This post will highlight the exploration of story structures and their connection with shape and reaction. In order to clarify the meaning of narrative illustration, I must define each term on their own.
The word narrative as described by Seymour Chatman means both the activity of telling-to (discourse) and what is told (story). In my work, the discourse of a story is told through the artefact. The stories told are the illustrations "on or around" the artefact. The visual language on the artefact will solely be illustrations, my definition of illustration is mark-making with intent to communicate a message. This covers how I define narrative illustration, which is when you mark-make to intend a narrative (both discourse and story).
Why stories are important:
For myself, the importance of stories is a way to communicate, resolve problems, learn values and review topical issues. The theme of my stories leans towards a community or relationships that things and people have. When critically reviewing from an autoethnographic perspective, I have found that the majority of stories told are spoken word. Only through the use of social media have these stories been captured in an image, or an explanation through drawings. From my Arabic heritage, most storytelling is in a communal setting and the words I understood would paint the stage. I only found the need to illustrate a story when I did not understand the subject, which is then transferred from Arabic to English (my dominant language).
Stories can be found in all sorts of shapes and sizes. A traditional story could be written, drawn or verbally spoken. With new technology, the digital world has enhanced our senses through music in film, or interactivity in virtual reality. These stories can be long or short, depending on the size of the book or the length of the film etc.
In my experience, wordless picture books/graphic novels and wordless interactive experiences have been the most interesting due to the language barrier. Virtual reality and picture books (wordless) are the best to share with other people because each viewer is likely to have different interpretations when viewing them.
Story research:
When testing these panels on 2 participants, I used 2 methods: The first was to place all the images in a square format, two at the top and two on the bottom. Then ask the participant to reorder the panels in a way that makes sense to them, then ask for them to verbally retell the story. This is the first instance where multiple choices changed the story.
The second method is to have all the panels face down, then different from the first method, the participant is asked to produce a story from the order they flipped the cards. This brought forward multiple endings.
Whilst reviewing Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, he talks about how the panel can represent the past, present and future. Depending on what panel you look at and when you can control time. This technique works with the 4 panels and it continued to work when the panels were reordered.
During a collaborative module, the lighthouse was simply the main part of an art piece for composition and story. My collaborator experimented with Unity on PC then created a spine mechanism that animated the lighthouse to become his own character, which later became Larry the lighthouse.
The current lighthouse narratives are either based on the lighthouse as a character (Larry) or the lighthouse as a setting of a story. The lighthouse has been a metaphorical symbol for communication.
Larry the lighthouse illustrated animated
Larry as a character progressed my research into character design. A lecturer pointed me in the direction of the Flour sack experiment that Disney uses to train their animators in the initial stages of character development. https://twitter.com/EtheringtonBros/status/948949174963310592
The lighthouse as a character does not work with the artefact because while visually exploring the shape, the lighthouse is too static. Whereas the Cat and Crow can go anywhere. The process behind the Cat and Crow narrative allowed me to practice my illustrations skill. The exploration of characters in a story has taken different forms. Starting with humans to objects (Lighthouse), then from this to animals. This is due to the exploration of the artefact and adapting to the shape itself. It also allows me to show emotion easier if the character is relatable.
The "hide and seek" story acts as a playful way to practice my illustration, as well as a visual metaphor for the user to participate in finding the cat and crow themselves. Because Cats and Crows are natural enemies, finding the ending adds a little mystery to what happens to each character.
Introduction of Cat and Crow
As stated in a previous blog post, colour is an important tool to capture a mood and helps the navigation in a story. (For more information on colour theory and materials see this post: https://maryamadbrown.wixsite.com/mermm4de/post/ma-colour-theory-and-shape )
Cat and Crow base storyboard
When asked to recite the artefact’s story, I found that it can be explained in short lines. Similar to Ernest Hemingway's 6 word story "For sale, baby shoes, never worn.". Which shows a short yet detailed story that partly could resemble my Cat and crow narrative “Cat loses yarn, Crow returns it”. I've chosen to stay to a simple story to help explore the artefact.
Reaction
Whilst searching for what makes a simple story so effective, I found that empathy is key as a leading emotion that strengthens stories. From Nikolajeva's article that states that the strongest emotion that humans feel which "separate us from animals" is empathy. Based on this I have approached my work with adding plenty of illustrations that are facial emotional reactions as close ups to capture empathy. (Nikolajeva, M. (2013) Picturebooks and Emotional Literacy. The Reading Teacher, 67(4), 249–254. doi: 10.1002/trtr.1229)
With my work using the ability to read in any order and at your own pace, it allows language and culture to take a back seat so you can experience the artefact for what it is. The possibility of different interpretations of the story, will allow a conversation to grow around the artefact when the participants compare and contrast their findings. However, if the emotion and narrative intension is clear enough, this allows all the readers to have a similar experience. In my work this is achieved by using colour theory in the background to suggest certain emotions, adding the facial features should reinforce what emotion is on what panel and when.
Example of colour theory applied to a tetrahedron net.
Illustration
I have summarised points that are applicable to my artefact, from Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics, to what I like to call "Panel science" or "Comic language". Comics are usually created through sets of separate panels that the narrative resides in. Some theories of how we view illustrations and make sense of them in our minds are listed below;
As mentioned before, you control time by looking at a single panel at a time, McCloud referrers to this in his "Time frames" chapter.
The "gutter" is a blank space between each panel where any thought process happens from one frame to another. McCloud defines this as "motion in comics is produced between panels by the mental process called closure."
Cat and Crow closure example.
Zip ribbons are lines around a subject to show physical movement. When used on a single small object it can show movement or momentum. When used in the background there is an increased number of lines that surround the subject. This changes the effect from the single physical to an area movement effect, which controls a whole scene. McCloud states that "subjective motion" operates on the assumption that if observing a moving object can be involving, being that object should be more so." This technique draws the viewer in to add drama and adds a motion effect to enhance the viewer's experience.
Area movement effect Scott McCloud from Understanding Comics (1993).
High detailing is seen when there is a contrast between a drawn subject with less detail (can also be seen in animation for efficiency) and a subject with higher amounts of detail to add weight and tension to the subject. In Understanding Comics the illustrative language Scott McCloud describes, is highly detailed panels as a key feature for drama and are popularised by Japanese influential comics. "In Japanese comics, the sword might now become very realistic, not only to show us the details but to make us aware of the sword as an object, something with weight, texture and physical complexity".
High detail of Cat and Crow
In McCloud’s book, he discusses that the rules of composition for comics are non-traditional when compared with other styles of narrative. the introduction of "The composition of the picture is joined by the composition of change, the composition of drama and the composition of memory". One interpretation of this is how the composition from one scene shows time passing. By comparing the last frame from memory to the frame you see now, due to the different composition. An example of this in my work is how Crow is flying (wing panel), then to retrieve the yarn. Image below
Crow flight
The composition of the scene changes, However, you still acknowledge time passing. Similar to Scott McCloud's chapter "Blood in the gutter" he talks about how your memory predicts motion and can control time by controlling where the viewer looks.
My research into panels in comics and how traditionally panels stay rectangular due to the page they are on led to an art installation called "The Rut 2" (Jason Dittmer and Alan Latham. University College London, UK - p.g 434). In this example, the artist chose to not use borders and sizes, then eliminated the use of panels entirely. The artist's intension for the piece was to give the artist the freedom to explore the installation in any way of their choice. Similar to this installation, I will explore how to present my artefact. With interest in capturing the distributed story, forces the idea of freedom of interaction with no constrictions to the traditional page.
When thinking about the outcomes for this project, I must take my personal perspective and use it as a guide for how easily accessible this artefact could be. Due to my dyslexic and multi-lingual approach, I think this artefact is highly accessible. This leads to artefacts possible outcomes:
A possible tool for communication for people with language difficulties.
An exhibition piece.
An artefact that explains the theory to its user.
A tool for children to explore stories.
A Three-dimensional version of a storybook.
A possible tool for art therapy.
Comics have relatability through a visual narrative, this allows a possible link to art therapy. There are two activities that include storytelling and illustration that link to art therapy. For art therapy patients there are two exercises that my artefact could support, these are:
The "Images on a table" exercise uses images as a visual metaphor for the patient's subconscious feelings. On these images, there are different scenes of people or scenery that convey the emotion that the patient must relate to the most. In this exercise traditionally the layout of the images are scattered on a table, however, with my artefact, all the images would be on the panel faces. I think the patient could hold a shape that acts as a tool for grouping a set of emotions they relate to, this could be a better format for the patient's emotional metaphors. Manda Thompson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGqhMt3dhkk&list=PLMOSNJXBtXKQQNIXZn86eXuVSkFIemEsW&index=7&t=0s&ab_channel=UniversityofChester
Another link to Art therapy is the 6 part story method aka 6PSM ( https://www.acat.me.uk/reformulation.php?article_id=30 )
"In 6PSM the client is initially given progressive instructions to draw each part of a new, fictional story. At this stage they do not respond verbally but just with sketched pictures. Once the sequence is complete, they are asked to tell the story right through without interruption. Finally the therapist uses open-ended questions to encourage the client to elaborate details further. Only then, once the story is fully elaborated, are any possible links with the teller’s own situation explored. Dent-Brown, K., 2011. Six-Part Storymaking – a tool for CAT practitioners. Reformulation, Summer, pp.34-36.
Linear and non linear narrative and the possibility of multiple choice.
pg 105 "We seldom do change direction, except to re-read or review passages. it's left-to-right, up-to-down, page after page" < this is in comics, but unlike comics, my artefact it challenges this theory. pg106 > " Comic readers are also conditioned by other media and the "real time" of everyday life to expect a very linear progression. just a straight line from point A to point B. But is that necessary?"
Red and Blue lines defining 2 separate stories
Physically playing around with shapes, keeping the sizes of the shapes all the same means I can stack them into other shapes, meaning I could possibly open the opportunity to branch stories into more complex narratives.
The possibility of presenting my story artefact as a game sounds quite exciting. Using the option of multiple choice could mean multiple endings which beg the question of the artefact as a puzzle.
Example of 2 endings: The narrative on the red artefact is the initial simple story of the Cat losing its ball of yarn and the Crow returning it. The blue artefact has 3 recorded endings. The first being the same as the Crow giving the Cat the yarn ball. The second ending is when Cat becomes sad at the loss of the yarn ball and goes to sleep. The third is where the cat gets bored and plays with other animals.