At the moment we are in lockdown, even if we wasn’t we still have social distancing in place, the spirit of a crowd is lost when they have a 2 metre gap between them, I had to rely on photos for this exercise, I wanted to explore the interaction between the figures, the way that space between them is reduced, sometimes uncomfortably, I searched for crowds, groups etc but they came up with some pretty generic characterless photos, I decided to be more specific, riots, paparazzi and football crowd. these came up with some imagery that offered some more drama and some characters.
Riot
Using a grey and black brush pen , I tried to capture the aggression and movement of a charging crowd, people jumping, changing direction, I attempted to use the two tonal values to suggest numbers, this is more of a quick sketch, although I feel it would make for an interesting image if I was to have worked this up further into a more finished piece.
Papparazzi
I liked this image, the way the off balanced characters all contorting and defying gravity to lean back for a well composed shot. the details here add to the bustle and the faces that aren’t obscured have a stylised sense of character. I could have easily have given these characters which are exaggerations of their real life counter parts nick names, again I would like to make a finished piece where the viewer could peruse the crowd, finding small details and hints at their characters and back story’s.
Football stand
Another quick study with brush pen, I really wanted to capture joy and movement with this image, the photograph I used while it does capture a frozen moment in time, has less to offer than a drawing that tries to show the kinetic energy of a moving shaking mass of bodies wedged together, I tried to use the two values of brush pen here to give a shaky look to it. I think back to some of the animations in my youth that used a scratchy style of animation such as rhubarb and custard or even to a lesser extent the animations by Gerald Scarfe featured in The wall, the changing lines and textures giving a moving, vibrating effect. I have added the videos below to further demonstrate the effect I was trying for.
