Brainstorm Blog #1

For this project, I really wanted to explore the idea of changing identity through the varying costumes associated with festivals and masquerades. I'm really fascinated with the idea of identity and expression dictated by the mask of the viewer.

I also wanted to approach the theme of self portraiture as performance. Masks, both in a carnival setting and in other settings, call to mind performance.

There are many cultural practices that use masks as a way to change the identity of a character; traditional kabuki theater in Japan, commedia dell'arte in traditional Italian theater, and modern carnevale in Italy are my main sources of inspiration for this project.

I want to explore costume and mask, and how it can change the viewers perception of the character. That's why I wanted to choose a shadow character that inhabits costumes as my character, I think this is most flexible for this goal.

I think the closest equivalent to this style of masking in my personal experiences has been the idea of a clown, so I synthesized these multiple inspirations into a clown that draws upon unique sources of costuming.

Stylistically, I want to take into account the strong colors and shapes of my inspirations, as well as the tendency of vector illustration in Illustrator to prioritize simple, clean shapes with minimal rendering.

Therefore, I want to use a minimal style that focuses on the contrast between different colors to convey the overall illustrations.

With my work on Photoshop, I want to mesh digital illustration with photo manipulation. I'll likely end up illustrating the masks, and meshing together different photo elements for the clothing and props in the "selfies".

I've put some photos throughout of examples, and some examples of the clowns that also inspired by take on this.