Project Brief
To create a narrative that expresses different lines of the given rhymes. The goal is to manipulate, alter and deconstruct the give graphic imagery to transcend its original meaning.
Overview
I based all four of my compositions from the rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle, re-imagined as a sinister story. Nursery rhymes traditionally cater to children, but I wanted to cast the rhyme in a nightmarish light and twist it such that instead of delighting children, it is now frightening. To create coherence among my compositions, I used a consistent black background and a similar style of images.
Hey diddle diddle! The cat and the fiddle,
Instead of the traditional imagery of a cat playing a fiddle, I reimagined it as a catlike monster lurking in the darkness. To incorporate the fiddle, musical notes were used to create the monster’s hideout and the sound holes of a fiddle were used to suggest the cat’s ears. Negative space is heavily featured in this composition to allow the viewer to imagine and flesh out the rest of the monster’s form.
These are the draft images. I initially thought of using a cat skull and the skeletal structure to represent the cat as it suited the theme. However, I felt that the final compositions were not visually or symbolically impactful and scraped the idea.
The cow jumped over the moon.
In this composition, the doll’s head was chosen to represent the surface of the moon, and cows were replaced by moths, which are creatures of the night often associated with moons. The repeated movement of cows continuously jumping over the moon has been translated into the fluttering of moths around the child’s head, which has been enlarged and centered as the focal point of the composition.
While constructing this compostion, I felt that using images of cows – or their associated objects like steak or milk – would be out of place in the context of the entire set. Instead of focusing on the animal that jumps over the moon, I wanted the focus to be on the action of traversing the moon instead. The initial composition had just moons and moths, but I felt that it was plain and lacking a focal point, which prompted the addition of the doll’s head.
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
The dog’s head has been replaced by that of a wicked clown, suggesting an ominous pleasure instead of lighthearted joviality as in the original rhyme. Cutout googly eyes and mouths were used to further emphasise the senses of sight and sound in this line of the rhyme, and they were arranged in lines converging at the clown to draw in the viewer’s eye.
I had the most fun experimenting with this set. I had originally intended to use realistic photos of eyes but realised that I didn’t like the look of it with the clown. Inspired by the polka dots of the clown’s hat, I used googly eyes instead as it was more regular and looked more like a pattern. I also rejected the idea of using a black and white background as I felt it was too jarring in contrast with the other 3, which have uniform black backgrounds. Mouths were also used to replace eyes in half of the composition to give it greater variety and break the uniformity.
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
This composition borrows from the preceding one to give it context – the dish and spoon are not eloping, but rather escaping from the evil presence of the clown. This is the most literal out of all the compositions, with hands and legs to personify the fleeing tableware and repetition to suggest movement.
Lastly, I had originally intended for this to be a macabre ending with the plate breaking while running away with the spoon. However, it was not as aesthetically stimulating as I had hoped for.
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