes i think it may be time to move on...

Paths to the Absolute.

Famous abstract painter, Kandinsky, once asked himself 'Speaking of the hidden by means of the hidden. Is this not content?' regarding the point of symbolism. When we view his painting we are 'simultaneously looking at what it is concealing. veiling'. (Golding, 2000: p82)

Applied:
What is more prominent in the narrative in terms of emotion or subject matter.
You know it's symbolism so you are looking for meaning in what is hidden/not shown. Aware of looking for what is hidden for meaning. Strange to hide something that you then know the point will be to look for it...

'Kandinsky...achieved abstraction through the proliferation of imagery, through endowing his pictures with such a multiplicity of images that eventually one image cancels out another and the canvus surface becomes a single, throbbing whole.' (Golding, 2000: p83)

For this picture i used the same codes and shapes that i had come up with for the rest of these related pictures. Red scribbly anger, the orange triangle cat, the dead triangle cat with the sign of death. The blue-ness-overwhelming sadness the comic has to it's theme. The murky confusion in the middle and the smaller orange triangles where the cat is recurrently thought about throughout the narrative. The white running through it is the distraction about the freezer defrosting...


The video to the below is anger turning to confusing. Anger is represented in this case as an imposing red square, while confusion is a swirling murky mess.
By filming this moment, the transition becomes the story. An interesting thought in the way of the form of storytelling.

EXPERIMENT: Abstraction 3...Rise of the Triangle/Narrative through Symbols

So i've looking looking into symbolism and thought the idea of trying to convey a narrative through abstract shapes, using the codes and conventions of symbols. You can see my sketchbook plan and key for this in a pervious post below.
I used boxes/cells, a common structure device associated with comics to hold the picture together and control the narrative/the way the viewer reads the image and is taken through the story.
This is about assigning connotations, whether pre-existing or not, to shapes and colour to create appropriate mood and feeling that suggests what is going on in the narrative.

Like before, i recorded the process of drawing out the story as i am interested in the idea of that too conveying the narrative in a different, possibly clearer, way.
The narrative plays about before the viewer and they can follow as the story and emotions unfold.

Clearest, simplest design. Even this conveys a narrative.

EXPERIMENT: a small abstract test.

So i did a quick test from a thought i had regarding abstraction. That the painting can be read as telling the story or you could record the progress and tell the story that way. The painting isn't good but that wasn't the point.

 The Finished painting.

EXPERIMENT: Abstraction 2...this time it's personal/colour without lines

 So recently when colouring my major project i've been working on layers; one colour and one lines to keep the colours loose. The colour layer always looks interesting and it got me thinking how the lines ground the image and the colour layer without them is abstract in the way that it is harder to read what's going on.

This is a page from my final major project, 4AM. On this page especially, just having the coloured boxes to read you get more of a sense of an atmosphere and time of day from the colours and general shape of what could be (is) landscapes, trees and clouds, without the preconception of knowing the location/item pictured truly looks like.

EXPERIMENT: Abstraction

An experiment in abstraction using a page from my major project 4AM.

Reading the story through the lights in a night club scene. Does it still read the same story? What else does it suggest? Other meanings? Or is it simply more obscure and therefore more interesting? I think it is indeed quite interesting and it's giving me more ideas for where else this could go.

Not much is happening in the the actual comic page. I just wanted to see if you would read the same thing happening or if you understood it differently ion some way because of it.