Self Defined- Development and presentation of final design

Story board for possible animation over the walls of the National Theatre

Initially I thought about just having a trail of pebbles going across the walls of the National Theatre, however I did this story board to illustrate the possibility of transforming the design into an animation. The idea was to have the design projected onto the walls with each pebble coming up one after the other like the trail Hansel and Gretel leave in the woods in order to find their way home. This trail could lead the viewer around the building perhaps to find hidden elements to do with the story to better illustrate its narrative. The projection displaying each pebble consecutively would lead the person in the intended direction showing them where to go to find the next section in the story. As I said earlier this might be a nice way of advertising the play to the public, involving them in playful way with the story, so that they might be encouraged to buy tickets to watch the theatre's performance.

This kind of interactive narrative experience/installation could be applied to other plays shown at the theatre and as the designs will be projected the possibility of the imagery being difficult to remove had been eliminated. Also as the building is grade 1 listed, presenting the surface design as something material that could be fixed on the wall might be futile anyway as sticking something on the building's exterior may not be allowed. At least by projecting the design, it is not permanent and can be altered when the plays inside the theatre change.

Painted pebbles using watercolour to use for the final design.

I liked the way the pebbles turned out because I felt like the deep blues and greens went with the atmosphere 'Hansel and Gretel' and the colours that other artists also envisioned when creating work inspired by story. However I do think that the colours are maybe a bit too intense and there could be more of a contrast in tone or perhaps this could have been applied in more of a subtle way by watering down the colours and using less pigment.

I always seem to do things in extremes and get carried away with the process by trying too hard to illustrate all the shadows I see. How I depict tone and colour in my watercolour paintings is therefore something to work on.

Initial application of pebbles on building

Edited application of pebbles on building, merging the imagery with woodland.

I am not sure if I like this version better that the initial applications of the trail of pebbles on the building however I feel like how this imagery blended with the forest better illustrates the story. The pebbles almost seem to be reflecting what is in the surrounding environment in the story and I like how it adds additional depth to the piece as a whole as the pebbles almost act as a portal into the invented world/narrative of Hansel and Gretel. 

If I were to expand this project further I could make a mock up of an animation that would show the sequence of pebbles as they would appear on the National Theatre walls. I'd also like to be a bit more playful with where they appear, not just showing up on the walls but also the floor outside of the building and under the roofs of the platforms like in the design shown above.