Music and a Fishtank

The Fishtank is essentially an office, an eight metre glass fronted think tank office space situated in the offices of Manchester based 'studio of ideas' agency, Music.
The task at hand, to illustrate my interpretation of any music track to install on the fish tank's glass front.
Music is important to me so choosing the right song was going to be paramount.
Certain songs remind me of certain times and trigger certain memories, so I decided I'll choose a song from my childhood because that was a good time, I was a kid!
My Mum and Dad are both Motown and soul fans, so naturally a taste for it is passed down,
Using 'A Change Gon' Come' by Sam Cooke as inspiration I began playing with a time line ideas, to illustrate the evolution and rise in popularity of black music.
I began sketching Individual musicians from the 1950's onwards and attempting to arrange them into a  nice flowing composition

Flowing Time line of a Journey Through Black Music inspired by 'A Change Gon Come'

I had reached this point fairly quickly without much regard as to what materials I would use.

Usually the answer is obvious for me, paint. 

Except glass poses many problems that mean paint probably is not my best option.

After speaking to my Tutor, and a few small experiments, I decided maybe a vinyl sticker would do the job I had hoped the paint would do.

Trying and failing to come up with a background design that was both relevant to the fore image and not cliche was also difficult. 

The story behind the song though is a very sombre affair, and I didn't want that to be reflected in my work, nobody wants that baring over them for four weeks while they work.

I went back to the drawing board and began sketching more musicians, but from the era of real 'soul men'.

A memory of my Dad singing 'soul man' in the kitchen loudly and badly from my childhood  put the stamp of approval on my new choice.

so a newer array of little faces to arrange, but this time kept uniform and neat.

I also decided to go without colour, even with all my new found love for it, but this time it was because I felt black and greys depicted best the people and era I was trying to convey.

I adopted this style to assist the Vinyl application so as to  maximise its effect and 

 to play to its strengths

The eight artists are what I consider to be real 'Soul Men', I selected an image of each singer purposely smiling to add to the mood of the peace and compose them in a manner that suggestive a togetherness and closeness, except Jimi Hendrix, he got on purely on the basis that he is Jimi Hendrix, he is my 'because why not' element.

the singers left to right are: Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Teddy Pendergrass, Otis Redding, James Brown and Jimi Hendrix.

The idea is quite a simple one, devised with mood effectiveness and ease of installation and removal in mind.

Vector the drawing, make it into an enormous sticker come jigsaw puzzle and add further details with paint (of course) to leave a thoughtful, positive image inspired by memories and music.

Sounds easy, but its a challenge I'd look forward too.

A much smaller scaled version of how I imagined it would look, except not floating over Stockport.