Treading Fine Lines

My primary aim for my final project is to celebrate unsung heroes related to Manchester,
I wanted to Celebrate them without offending anybody, so took a risk when I was experimenting with the idea of depicting Alan Turing as Snow White.
I wanted the image to put forwards the connections the two parties shared, for example, the 'problems' both had were natural.
Nothing could be done about Snow Whites beauty, it was natural, it was her Queens jealousy that was the real problem, as was the case with Turing's sexuality, and society of the time being so intolerable of homosexuality.
They both helped others, Turing with his input and knowledge bringing about the end of a world war and no doubt saving many lives with his efforts, and Snow White with her caring, motherly manner that she showed when taking care of the dwarves.
I had to be careful not to just draw a man dressed as Snow White and had to find as much of a natural bind as possible.
after many quick rough drafts, I felt that I had achieved this when I finished this drawing..

I was happy that I had managed to bind the innocence of both Snow White and Alan Turing, without crossing a line into cartoon or parody, as both of those sectors were pitfalls I wanted to avoid for now, I did however want to explore them later in the project as a nod toward the fun loving person that Alan Turing had been depicted as in my reading of him and also a nod to Walt Disney and the things he had done for animation. (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves being the first feature length animated movie).

I duplicated the image above numerous times, playing with colour, and how much to use and where to use it, finally settling on this variation.. It felt dramatic but still soft enough that neither Alan Turing or Snow White dominated the image.

                                               

Happy with the way things were progressing, I decided it was time to widen my view and try to find other avenues to help my project succeed in celebrating Alan Turing.

Drawing Alan Turing

There are many images of Alan Turing in books and online, often looking very sombre and every inch the mathematician and logician and scientist that he was.
I wanted to portray a different Alan Turing, one far from the posters found in I.T departments of high schools and colleges throughout the country.
I wanted to portray him, as the happy go lucky, friendly and outgoing person I discovered him to be during my research.
I began drawing a likeness and experimenting with different media, from coloured pens to screen printing, coming away with many variations and results, again another good feather in the proverbial cap when it comes to generating ideas especially when it is for such an important project.

Above are two examples of some of the first attempts of capturing Alan Turing in a more natural guise, 

In an attempt to portray him as an every day man, and not just the scientist that he was.

While exploring the idea surrounding the apple aspect of Alan Turing (the one with which he administered the fatal dose of Cyanide to himself).

I toyed with the idea of creating a portrait of Alan Turing, depicted within an apple itself.

Although tricky to do, I had some success, by scratching the flesh of the apple, and allowing air to dry it out naturally which in turn accented the marks that I had made, after a few attempts, varying the level of pressure applied to make the marks, 

This was an idea that I was keen to move on with, as the results were actually better than I had anticipated but after further attempts it was clear that the results were unpredictable and sporadic to rely on going into the later stages of the brief, so I was happy to leave it as a good idea and have it in my development file.

Final Major Project

Heading into the final major project of my degree course was a daunting task,
But after reading the brief and learning it was pretty much 'show us what you can do' I relaxed a little.
Being given a fairly free run at my own brief, I decided eventually that I would like to do something a based on Manchester, its people and history.
As I am a proud Mancunian I wanted to not just show off Manchester but to celebrate some aspects of it, and its people.
I spent much time trawling the Internet and libraries for information on the history of Manchester and famous people who have hailed from the city.
As expected the usual suspects cropped up a lot, new era celebrities, and sportsmen.
The Gallagher Brothers of Oasis fame, Ryan Giggs and Ricky Hatton amongst many many others.
I had already painted many of the people I was coming across connected with Manchester and since I wanted to highlight the importance of Manchester throughout history I kept digging further into Manchester's past.
A few names started to stand out and intrigue me.
Namely, that of Alan Turing, although he was not born in Manchester, he lived and died here and is celebrated on numerous sites throughout the city.
a Bridge and statue in his honour as well as a main thorough fare on the outskirts of the city centre named Alan Turing way.
His story is one of great achievement, tragedy and injustice.
The fore father of modern computing, who developed and built a machine capable of deciphering the Nazi German enigma codes used by their U-boats to communicate in secret.
The code breaking equipment proved pivotal in bringing about the end of the second world war but even after such a level of service to his Country, Alan Turing was charged with Homosexuality and chemically castrated with injections of the female hormone oestrogen.
The intrigue of the man and his story, as well as his almost anonimity amongst a generation who rely on gadgets he laid the foundations to create for ease of day to day living helped me decide that Alan Turing would be a key component of my final major project.
I set out to find out as much as I could about Alan Turing and his life.
throughout the reading I repeatedly came across passages mentioning the fact that Alan Turing had a soft spot for the story of Snow White and The Seven Dwarves.
The first motion picture animation of the story had been released by Walt Disney in 1937.
Alan turing committed suicide by eating an apple laced with Hydrogen Cyanide in 1954, after years of persecution at the hands he of the government he had served so dutifully during the world war.
The apple of course became central to my ideas generation as it was a direct connection between Alan Turing and The story of Snow White, since the fabled princess also fell victim to a poisonous apple.
This was the connection that let me move away from research and start drawing and playing with ideas.
With subject matter that is so full of emotion, injustice, greatness and achievement coupled with the fun brought about by Walt Disney's factor in the equation, I was excited to get started and experiment with some of the things that had filled my head since the idea came about.