Olio 11 - The Eleventh Hour

Olio 11

The Eleventh Hour

The Eleventh Hour

Research

The Google search I made was dominated by an episode from Dr Who! However I did find the following:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/49435/whats-origin-phrase-eleventh-hour

A phrase that gained popularity during the 19th century, meaning "At the last minute possible"

 

Group Seminar discussion on the theme

The 11^th hour

Deadlines

·        Missing last orders in a pub

·       Transport – missing the train, buses, flights

·       Exams, applications, appointments

·       Tidying up after a party before parents come home

·       Getting to the church on time – wedding

·       Voting

Time running out

Living in the 11^th hour – the emergency services

Major decisions in history – atomic bomb, course of the titanic, Pearl Harbor, executions, court cases, wars and peace

Cat in a box theory – Schrodinger cat

Stay of execution, living in an extended 11^th hour while waiting for decisions.

Assassinations – Guy Fawkes, Abraham Lincoln, John Lennon, Kennedy

Voting

Zombies

Suffragette – Emily Davison jumped in front of a horse and died,  (had a return ticket in her purse so made a last minute decision)

LIMBO – in that moment and parallel moments – decision-making

Mexican day of the dead – Limbo, hanging onto life, in a waiting room.

Things that only last for a short while – metamorphosis, caterpillars, moonflower, may fly, animals that only survive for 11 hours.

11^th hour as a moment – catching someone’s eye in the street or passing by

Butterfly effect, chaos, consequence and fate.

The 11thn hour in environment and space.

Gambling split decisions at the last minute- under pressure

Saving a life- putting yourself in the way of harm to save someone else. Stopping a suicide, jumping in front of a bullet etc

The fragile last moments of life.

Comedy – humour, being late all the time

11pm – the magic hour, witching hour or wishing hour

The last chance to get things done, time for a change, making changes

Running through closing doors, Indiana jones style

Cowboys – stand off, shooting each other- quick on the draw.

In a rush

The night – cats, nightlife, streetlights, space

11am + 11 pm, the difference between what happens at that time of day

11^th hour in different cultures

Chaos, apocalyptic, destruction extinction, forest fires

Moments before impending disaster

11th day of Christmas

Countdowns – Birthdays, New Years Eve, Santa, Demolition, Bombs, Cooking, Christmas Eve, Space, NASA, Take Off, Flight, Finishing a shift at work, Waiting for takeaway to arrive, aeroplane, exams.

Natural disasters – tornados, storm chasers, Wizard of Oz, forest fires

Unpredictable

Batteries running out, car breaking down, puncture on a bike wheel

NHS decisions

Proposals + announcements, Surprise party, jack in the box

The number 11 stands for intuition, Patience, Honesty, Sensitivity, Spirituality, idealistic

Mentioned in the bible

‘One left over ten’

Elevensies, whisky breaks

Last chance

Regeneration

Constellation

Last minute before midnight

Getting ready to go out / getting ready to go to bed

Time- hands, cogs, clocks, sundials, physical representations of time

Saved by the skin of your teeth

Between life and death

Bingo – legs 11

‘The Time-Travellers Wife’ by Audrey Niffenegger

Major historical decisions – Margaret Thatcher

Bucket list – all things to do before you die

Panic

God

After the 11^th hour

Dreams – just before you fall asleep or wake up

11^th hour on television – the watershed, censorship, news, films, comedy

Remembrance day 11.11.11, silence

Mythology

No man’s Land

Films mentioned: Stardust, Crimson Peak, The 11^th hour, Life in a Day, The day after tomorrow, The law of manifestation, Sane New World, John Carter, The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas, Barak Obama and David Attenborough conversation on Climate change, The Life Aquatic, Brave New World, In Time,

Wrong place at the wrong time or right place at the right time

Escape- Auschwitz – handyman who was a women that helped children escape by carrying them in her toolbox to outside of the camps

Great train robbery

Sunsets and dawn

Birth

Tragedies – Berlin Wall, Hillsborough, Riots, Car crash

Black holes – avoiding the eleventh hour

Last tree left

Last white rhino – protected species

The Great Barrier Reef

Bees- plight of bees – Douglas Coupland - Generation A

Margaret Atwood - ‘ A Handmaids Tale’

Danny Wallace – Red Pencil, random acts of kindness

X-Factor, The Voice, Performing, auditions, interviews – anxiety, opening an important email.

Tsunami, Earthquakes, Floods (New Orleans)

Perpetual 11^th hour – Syria, War Zones, Homelessness, Berlin Wall

Rosa Parks – deciding to sit on the bus

Spontaneous or pre-meditated crime

Heroes- saving things at the last hour

Transient – things that don’t last – chalk drawings, something that lives for a day, something that lasts for eleven years.

Live food – lobsters, sashimi, sushi,

Escaping, escape artists, Houdini, Alcatraz, David Blaine

Curfews

Revenge

Dr Faust and his demons

Racehorse- final line, crossing the finish line

Behind the scenes

Elevensies- brunch – afternoon tea and around the world

Big cats- endangered species

Noah’s Ark

Getting into heaven

My Ideas

Prior to the seminar, I was thinking about time and clocks and cogs. I do have an interest in the Steampunk style and was dreaming of something along those lines. The group seminar provoked some interesting discussion, albeit rather dark in mood. At the end of the session, my mind began wandering a little and as it did so I remembered my favourite fairy tale, Hans Christian Anderson's The Wild Swans...eleven princes cursed and changed into wild swans and one princess, their sister who, to save them, must pick nettles with her bare hands and sew jackets for each brother without uttering a single sound to break the spell. It becomes a race against time when she is swept away by a King who wishes to marry the beautiful princess and she is sentenced to be burned to death as a witch after being seen picking nettles in the graveyard by the palace and is unable to speak and explain her crazy behaviour. Read the full story here: The Wild Swans

I was rather pleased with this eureka moment as it was not something that anyone else had thought of. However when I did some research, I discovered that it was a tale that had been illustrated time and time again. Not put off by this in the least, I set myself the challenge of producing a piece unlike anything else I had seen during my research.

The Wild Swans by Harry Clarke

The Wild Swans by Doreen Baxter

For many many more illustrations of The Wild Swans please follow this link to my Pinterest board for The Eleventh Hour:

https://www.pinterest.com/organickat/the-eleventh-hour/

Thumb nail roughs

Thumb nail roughs

Rough for The Wild Swans

Rough for The Wild Swans

Rough for The Wild Swans

Two Rough Ideas

The day before the presentation to the "clients" (cunningly disguised tutors), and the rest of the group, my peers. I was busily drawing out my ideas for "Cogs" and "The Wild Swans" when I had a vision of a coggy swan, an after thought tucked away at the bottom right edge of the thumb nail roughs (above). Following a brief tutorial with Georgina, I was rather obsessed with it and had pretty much made up my mind that this was the one I wanted to pursue. The downside being that we had to produce and present two completely different ideas to the client. Ummm. OK, so I had a third rough drawing to do...it did look a bit like a stumpy goose, but the idea was on paper ready for the presentation the following day.

Idea One - The Wild Swans - Rollerball pen & pencil

Idea Two - The Hands of Time - Variable nib dip pen, diffuser & inks

Idea Three Combined idea - Wild Swan (OK, Stumpy Goose!) with Cogs - pencil

Interim Presentation of Roughs

The thought of the presentation was a little nerve wracking, however, once I got into the seminar room and remembered that every person in it was someone I knew, the nerves soon subsided.

It was really fascinating to see everyone else's work. The array of ideas and interpretations was diverse and exciting. I was one of the last to present my work and hoped that, when put to vote, the group would share my preference for the coggy swan, and they did. Something I also enjoyed was watching peoples reactions to my work when they were wandering around the room looking at all the images, I felt reassured that I had produced something visually stimulating and compelling.

The Real Thing

Back to the studio to get on with the actual drawing. I had realised by now that this was possibly the most important piece of artwork I was about to produce in my life so far, due to its being published and dispatched to people who mattered, art directors, publishers, creative decision makers. Unfazed by this thought I set about planning in my usual meticulous manner ensuring that each step was fulfilled as it ought to be, taking particularly care with the composition this time, having learned a good lesson from the Viral Cat during the first workshop. It was important for there to be drama in this image. And as I embarked on it, it evolved and developed into so much more than I had originally envisaged. 

Rough for Wild Swan

Detailed rough for Wild Swan first stage

Detailed rough for Wild Swan final stages

Finished detailed rough for Wild Swan

Experiment with variable nib dip pen Wild Swan

Feather studies 

Final Outcome

Final rough completed, it was time to ink up. I wasn't certain which pen to opt for? Although the variable nib dip pen has beautiful and sometimes unpredictable results, I made the decision to use my rollerballs this time, so that I could be in full control, particularly of the finer detailing on the feathers (my favourite part). The final illustration was then scanned into Photoshop along with the yellow diffused background. I popped into college to find a tutor and discuss the background and was happy to find Fumio (tutor) to assist me. I told him that I was intending to use an orange and yellow spray with spot colour for the beak, and he agreed that orange was a good strong colour to balance with the strong black lines and cogs. He pointed out that in order to balance the composition it would be best to use a solid gradient of orange from the bottom up, but that ultimately it was my choice and that the aesthetic would naturally appear comfortable to my eye when it was right and that I should experiment in Photoshop, which I did, and it turns out he was right about the colour. I then showed a few other friends to gather advice and again was pleased with the results.

Completed line drawing - Wild Swan by Kitty Skye 2015

Diffused yellow background - acrylic ink

Final Outcome - Wild Swan for Olio 11 The Eleventh Hour by Kitty Skye