How to Grow Clouds - finished animation

And here it is after several months of making and editing. Accompanied by an original soundtrack composed by the very talented Nick Scott http://www.nickscottmusic.co.uk/

How to Grow Clouds - making

To maintain a sense of unity I wanted everything to be portrayed using only watercolours. In order to achieve this illusion of a Japanese watercolor, the base for everything (puppets, clothes, animals, scenography) had to be watercolour-friendly, white and needed to look like it was made from paper. Therefore as my main materials I used plaster to cover wood/ cardboard constructions, paper-mache and white fabric for background.

I wanted my puppets to have a wide range of movement which would correspond to the fluidity of their environment, so after several trials with wood and wire I choose to make my figures from metal armature with ball and socket joints from metal balls and bicycle chain parts. Even their hands had flexible fingers which allowed for a fluid transition from one frame to the next.

How to Grow Clouds - story

How to Grow Clouds

It takes a lot of work: it is necessary to weed very carefully, to toss out muck and small stones by hand, to kneel on the earth, bend over, dig about in the soil, water profusely, collect caterpillars, exterminate aphids, loosen the ground and serve the earth; when your back hurts from all this and you straighten up and look at the sky, you will have the prettiest clouds. Probatum est.

Philemon, or On Gardening

Karel Capek

No page-turning action or plot twists, this form belongs more in the recipe book than the narrative of a short puppet stop motion animation, but it was in this “recipe” that I found my inspiration..

As an enthusiast of all things Japanese I was attracted to the almost-haiku style atmosphere that inspired me to set my animation in a Japanese-like environment. Like Haiku poetry I wanted the animation to focus on emphasizing the small details, to catch the fleeting moments and glorify the everyday actions of something as simple as the act of gardening while playing on the allegorical meaning of “you reap what you sow.”

After preparing some initial watercolor story boards I decided that I wanted the whole animation to envoke the feel of a 3d watercolour painting.

Welcome to Imaginarium

Alicja Cioch, a native of the distant land of Bydgoszcz, Poland and recent graduate of the Glasgow School of Art.
Her work is a reflection of her unique character which draws her to the magical side of things . Tales, music, black humour and distant Asian cultures have all been the subject of her work which focuses on the nostalgic, the bloody, the poetic and the bizarre.