The Storyboard concept

Adenocarpus are ‘broom-like’ yellow shrubs native to countries in the Mediterranean like Spain and Portugal plus areas in North Africa. The seeds begin their journey into blossoming into a flower in Autumn when they are planted in a ‘cold frame’. Once planted the seed then begins to germinate and grow sprouts and roots before flowering in late Spring/early Summer. (Candide, Bristol, 2021).After the shrub has flowered fruits covered in short sticky glands grow.The fruits soon dry out in the hot shrub lands and burst open to propel themselves, beginning their new journey of dispersion to a new area.If the seed  lands in a suitable location then the cycle begins again.

To me the process of the seed being planted, growing flowers and fruits which then turn back into seeds ready to grow again reminds my of the different stages in life. For example we are plunged into new surroundings with new people in secondary school and after a few months we grow friendships then before university we say goodbye and are dispersed again around the country where we repeat the same process of growing new relationships with new people. Therefore the seed can hold a lot of meaningful symbolism… It represents the dormant growth and the start of another renewed life so has a lot of latent potential.

The First Attempt

1. Initially the seed is still and silent so I did not add any notational marks to show movement
2. I used the style of the artist Uche Okeke to the roots of the plant growing in the soil as they use ink to colour around the subject leaving it white. I then added notational marks similar to William Forsythe to show the rhythm and direction of the roots as they grow deeper into the soil.
3. I have began to add more dynamic curved lines used by notational artsit Rudolph Laban into the story boards to show the lively movement of the buds flowering and the petals moving in the wind.
4.  I zoomed in on the flower to intensify and magnify the subtle movement of the fruits drying up and collapsing into itself which cannot be seen by the naked eye. The curved lines illustrate how the seeds are tightening and coiling up before exploding.

5. The pressure building up inside the drying fruits become uncontrollable which triggered an explosion of movement and seeds from inside the fruit. I have continued to zoom in on the flower to show the immediate frames of the fruits bursting.
6. I have zoomed back out in the last image to show scale and how the seeds travelling away from the flower to restarting the cycle of growth and dispersion.

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Reflection

After a discussion with my tutors about the narrative and graphic representation of my story board I knew I needed rely less on photographs and focus more on using my graphite pencil skills to capture the delicate detail of the flower.

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Further Iterations

Exploring media

 

 

 

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To make each frame more uniform I adjusted the curve to the images to intensify the black and white tones. I also made the roots of the plant in each frame different sizes as another way to communicate growth. When I discussed my developments with my tutors I was clear I needed to rethink the the last frames as they did not successfully communicate the narrative of the seeds bursting from the flowers, dispersing then burrowing back into the ground again. I also needed to consider how to add more texture to the soil the plants sit on as it made the frames look too flat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Final Story Board

Final Developments

I experimented with different brushes and opacicities on photoshop I added more texture and dimension to the soil then I layered over the top the ink root studies from earlier versions of the storyboard to show how one seed can grow to become intertwined and knitted with other plants and the earth. I also took away the notational lines seen in frames 4 and 5 of the previous storyboard because they were not needed as I had already drawn the form of the plants… you only use notation when the object you are expressing has not been physically drawn.  By drawing a range of  potential thumbnails before reworking the last three frames i was able to come up with a clearer narrative.  Frame 4 shows how the young codesco flower grows into a coarse bush with an abundance of fruits on its branches which then dry up and  burst when it cannot stand the build up of pressure anymore. This is why I changed the persepective in frame 5 so one can see how groups of codesco bushes simultaneously erupt and spread their seeds. By observing multiple bushes in the frame it links back to the idea of the seed’s life cycle is a dance and when the seeds burst from the fruit it is the finale where the ensemble come together in unison. Frame 6 aims to complete the life cycle and latency of the codesco seed as it shows how the seeds land back onto the soil after being ejected from their flowers ready to start the cycle agin of growing into a bush in order to disperse more seeds again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nov 1, 2021