AN OPPORTUNITY TO DEVELOP AND INTRODUCE NEW ADVANCED SKILLS IN THE USE OF DIGITAL MEDIA.
PAST PROJECT: DIGITAL/WORKS 6 (01/2025 – 12/2025)
These selected images were created by participants of the Digital/Works 6 project. This included the use of coloured gels to create striking and expressionistic digital photo portraits. It has also included the use of digital photography to create new landscape collaged images of Folkestone, and digital film, which has incorporated a variety of film and animation techniques
The notion was to introduce each subject to advanced digital photo, collage, and film techniques to express their own sense of identity, place and experience.
SAMPLES OF THE ADVANCED DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES TO BE INTRODUCED FOR THE DIGITAL/WORKS 7 PROJECT.
This will include both black and white photography and experimental lighting techniques to explore how mood and atmosphere can be added to the portrait image.
We will use double exposure and long exposure times to create expressionistic and abstract digital photo portraits.
STOPMOTION ANIMATION
Working in dedicated groups of four, this project will look to make a series of short stop-motion animated films that reflect the wide variety of services and creative opportunities provided by Touchbase Care. This includes art projects (painting/drawing/digital), music (singing and drumming), life skills (cooking and work experience), and outside activities (allotment/health walks/outings to local attractions). These films will then be used to advertise the facilities available at Touchbase Care. We will draw on the experience of stop motion animations’ first encounters as part of the Digital/Works 6 project and create our own animation and greenscreen sets to make these films. Touchbase Care have agreed to offer (paid) staff support for this aspect of the proposal.
LIFE DRAWING
Touchbase Care has run several life drawing sessions for its members in the past and is keen to provide a timetabled series of workshops in the future. This application not only reflects this but is also an opportunity to take up the provision for the general public, as it has recently been withdrawn with the closure of the local adult education in Folkestone. This part of the project will be split equally between the members of Touchbase Care, with 16 half day sessions during the day and the general public, 16 half-day sessions in the evening.
The inclusion of life drawing as part of this project is to enhance the participants’ core creative skills and experience. Experience has shown this to be a popular and well-attended pursuit, and as such, a provision is now limited to individual initiatives. I have included this in this proposal to provide both a facility to members of Touchbase Care and the wider general public. Touchbase Care have agreed to offer (paid) staff support for this aspect of the proposal.
The overarching aim of this project is to inspire those who take part to see themselves as viable creative practitioners and give them the confidence and the skills to engage in their own, self-initiated digital arts projects. This project will build upon the skills and experience in using digital arts and media from past projects. They will add to their skill sets, and it is envisaged that by the end of the project, they will be able to call upon their skills and experiences as digital practitioners to produce high-quality visual arts outcomes.
I see it as my role to help facilitate them to make the most of their potential. I have learnt through my own experience that it is not talent that is important or a pre-requisite to being an artist but that the access to the opportunity to express that talent that comes through access to creative opportunities is what enthuses the individual to understand that creativity and creative action is a fundamental right to all regardless of age, sex, gender, class, and ethnicity. This project seeks to put such a provision in place and ensure that a community that is normally marginalised and ignored are allowed to create an artistic voice for themselves that can be shared by all.