Charlotte Ager, wordless narrative

http://charlotteagerillustration.tumblr.com

Intent -
Observing a place, time after time, and creating a wordless narrative from it...

Content - 

view of the library, the use of masking tape is intuitive. 

waiting at an airport lounge - the fact that not every detail is shown makes us imagine the rest of the scene, we know what seats look like and most of us have sat in departure lounges. A minimalistic approach.

The pastel colours  adds beauty to what I can imagine as the grey concrete city. The people sitting and watching the busy life continue adds a sense of observation and them relaxing.

Observations at a swimming pool. I like her use of simple colours, the white and blue and the technique of using collage. 

dynamic with the diagonal cut of water.

What is it?

A wordless narrative about an everyday activity. 

What does it communicate? 

Charlotte Ager has used only two characters, wordless in speech, But we look at the technique and composition more. Her observational sketches of the one place has restricted her in a way and made the attention focus on the movements and people within the space rather than the space itself. 

It communicates the tranquility of an activity participated alone, and the interaction of another in their own world (the passing of the woman swimmer). The use of black and white at the beginning and end show his routine in life, whilst the colour in the swimming pool shows, as the title suggests, his escape, his meditation and relaxation from the mundane world of black and white.

 reference point: ....

Communication Objectives:  study one place/environment e.g shopping centre, post office, kitchen .... create a wordless narrative describing the beauty of everyday actions.

What do you want people to think or feel when they see it?

To be able to relate to the actions of the character and feel  an appreciation in ordinary actions.

How does it work?

Languages – Mechanisms of communication./Surrealism/ Humour/ nonsense/ Abstraction, decorative, pattern./ metaphor/conceptual/symbolic/ montage/juxtaposition/emulation /documentary, reportage/ interactivity/ realism/ anthropomorphism Aspects of production / Composition/ Viewpoint / people/gesture/expression/performance Character/ / Simplification/stylization / Scale . Narrative structure/sequence/ Time colour / place/context/background / 3d elements, made objects / platform- – Layout.

experiment ...

I chose a seat from above so i could see what they were doing without getting in the way and without the staff noticing me.
Here I sat and noticed the movements at the till, processing money and the card machine. 

I studied the use of the milk steamer (top) as well as some of the customers (bottom).

A study of the atmosphere within the canteen, the strong sunshine is coming through and casting great shadows, adding dramatic lighting.

I put a warm tone for the background to portray the warmth felt by the sun and the happy chattering in the hall. I added light yellow for the strong sunlight in a textured brush. The contrast between peach and teal works well.

Again, playing with warm tones but making it more dramatic. 

 I looked at what the barista and staff were doing, how they interacted with people, what they did in a moments rest.

trying to come up with character design... it is difficult to know how much or little detail to include...

The set up - a sign, till, coffee machine including stacked cups and a hot water boiler.

rough story ... trying to organise paned. I changed the pencil into a blue tone and contrasted it with a mustard. The background colour works well and is effective running out of the boxes.

several hot water boiler frames (top left) and a study of milk. I will add more frames later. 

(1) http://charlotteagerillustration.tumblr.com