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. 8^th, 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.