I've probably had a tendency to fit too much into little drawings, and too many panels on a page. It's probably a legacy of doing work for anthologies, and the Observer Graphic Short Story Competition, where one has a limited/fixed page count. A panel that was a single row in my original four-page version, had ended up still a single row: it's the equivalent of a film montage or time-lapse - it shows multiple Uccello's in the room drawing: it was going to be a lot of work, so I thought it made sense to make it bigger and get the full impact. The scene, as shown here has Uccello drawing on all the walls, apparently including the invisible fourth wall - which makes compositional sense as we see Uccello's face, but perhaps not logical sense - as there are only three panels of his (real-life) painting, and the unseen 'fourth wall' would surely need some windows on it! I like the 3D 'whole room effect', but now that the story is more developed it may make more sense to have him just drawing a single panel - I could have him working on, and drawing from studies on the other walls perhaps...? The bottom row on the left hand page will be an in-progress drawing for one of the panels. In the right bottom row I could bring forward the dialogue with the patron, currently on the final page (Figure 2, below). That in turn would allow a larger scene of Uccello being reunited with his wife on the final page. The last page (thumbnail, Figure 2, above) may look unresolved, although I do have a concept.
In row 1 his patron approves progress and releases Uccello from his effective incarceration at the former's house, i.e. site of the work. As noted above I may move this to the previous page. In row 2 we see him on his way home and he meets his friend/rival Donatello in the street. This is like three panels without borders (and a bit like the quasi motion effects we will see in his drawing/painting). Donatello has gently mocked Uccello for being too caught in his perspective grids, so this row aims to be quite free-flowing in contrast, to suggest Uccello has gone through a catharsis. To the right of this row we see him on an imaginary horse - mirroring the one he is imagining on page 1 - but now he is not only a rider, but leading the charge. The final row sees him re-united with his wife. As it stands just now, he appears on the (imaginary) horse - this mirrors his neglected wife's frustrated desire seen on page 3 as she imagines Uccello's earlier equestrian monument to the dead hero. In the final (un-bordered) panel Uccelo is floating above a landscape in the shape of his wife (her name is unknown) - this is meant to suggest both a rekindling of their relationship, and the Uccello is cut loose from the constricting grids of his worldview. Thought I may still use some kind of looser visible construction framework. I had initially thought to overlay on an image of the wife early in the story, Uccello's drawing of a chalice - this seems to evoke the female form, and humorously suggest his vision of her as simply a set of mathematical shapes. I wasn't sure it fitted at the beginning, but I'll see if it fits at the end.
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AuthorGraham Johnstone ~ Master of Design - Comics and Graphic Novels student 2016-17 Archives
August 2017
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