Friday, September 30, 2011

Weekly IP Blog #3


What I did
Sun. 9/25/11: 3 hours, 25mins
I did more ideation on my natural disasters topic. How it can refer to social impacts, how people or the media explain why they occur, and how natural disasters are relevant today because they are occurring more often.  Some doubts then started to arise from my ideations, such as my project being too much like the weather channel or too scientific. I want to make my natural disasters look powerfully modern and, not boring. I started taking notes on key words that would describe each natural disaster. 

Mon. 9/26/11: 3 hours
keeping in mind that my project did not need to be so geographic, I looked at a lot of natural disaster illustrations and images. I took notes on the emotions and words that would pop into my head when going through the images. Based on that, I then created note cards full of key words and feelings I wanted my own natural disasters to convey and personify. I posted these note cards of key words and feelings for each disaster on my studio wall.

Tues. 9/27/11: 1 hour working on my rough draft for my proposal and the class exercise. 2 hours and half meeting with class partners and taking notes on each other’s projects. We discussed each of our new habits, how they worked, and aspects of our projects we were unsure of.  I also sketched for about 45min, getting new paper, markers, and pens in order to better draft my ideas.

Weds. 9/28/11: 2 hours sketching
I sketched out some storm compositions I had in mind. I worked with Copic markers, pencil, and pens. I plan to scan my best sketches next week to use as references for my digital paintings. 

Thurs. 9/29/11: 2 hours and a half of class discussion about our proposal drafts, edited my partner’s proposals, and gave each other a lot of feedback. Worked for about an hour on setting new goals for the week. Continued my sketch from Wednesday night for about another hour.

What I accomplished/discovered/encountered
By making note cards with key words and feelings for each natural disaster, I really got to step back and look at my information from a different point of view. The note cards were also my new habit of the week; I tend to make tiny notes in my sketchbook in a list format just for me. By posting the note cards on my studio wall, others were able to better understand and see what I wanted my project to be. It really presented my ideas more clearly, especially when I later shared them with my partners and peers from class. The note cards also helped me distinguish each natural disaster, their characteristics, and helped me decide what aspects they should convey. I also discovered what aspects I didn’t want my disasters to represent, such as the negative aftermaths, or details such as the hurricane not depicting cold whirlwinds the way the avalanche should.  I also encountered the overlapping characteristics and connections between some of the natural disasters, such as the similarities tsunamis and hurricanes have in being powerful through water.  The fallowing is an image of the note cards on my studio wall. 
Natural disasters note cards  
In meeting with my class partners Jimmy and Kyle in each of our studios on Tuesday, we got to give each other a lot of feed back on our new habits and projects. I got to share with them my note cards and they liked them a lot. They understood that my project was more about personifying natural disasters, referencing nature’s incredible power. By also working on my proposal this week, I understood more what I wanted my project to be about and why. I want to personify natural disasters to show people how nature is powerful and take them away from the media's negative light. That’s why I want to capture both the beauty and terror in natural disasters, nature is incredible and society tends to forget that. With this being clearer to me, I am able to sketch and draw out compositions for my project with more ease.  I realized drawing more would help me get more practice in painting out my ideas with my tablet. Below is the sketch of a composition I had in mind after making all the note cards and going over my proposal.


 The class edits on Thursday for our proposal was also great! I learned that the strongest part of my proposal was at the bottom of the second paragraph. That’s where I mention that the media tends to put natural disasters in a negative light, and that I want to show nature’s power within the beauty and terror that natural disasters have. I also learned that parts of my explanation about a new digital style was vague. I sat down with Juliet to discuss what parts to keep and what parts to take out from my proposal. I now feel a lot more comfortable about writing my IP proposal.


As for an inspiring artist this week, I’ve been struck by Oliver Vernon’s paintings. His abstract and very active paintings are in the style I’ve been imagining to capture in my natural disaster series.  His free, flowing strokes really hint to the power and beauty found in nature, yet it embodies a kind of chaos.  I really enjoy looking at the mix of different movements and strokes of color in his work. 
His website: http://www.oliververnon.com/  
Oliver Vernon, Last Stop, acrylic on panel
What I think I should do next
My goal for next week is to go meet a tutor at the College of Creative Studies to get some pointers on my digital painting. The new guy I have been in contact with was very busy last weekend, so we have planed to meet up this weekend instead. He is a student at CCS and has been recommend from some friends I have in Detroit. Another part of my goal is to finish 6 drawing sketches of the natural disasters I want to paint digitally. This way I can use my sketches as references for next week when I start digitally painting some compositions. I hope to further my passion and vision for the natural disasters I want to create.
 








Thursday, September 22, 2011

Weekly IP Blog #2

What I did
Sun. 9/18/11: 3 hours, 45min.
Researched more graphic design topics, themes, and different projects I could possibly do. Found new very inspiring artists and work! I developed my I.P. ideas on variations of scale, printing methods, transparencies, and lighting for my work. Sketched possible display ideas for my project and things I found interesting during my research. 

Tues. 9/20/11: 3 hours 1/2.
Looked for books, images, and researched in the Fine Arts Library. Spoke with librarians about image databases the university provides. I reflected back on the small group meetings we had and why I liked my natural disasters idea more.  
  
Weds. 9/21/11: 2 hours and 1/2.
Looked up more in depth the topics and artists suggested to me from the group meeting Tuesday. Went through tutorials about clouds and sky effects. I also explored more websites on digital painting. 

Thurs. 9/22/11: about 2 hours. Plus 45min or so looking back on the work I did this past week.
Took photos of the sky, sun, and leafs, for reference.  Also did a bit of research on photography and photographers’ styles in capturing nature. Considered the differences between Illustrations of nature vs. photos of nature.


What I accomplished/discovered/encountered
A big accomplishment I made this week was gaining more confidence in my natural disasters idea.  I learned more about photography and all the great possibilities I could have in displaying and printing off this idea. I learned about websites and companies that print on fabric, glass, and aluminum. I also discovered new artists and photographers. 

The painter Mark Garro was very inspiring to me because his paintings incorporated nature and landscapes of storms in an almost realistic yet fantasy fashion that I had envisioned doing. I especially loved his painting with water and snow. The image below is “Nigh School” from one of his recent shows. 

http://markgarro.com/shows/psychopomp-and-circumstance/
The photographer Lori Nix was also recommended to me because of her use of depth perception, capturing the mock ups of nature or landscapes she created. Her snow and peaceful images are very inspiring for the avalanche digital painting I want to create.
http://www.lorinix.net/kansas/index.html

I encountered that the hard thing about my project is how much realism do I want or need in order for each natural disaster to be recognized.  I could use images with digital painting or just paint and use my own effects with out realistic images. The idea of experiencing a natural disaster through big digital prints or prints on windows keeps creeping in. Do I want to convey the experience or portray just the irony of beauty and terror in natural disasters?     

What I think I should do next
For next week I plan to further push my natural disasters idea because it became much more concrete this week.  Last week I was still looking at other graphic work and projects, and now I want to try to merge the digital fine art aspects I love with my fascination of the irony natural disasters have in being both beautiful and terrifying. I need to develop my digital skills, so I will work on that this weekend with a student from CCS.  I also will take on a “new habit” by posting note cards on my studio wall for each natural disaster I am interested in depicting. I will also come up with key words to go with each disaster and set the styles/moods I want them to portray (either individually or together). I’ll be looking more in the books for inspiration and ideation.  
     

Clouds?

Here is one of my digital painting experiments in painting clouds and treea. I discovered a new way of paining clouds, different from my original process because this used more color and gradient curve layering. I liked the greenish tornado clouds I created within a dark mysterious setting.   

Thursday, September 15, 2011


Weekly IP Blog #1

What I did:  
After the discussions we had during our fist couple of meetings and some research, I was inspired to create some kind of digital painting or illustration as my “new” thing.   I spent about an hour and a half researching old posts on websites, such as conceptart.org, on tutorials of digital painting I had done in the past and also found some new techniques.  I started my digital illustration painting of a sneaky beast I had envisioned on Thursday Sep. 8th, for 3 hours or so. I then dedicated the weekend to setting up my studio space, something I was really excited about and yet a bit stressed.  On Friday I shopped for furniture, mostly just a desk and a bookshelf, spending about 2 hours and 45minuites.  On Saturday I decided to drape curtains or some kind of cloth on my walls, so I spent 2 hours at Joann Fabrics that morning.  Picking out a fabric I could identity my self with was harder than I thought but fun, I was worried about picking out cheesy styles or too bright of colors.  My friends and parents were amazing enough to come help me move and build all my stuff into my studio space on Sunday.  It took us a pretty long time, about 4 hours to get everything done and moved from my house in Livonia to the art school.  I worked more on my digital painting on Monday for about 2 hours, realizing how much longer it was taking me to paint and get the technique down.  When I painted again on Tuesday, I spent a good 3.5-4 hours painting and really enjoyed it because I got better.  I did some last minute highlights and touches on Wednesday, so about an hour, for presenting my sneaky beast this Thursday.   


What I accomplished/discovered/encountered: 
I accomplished setting up a great studio space for myself that I’m conformable in. I was surprised how the space unintentionally reflected my style and even my website’s color palette.  My overall reflection to the digital painting of my sneaky beast was that it was tying in to the natural disasters idea I had for my IP project because the beast had elements of melting snow.  The painting also helped me discover how out of practice and how time consuming painting with my tablet was for me.  It also helped me confirm that it is something I really enjoy doing, I just need a strong subject. So the “dream project” exercise we did in class on Tuesday really helped me a lot and showed me how some of my ideas were connecting and could be combined. I also discovered that I wanted my IP project to be painted digitally.


The first “dream project” I came up with was a series of natural disaster prints, featuring a tornado, earthquake, Tsunami, Hurricane, volcano eruption, and avalanche. This idea originated from my fascination to natures beauty and wrath, how many kinds of images of natural disasters (scientific, illustrations, or TV broadcasts) can be both beautiful and scary.  My second idea consisted of a series or some kind of board presentation of fantasy worlds I would create in a sort of video game or concept art style. During class I then realized these fantasy worlds could potentially be destroyed by the natural disasters I came up with in my first idea.  The next dream project I came up with was on the topic of film noir, how mysterious and interesting it can be and how that could be captured through digital graphics-this still needs a lot more research.  The last idea I came up with was creating some kind of combo series or studies of different kind of maps used over time and through out the world.  I love subway maps and building layouts, so I thought combining the style of other maps such as old navigation maps, terrain maps, and weather maps would be fun to do.  For now I am not quite sure what exactly I want to do for my IP project, but I would like it to be painted digitally and presented at least in large prints.  (Below are the scans of my strongest “dream projects”)

What I think I should do next:   
For next week, I want to finalize more my project’s topic and presentation. I want to work on improving my digital or drawing skill for my IP project and do more research on techniques. I also plan on contacting a student I know from CCS (College of Creative Studies) who could give my some pointers on how to digitally paint better.  I will be researching a lot more on potential topics for my project, especially the film noir and natural disaster topics.  Being on the look out for new potential ideas or topics is also on my schedule.