Damien Gasgoigne Lecture

A few weeks ago I went to a lecture by Illustrator and animator Damien Gasgoigne. Even though illustration and animation is not really my thing, I found the lecture really exciting and fun to listen to. Gasgoigne works for Picasso Pictures and has done since 1993. I found the way that he collects his research quite interesting. He takes loads of pictures of anything that interests him. He showed us pictures of people that he knew, and explained why he loved what they were wearing, their personalities, the way they talked etc. I thought this was a really good aspect of his work. He also takes pictures of unusual situations that he would find interesting. For example one photo that he showed us was of a man and a woman sat in a coffee shop. He didn’t have a clue what they were doing, who they were and why they were there, but in his own mind he started to make up his own story for their situation. He also likes to capture movement and shapes to inspire him with his animations.

If he finds a stain on the floor and he sees potential in this he will take a picture of it. For example he showed us some images of objects and stains that looked like faces and some even looked like monsters. He would then pursue these images and come up with his own characters.
One piece of work that I found really interesting was a piece that he had done called The Love Books. When he was a student he used to keep little sketchbooks and just draw in them whenever he felt like it. One of the main ideas behind the drawings was love. Each girl that he liked he would draw a picture for. Or even just when he was feeling down he would draw a picture. He ended up with a huge stack of these sketchbooks so he decided to turn them into a film. He was working at Kingston University at the time and he wasn’t that confident on the animation software. With the help of one of his students he put together a short film of all the imagery he had collected. I found this piece really interesting particularly because of the story behind it.