Cricket Continued...

Looks like there has been a problem with this post! For some reason Blogger has taken it upon itself to delete some of the words- I mean just look at that first 'sentence'. Anyway, being as this was written back in July, I'm not going to rewrite it as I can't remember what it said and I guess you get the gist of it from this.

Having taken my camera to a recent

Buxworth FC

In my usual fashion I scour the fixtures a few days beforehand, looking at a variety of leagues. The main day for club cricket is (like men's football) on Saturday's, though 2nd XI teams (and below, including women's) often play on Sunday's. I don't mind what level I watch in any sport, because I just love watching it regardless. In my research, I happened to stumble upon the

The drive was fairly easy, arriving us in Earby with plenty of time for a walk. If you do ever have a free afternoon in East Lancashire, I would very much recommend taking a trip to this picturesque town. It even has waterfalls (and no, I'm not talking about the stereotypical Northern weather). After a couple hours it was time to make our way to the Applegarth, home of Earby CC.

It definitely had the views of the hills I wanted and a lot more, including a visible mill tower from one end. Not only that, but it boasted a good sized pavilion and bar, along with an electronic scoreboard opposite. Despite not being used to photographing cricket, I got into the swing of things quite quickly. It wasn't too dissimilar to football and in fact, somewhat 'easier': the line of play was more predictable and the players stayed still for longer periods, making composing shots and framing players a less arduous task. Earby also had ex England Women's cricketer Arran Brindle playing on their side. Not everyday you get to see that!

Some technical stuff:

Since purchasing a 'new' (second hand/ pre owned/ vintage- whatever the term is these days) 24-105mm lens earlier in the year for photographing football, I was slightly frustrated I had to go back to using my cheaper 55-250mm for this game. In my opinion, this visibly hindered the image quality as the lens used is a Canon 'STM', unlike the higher quality USM 'L' series of my newer one. As I wanted to get a mixture of both action and landscape shots, the 24-105 was not appropriate as it doesn't zoom far enough to get good close ups of the players at the crease. Despite this, composition and content wise I'm very pleased with the outcomes. I would definitely like to photograph some more cricket matches this season should the opportunity arise, before the return of football takes over...

I have attached some images below, but you can view the full set here.

The Return of Cricket

In early March this year as the weather started to improve, like many others I was looking forward to the impending cricket season. A little later in March as lockdown started and restrictions implemented, I thought I would see no cricket this season.

As restrictions eased and confirmed Covid-19 cases dropped, the ECB announced that from July 11th, recreational cricket could begin, complete with spectators. This was a very welcome initiative for all cricket fans, players, volunteers and officials around England. It felt like a step in the right direction and towards a normality we have been longing for since March.

An avid cricket fan, I immediately took the opportunity to witness some live sport on the 11th and headed to my nearest club Fulwood and Broughton for an inter-club friendly. It felt mostly 'normal', despite breaks every six overs for the application of hand sanitising gel, clubhouse/ toilet restrictions and socially distanced supporting. You were also not permitted to touch the ball, should it come near you after a boundary. None of this especially mattered as it was great to be back watching sport, whatever the circumstances.

I have since watched two more club level games. With the long overdue announcement that bowling alleys will be able to open from August 1st, hopefully it won't be long until the return of grassroots football.

Further Development

Pretty sure I've already called a post this, but whatevs 💇

To be honest, I was struggling a little to decide what style to do this next piece in. As stated in my previous post, I felt I had taken the fairly realistic style as far as it could go and had also tried a watercolour test. I started a piece regardless as wanted to keep animating, but this was slightly problematic, due to not knowing what direction to take it. I like to plan out each piece beforehand, because it makes the animating easier and you're less inclined to change your mind mid project.

I did differentiate the outlines more than what I usually do, in terms of using a brush which gave me more option in line thickness. I'm not sure how noticeable this is to the casual viewer, but it made me feel like I was diversifying my usual technique. Perhaps I could have pushed it further and used a mixture of really thick and really thin lines, so it would be even more noticeable.

It was when it came to colouring him, was when I really altered what I do though. I decided to use texture on top of the realistic rendering style. I used multiple textures, some which I scanned in and others I created digitally in After Effects. Texture (especially created by analogue means) is something I really try to implement throughout my work, which is quite apparent when viewing past pieces. I wanted to bring it back in to my recent work, which has been more clean cut than what I have done in the past.

I felt the pairing of the techniques worked well, but improvements can be made. I feel the texture I used on him was a little too artificial for my liking and in the future, would prefer to implement this texture in a more organic way.

From a piece which I started under little inspiration or direction, it turned out quite well and has pushed my work further. Though going forward, this unplanned way is not the way I want to create each piece. 

Watercolour Test

As a continuation of my recent character style tests, I decided to meander away from the look I had been developing to something completely different.

Why?

Following on from my previous post on this topic, I carried out a further two pieces (see videos below) and felt I had completed what I wanted to achieve with that specific look. If I carried on with similar clips, then I wouldn't have been honing my craft further or pushing my comfort zones. The whole point of me doing these tests is to look at new and different ways of doing things, rather than stick to what I already know. For once I decided to be true to my word! In animation I sometimes struggle to do this, because each short clip takes so long and I don't want to waste time on something which may or may not 'work'. Early this year I realised that my work wasn't really progressing further in terms of aesthetics and differentiation, so the only way I could change my situation was to bite the bullet and go for it. If it doesn't work, I know not to use that style again and if it does, then great, I have a new style to use! In fact, I pretty much wrote the same in a post in April, though I have jumped up another level since.

Something I haven't tried before is watercolour, so I decided to go ahead and create something using that. TVPaint has a fantastic selection of watercolour style brushes which I took full advantage of when creating this piece. As I have been doing recently, I used a piece of footage off my new favourite stock footage site Pexels: 'the World's first inclusive free stock photo and video library'. I love the variety of clips on their site and they are more inclusive and diverse than other stock sites. This is honestly not a sponsored post!

It took a little time to work out what thickness brush stroke to use for the outlines. Watercolour possesses different properties than the solid brush tool I usually use, so it did take a little trial and error. I ended using a 20% thickness with pressure sensitivity, which enabled me to get flowing, realistic lines.

It also took some time to work out how to colour her. I wasn't sure whether I was going to use watercolour for this, or something else. Again, after trial and error, I decided to go ahead with colouring her with watercolour, achieving a full watercoloured look. I think this was the right choice, as I do love the outcome. As the outlines, to choose the right brush thickness for the colouring was a little difficult. If I used a small size, it would end up looking rather blotchy or 'bitty', a look which I really didn't want. Too big and it would have been hard to colour without the brush jumping outside the lines (the watercolour ones tend to be quite jittery). I ended up using a mixture of sizes: a first 'pass' with a larger brush to cover the majority without going too close to the edges, followed by a series of smaller sizes, working my way up to a neat edge.

This 3.8 second clip took twelve and a half hours to complete. I would say that despite being very pleased with this style (and happy that I tried it), it is definitely more time consuming than using a block fill to colour it in. I coloured each frame separately which is why it took so long. I can think of a couple of work arounds, though whether they will achieve a similarly authentic look, I'm yet to find out.

You can watch the video below:

54(.)9

'54(.)9' is my most recent film commission. It explores the 54.9 square miles of Preston in 549 photographs, celebrating it's architecture. It was one of 24 micro commissions commissioned by Something's Brewing, for it's 'Prestoning' online exhibition. This will feed in to the ongoing 12 year cultural strategy for Preston.

The brief was to create a response to the word 'Prestoning'. It was a term invented during a previous strategy meeting to reflect the unique nature of the city of Preston. After juggling a couple of ideas which reflected both this word and my sensibilities as an artist, I came up with the above idea which uses both moving image and photography: media which I create the majority of my work in. The architecture within Preston is distinct and crosses a variety of styles: from the neoclassical to brutalist and everything in between and beyond. I very much admire the architecture in the city and felt I wanted to create a project which showcases and celebrates it.

I took the term 'Prestoning' in a number of ways whilst conceptualising the project. Firstly, in terms of the content: if you haven't heard about Preston Bus Station by now, then have you even heard about anything?! Jokes aside, with buildings such as the Bus Station and Kennington Primary School 'Bubble' classroom, Preston is home to some architectural (and grade II listed) delights.

Kennington Primary School 'Bubble'

Preston Bus Station

Alongside content, my approach to the project reflected 'Prestoning', too: I was ambitions, creative, took risks and did something a little different. These are all attributes which makes the way that Preston does things, special. That's what also makes Preston a great place to live in. I should know: I've been here for ten years now- some 'stop gap' eh?!

As someone who takes a lot of photographs, I must admit I thought the project would be a lot easier. I didn't think 549 photographs sounded much when I was writing the commission proposal and thought I'd be able to knock them all out in a couple of days! Oh, how wrong I was. I think it's because I'm so use to photographing sports events (or events in general) where you can take anything between 200-900 images in one sitting (usually at the lower end of the scale, mind). Whereas for this, I had to locate and take each shot specifically, in a style which would be congruent with the rest of the project. It also rained a lot towards the end of the project, limiting the days I actually could take photographs on.

Another thing which limited my photograph taking time window, was that I needed to do some trips with my boyfriend and therefore needed to not only work around his work schedule, but also wait for a day where the lighting was good enough i.e. not overcast/ gloomy! This was because when out on my own taking photographs, I often receive comments off men. When my boyfriend is there, these comments do not happen and I feel free and able to take photographs where I please. Yes, I ignore the comments or try and laugh them off to avoid conflict/ further discussion, but it's genuinely frustrating that I can't focus on the project fully as I have to also 'be on my guard' when out and about. That's all I'll say on this matter for now as it probably deserves a post of it's own, but if you are a man who makes comments at women who you don't know, then please STOP. It's not enjoyable. Go home.

Besides the above, the project was a fun (albeit ambitious) one to take on. As a hashtag 'architecture lover' it was great to really explore and take a detailed look at the buildings, textures, patterns and colours in the place I live. I knew I had always liked the architecture here hence starting the project, but didn't expect to find so many beautiful and unique buildings if I just looked up.

I have put together a Flickr album of seventy or so images which I especially liked. You can check that out by clicking here.

You can watch '54(.)9' below: