Character Development

This is a summary of my sketchbook development for the three elderly characters. 

I have worked out that if I stopped focusing on the fact they are old, I won't draw them so they look old. Sounds stupid, but it's what has really worked in helping me depict them in a positive and unpatronising way. I just drew what I thought a gardener looks like, then went back and added elderly characteristics, such as laughter lines and a beard. They do need some elderly features to be able to communicate the right message!

I am really happy with the final pencil drawings, ready to be taken into Photoshop to add colour and then turn into screenprint positives. Drawing the final versions large scale will help make sure nothing is blurry when they are sized up to A2 - they are pretty much A3 already so will be perfect for the screenprints. 

Working with shape will allow for great screenprinting as well. I really feel like I am starting to crack drawing using shape; I can see my drawings transforming and developing at a rate they never have before! It's satisfying. 

Rough design boards(needs improvement)

Practical Response - whacky creative old people INSPIRATION

Leonora Carrington

Salvadore Dali

Iris Apfel

Yayoi Kusama

Practical Response - Change of plan

So...

I've known I wanted to make a set of posters, but struggling to come up with a solid theme. I was faffing around with the idea of "You Used To Be...", using older peoples hobbies and careers as an idea (when I go in to meet them at Henpower). This was based on a resident I used to know called Michael, who got very annoyed when people said "you used to be a vet didn't you?"; he is still a qualified vet, just not practising any more, and would get cross and point at his vet certificate on the wall. 

This is an ok idea but i can't get on board with it and hate everything I've drawn so far, which isn't a lot anyway.

NOW I'm thinking I could use the quote "Memory diminishes but imagination remains" that I found on the EqualArts ethos page. I might change "imagination" for "creativity" and create a set of posters, billboard mockups, animated gifs acting as website banners and a rough campaign page for EqualArts, on the importance of having creative sessions for the elderly with dementia. I feel much more excited about this idea and have more visual ideas kicking around my head already without drawing anything (I will start drawing now).

I don't know if I will have to email them and ask permission to do this, as I've already been in contact with them asking questions for research? Will have to check this.

Primary Research - EqualArts answered my questions!

Nichola (who I have been in contact with) kindly offered to answer some questions for me, when I asked if there would be anyone available at EqualArts. Some of the answers are interesting and will be great to use in the HenPower case study in the essay, especially when backing up the social side of the argument. It's also nice to gather some research of my own, rather than just looking at other peoples papers and articles. 

I do wish I had managed to get more about the availability of creative sessions for the elderly in NHS run care facilities; maybe i should try and find someone from the NHS to ask?! They might not like it, but it's worth a shot. 

Primary Research - talking to Henpower

This is where I've got to get to on Tuesday for the creative session with Henpower I've chosen to do. It's far away and I wish I had a car, but hey ho!

Initial Roughs and Sketches

I am really stuck as to what to do for the practical. I have been doodling old people in the hope that something will spring up but at the moment my brain isn't feeling very creative.

I really don't like these drawings. They make the elderly look small and weak; EXACTLY WHAT I DON'T WANT TO HAPPEN! I need to find a way to draw them without making them look awful. If the drawing shows them as negative then the overall message will be negative.

I have a sort of idea from a quote I found on the EqualArts website; "memory may diminsh, yet imagination remains". This has really stuck with me for some reason. I have started to think down the creativity route instead of 'old' and wrote down some creative activities to try and get the ball rolling. 

Sensory Stimulation - Virtual Reality for The Elderly

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=the%20elderly%20and%20virtual%20reality%20masks

An interesting idea when talking about sensory stimulation - it is definitely not a creative therapy, but a more viable option for those who may not have the money or ability to access a Snoezelenroom. 

I could also bring in something to do with new technology working for older people; could it tie together old and young generations and bridge the gap a little more? SOCIETY STUFF

Primary Research - Questions for EqualArts

Nichola, who I have been in contact with about volunteering, said she is happy for me to ask her some questions about EqualArts and the benefits of creative therapies. These are what I am going to ask her:

1. Why do you think it is important for the elderly to have access to creative organisations such as the Hen Power Project?

2. Do you think there is enough opportunity for elderly people to take part in creative sessions in most NHS funded care homes? 

3. Do you think more should be done for the elderly to be able to take part in creative sessions, both in care homes and in local communities?

4. Are there specific areas of the UK which are more likely to have little opportunity for the elderly?

4. What do you think of current societal views of the older generation, especially those with dementia?

5. Why should we, the younger generation, care for the wellbeing and happiness of the older generation?

6. Do you think the elderly still have something to contribute to society? If so, how could creative workshops assist with this? 

Primary Research - EqualArts

Due to some lost emails, slow replies and difficulties getting my references back to EqualArts and the Hen Power Project, I am seriously running out of time to go and get some research done actually in creative workshops. I still really want to do this to get some good drawings for the practical side of the project, but I have come up with a sort of plan B just incase. 

I was thinking I could just ask some questions about their ethos, why they think creative sessions are important for the elderly (in particular dementia sufferers) and comparisons of availability of workshops like this in various places over the UK (and maybe their opinions on the NHS vs. Private availability of therapies?). They could also maybe give me some examples of positive cases where the projects have really helped certain individuals, even if they are unnamed.

Equine Facilitated Human Development - IFEAL

I was sent a link about a new psychotherapy that is still being developed and trying to be brought into mainstream healthcare; it is completely weird, but really interesting. I don't know if I will be able to use it yet, but who knows!

http://www.ifeal.me/about-ifeal/the-ifeal-method/

Equine Facilitated Human Development:

• Non-verbal approach of feedback of how a person is really feeling and thinking
• Horses are hypersensitive and can read human body language a lot better than we can
• They will react according to how the person is thinking and feeling
• People go and chill out with a free-range herd of horses
• "Horses, when free to choose, will react with 100% engagement when a persons actions, words and thoughts are aligned with authentic feeling" - the horses will respond when the person is being honest about how they are feeling through their actions - not hiding anything?
• "Working with horses directly enables a person to understand and accept how often unconscious thoughts and feelings get in the way of our actions"

"Returns the person to their original power of the Authentic Self" 

Authentic Self = being yourself, not stifled by fear of judgement

"How To Discover Your Authentic Self And Live The Life You Really Want"

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-discover-your-authentic-self-and-live-the-life-1698115144

Santa Forgot - Alzheimer's Research UK

This is an advert that was shown to us today in a session for another module; it's a great example of how dementia (specifically Alzheimer's) awareness can be advertised in a captivating and interesting way. It is emotional, yet not in a way that is really obviously grim and depressing. The storyline has tapped into something we all know and find nostalgic - Santa Claus - and used it to evoke emotion and make you really think about how the disease affects people, and how research could somehow find a cure. Most importantly, it has done it without patronising the subject in question!

Some of the lines from the narration and visual symbols really stood out to me, including...

• "Someone was missing. Tucked away, and forgotten".
• "He seemed sad, distant and afraid".
• "But Freya didn't believe the story ended there".
• "I believe in you". (Cheesy but relevant)
• Holding hands
• On his own; loneliness

IN A NUTSHELL: The little girl didn't want to believe that Santa was over; she still believes he has something to give and that we should still care about him, even though he is suffering from the disease; his legacy lives on and should not be forgotten. Showing him someone cared made the world of difference. 

This is EXACTLY the sort of thing I want to communicate in my posters, and show that people suffering from the disease are still valuable and what they have contributed to society today has not been forgotten.

Japanese elderly and quality of life

"Effects of Functional Decline on Quality of Life Amongst Japanese Elderly" Tatsuto Asakawa/Wataru Koyano/Takatoshi Ando/Hiroshi Shibata, 2000, International Journal of Ageing and Human Development Vol.50, Baywood Publishing Co. Inc., New York

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2190/3TR1-4V6R-MA5M-U1BV

• "The subjects who experienced functional decline showed a larger decrease in the number of relatives, friends, and neighbours having frequent contacts, a larger decline in life satisfaction, and a larger increase in depression than those without functional decline. The results seem to confirm further the importance of functional health status as a prerequisite for higher quality of life in old age." (pg.319)
• "Subjects were 692 Japanese elderly, aged sixty-five years or older, with high functional capacity at baseline. During a two-year period of follow-up, 12.3 percent of the subjects experienced functional decline." (pg.319)
• "Koyano, Okamura, Ando, Hasegawa, and Asakawa (1995) observed the effects of functional health status on a number of socio-psychological variables and found that functional capacity was a powerful factor in maintaining meaningful interactions with others, time use, leisure activity, positive health-perception, and life satisfaction." (pg.320)
• "A ten-year longitudinal study on functional capacity suggested that maintaining the level of social activity might be helpful in maintaining functional capacity." (pg.320)
• "Quality of life in old age can be defined in various ways. The size of social networks, life satisfaction, and depression used as the criterion variables in this study were indicators of, at least, some aspects of quality of everyday life in old age. Age, gender, health, and socioeconomic status are well-known predictors of these indicators of quality of life." (pg.325)

"Relationships between Depression, Lifestyle and Quality of Life in the Community Dwelling Elderly: A Comparison between Gender and Age Groups" Shinichi Demura/Susumu Sato, 2003, Journal of Physiological Anthropology and Applied Human Science

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jpa/22/3/22_3_159/_pdf

• "In 2025, the old-old population (75 years or over) is expected to increase to about 13% of the total Japanese population. In Japan, it is expected that sustaining welfare and health services for the old-old elderly will become an important problem awaiting a solution." (pg.1)
• "Increasing the number of friends suggests a decrease the highdepression symptom. A social network is an important factor in the QOL level of the elderly". (pg.6)
• "The Japanese elderly receive social support in the form of family, relatives, friends and neighbours. Therefore, most elderly supported by friends may also receive social support from family and relatives. In any case, receiving social support from others is considered to lead to a decrease in depression in the elderly". (pg.6)
• "The study indicated that the old-old elderly with a high functional ability to perform advanced activities of daily living (AADL) and who had leisure and vocational activities, showed lower depression levels." (pg.6)

Tutorial feedback 3

An interesting illustrative awareness poster!

After scrolling through a bit more, this poster caught my eye; it's still an awareness advert on a grim subject, but has a really clever idea behind it. I think it's really attention grabbing as you want to sit there and work out what is actually happening; how the images manage to transform so smoothly. In that process, it makes you realise the narrative behind it; you don't see the beauty and cleverness of the poster until you reach the last bird, and you most likely wouldn't see the beauty and cleverness of the birds in real life until they were gone and the story was all over the news. 

I also like how it has used illustration over photography or lots of type, and how the images are shape based; even though it is monochrome, it works perfectly for the subject issue. 

Examples of Awareness Posters (and why I don't want to make mine like this)

I googled 'awareness poster adverts" and these were among the first 20 that came up. As pieces of advertising, they are brilliant in terms of communication; they have all managed to deliver a hard hitting point to the viewer really quickly and effectively. This is the sort of thing I need to be aiming for with my illustrations.

However, as most awareness adverts will be addressing grim subjects, most of the posters feature fairly grim and mostly photographic imagery to go with it. They mostly feature muted colour palettes and a lot of black, grey and white. If any have bright colours, it is usually a splash of red on a dull background to signify blood or something similarly horrible. 

This is NOT what I want my final work to look like; I want to try and challenge these adverts by creating colourful illustrations that somehow still communicate a message quickly and effectively. I think creating grim looking adverts in reference to the elderly will only reinforce peoples opinions that being old IS grim. If it's more colourful it should also be more eye catching to passers by. This will be difficult but I feel like with enough drawing I should be able to somehow pull it off. 

Practical Peer Crit Feedback

What I need to do
Start blogging about my own opinions and ideas more - form my own opinions by being critical

Talk more about specific triangulation

More contextual research

Find focus for the next crit (in 3 weeks); I feel like working with dementia residents via the Hen Power Project will help me do this as I start to gather more drawings and primary quotes. 

Start doing some practice prints!

Practical Brief - Contextual Ideas/References

I am really liking the idea of working with shape and very bold, bright colours for my final prints/posters. As well as being something I want to improve at anyway, I feel like it would work really well for the brief, as they would be very eye catching and a bit different to how normal awareness adverts/posters are.