Theoretical Links- Sonia Poli, The medium

Since I looked into some of Sonia Poli's work for this project (thanks to her paper-cut work and layered approach) it felt necessary to display some of her interview answers (in regards to her process) that I undertook whilst doing my dissertation. I felt like this was necessary for this project because I am utilising a mix of the handmade and the digital. I feel like a mix of the two will best highlight the visual style I am going for and will take me back to my traditional art based roots. Sonia Poli is an illustrator who consistently uses a mix of the two so I felt it prudent to highlight what she herself noted about the technique.

Her thoughts on why she uses the techniques that she uses:

"I love my paints and I love my computer, so I use both. I like mixing media. When you know how to use the softwares it can look really great! I like the feeling of a paintbrush. You could never get something that real on Photoshop. But it is so convenient on computer, in the sense that you can undo things and cut, and paste, and all."

Her thoughts on why mixing mediums works best for her:

"Sometimes you only need pens, sometimes it’s a job for vectors, sometimes you need both. As long as it serves your project and your work then all the mediums are good. I think it is important to masterize both. That way you can choose in between several techniques and can pretend to work on more projects. If you don’t know one or an other, you might get stuck and you won’t be able to give the right answer to a commission work. If one day a client comes to you and asks if you can do digital illustration, if you say no, then you’ve just lost a job and the industry is too hard to get into to have the luxury to say no to a project."

Source: Sonia Poli, Emailed Interview, January 2015

I am really excited about making this stop motion - partly because its a style and technique I have always admired but also because Id like to take my digital drawings into the print world to manipulate them it makes the process of making them move more interesting and it allows me to make the scenes in a way that I completely understand without having to worry about the many many layers and ranges of movements available in after effects. Of course working in the stop motion medium has its own limitations - its time consuming and its harder to make look good - but I am very much aware of these and I know I can then use the digital to help fix them.