11. Mabinogion

As all branches of the Mabinogi stories have many narritive possibilities, I decided that it needed to be simplified to between 8 and 10 larger images, choosing the best plots from each branch. These images would be related as they are from the same narrative but there is not necessarily any running connection between each image. The narrative points are; 

• Branwen trains a starling to carry letters  
• Bendigeidfran the Giant wading through the Irish sea with his army to save Branwen, his sister from being trapped in her husbands kitchen. 
• Efnisien hiding under a mountain of bodies after causing many fights  
• Bendigeidfran orders his soldiers to cut off his head in london, and burry his head facing France to warn off any enemies 
• A white boar leads Pryderi and Manawydan to a castle 
• Creation of Blodeuwedd from oak flowers 
• Blodeuwedd and Goronwy plot to kill Lleu, but because of Lleu's curse, its very complicated 
• Blodeuwedd cursed and turned into an owl, who is attacked when she flies in the day  

10. How the Eye Reads an Image

The next Welsh folktale that I'll be looking at are the four branches of the Mabinogion. Each branch focuses on a mixture of welsh culture, myths, rulers, their families, lovers, enemies and forms of witchcraft. These stories were also passed by word of mouth and adapted by many unknown people in the 12th and 13th century. As these stories have many more abstract elements to the narrative, it became more nesissary to understand how the eye reads an image.  

Neault  (2013) states that the eye is rarely still, and the focus constantly jumps  to new details to find information, and this process is known as "saccades".  An experiment created by Yarbus discovered that the eye is naturally drawn to areas of high contrast, detail and facial expressions, but unexpectedly discovered that the eye also searches for areas that may explain narrative, as shown in the results below. How you read an image can also be dependent on your cultural upbringing, as in western countries our brains have been trained to read from left to right, and these skills are transferred into our understanding of narrative in photographs and art. 

By understanding these elements, we are able to learn how to guide the audience's attention through and image, a website, a shop window and ect in other ways than purely composition. One example is following the gaze of a human figure, as it is human nature to focus on where another person is looking, such as in the example from Yarbus experiment above.  Visual ques often used in narrative illustration such as children's picture books are arrows,  pointing in the direction the viewer should follow. This type of visual que may be helpful in narrative as children and some adults may be less experienced in following complex narrative without any guidance, but this type of visual que may also be used to manipulate and confuse an image. By including too many arrows pointing all around or no arrows at all, can intentionally leave the viewer unsure where to begin. 

 Bradley, S (2014) How To Direct A Viewers Eye Through Your Design. [Online] Available from: http://vanseodesign.com/web-design/direct-the-eye/ [Accessed 9 April 2018] 

Neault, M (2013) Tracking the Gaze. [Online] Available from: http://magazine.art21.org/2013/01/07/tracking-the-gaze/#.WoxxjKOcaqQ [Accessed 9 April 2018]