My 5 random words were: Raw Sienna / Ted Hughes / Atlantis / Stalinism / 1 Billion
After mind maping and researching each word, I started to explore/draw connections between the words
and develop a concept for each of the montages as follows:
MONTAGE 1 - The Colour Wheel
Raw Sienna - A warm sun; an extract from a step by step landscape painting
Stalinism - The red colour of the communist flag, also commonly used on Russian's communist posters/propaganda
Ted Hughes - Purple heather on the Yorkshire hills, Ted Hughes' home and great source of inspiration
Atlantis - An artist's blue underwater scene of Atlantis, The Lost Continent
1 Billion – Green, the colour of greed, represented by a 'Money tree’.
MONTAGE 2 - Ted Hughes' poem 'Crow Blacker than ever'
"When God, disgusted with man, Turned towards heaven. And man, disgusted with God, Turned towards Eve,
Things looked like falling apart. But Crow . Crow nailed them together, Nailing Heaven and earth together... ".
Here we have the crow illustration used on the cover of Ted Hughes' book with a picture of Atlantis inside it, which according to some, was used by Plato to illustrate how a refined and elegant society can be destroyed in a moment by jealous Gods. The 1 billion dollar note and picture of Stalin were used to illustrate man’s greed for money and power. Then, an image of Limonite sand,
where Raw Sienna pigment can be found, was used to illustrate Earth (against Heaven).
Things looked like falling apart. But Crow . Crow nailed them together, Nailing Heaven and earth together... ".
Here we have the crow illustration used on the cover of Ted Hughes' book with a picture of Atlantis inside it, which according to some, was used by Plato to illustrate how a refined and elegant society can be destroyed in a moment by jealous Gods. The 1 billion dollar note and picture of Stalin were used to illustrate man’s greed for money and power. Then, an image of Limonite sand,
where Raw Sienna pigment can be found, was used to illustrate Earth (against Heaven).
MONTAGE 3 - An Utopian concept
All of the five words were, and/or started with, beautiful, perfect, and/or idyllic visions.
Also, in my research for the ‘1 Billion’ number I found several campaigns such as '1 Billion Hungry', a campaign to end world hunger
and '1 Billion Rising', a campaign to end violence against women.
I started with the 'Motherland’ iconic Soviet poster image but changed the Red Army’s manifest she is holding in one hand with a transcript of Plato’s Timaeus and Critias, which comprises an account of the rise and fall of Atlantis, the perfect civilisation. On her other hand she is holding a placard, which has been cropped from a water campaign poster. Iron Man, a Ted Hughes’ character who saves the world
when a terrible monster from outer space threatens to destroy the planet also makes an appearance
and the whole montage design is finished using Raw Sienna tones.
MONTAGE 4 - Through the Window
The main inspiration for this montage came from several images I came across in my research
where the observer looks at something trough (or framed by) something else. I also wanted to experiment with a certain Photoshop text-driven technique where you can get a piece of text to wrap around the contours of a face.
For this montage, I used one of Ted Hughes’ poems and a young picture of him and combined all other elements onto the view through the window. There, we can see an old painting of Atlantis, a picture of Lascaux cave painting, where Raw Sienna pigments were used, a picture of Stalins’ Solovetsky Islands labour camp prisoners and also a 1 billion-pixel pictures send from NASA’S Curiosity on Mars.
MONTAGE 5 - Time Travel
Another concept/pattern I visualised with these words involved the dates of important events in a kind of spiral time line
and quite a few quotes and formulas, which made me think of time traveling.
In my research I also came across some fantastic collages depicting some weird and wonderful old science fiction style images,
mostly using detailed sketching techniques, and my favourite book title (ever), which also inspired this montage.
I wanted this to be a simple composition, reflecting time and movement. I started with the diagonal lines from the communist flag,
the robot from Ted Hughes’ Iron Man book and the mathematical graphic representation of 1 Billion.
After some experimentation, I also included an excerpt from Plato’s Timaeus and Critias where he describes Atlantis,
a quote from Stalin and the generic formula for Iron Oxide and Manganese oxide, found in Sienna clay.
