Weekly IP Blog#7

What I did

Sun. 10/23/11: 3 hours

Sketched out tsunamis, hurricanes, and water storms.

Mon. 10/24/11: 2 hours

Watched personal stories about being in a hurricane and the show “Twist of Fate” on the weather channel.

Tues. 10/25/11: For 45min I met with Janie Paul, she helped point my sketches in the right direction and gave me great feedback. Finished sketching out and researched more stories in my studio for about 3 hours.

Thurs. 10/27/11: about 3 hours of in class critiques on my sketches, and talked about our grant applications. About 1 hour planning out a realistic water storm sketch.

What I accomplished/discovered/encountered

On Sunday, sketching out new vantage points of water storms was a bit difficult. It all came out pretty abstract and I was not sure how to capture the fierceness and easy identification of the storm all at the same time. I did enjoy exploring liquidly motions and actions in my drawings.  I concentrated more on the movements and shapes than the storms themselves this time and played with strips of my drawings being hung and the ceiling. Hanging them was interesting, but the drawings themselves needed to be a lot more finished and impacting. I think I’m trying to get too much work done for all the storms, and not concentrating enough on pushing more quality into one direction.

Monday was fun because I was flipping through channels and I ended watching the weather channel and a pretty cool show called “Twist of Fate”. The episode was about a mother and her daughter being trapped on top of a car with three babies because of a hurricane that had hit their home. I had been hearing a lot about natural disasters over the weekend, such as the small earthquake that took place in San Francisco and how Hurricane Rina surpassingly developing this week near Florida and the Yucatan Peninsula. I also watched a show about the crazy Kauai hurricane that hit the Hawaiian Islands during the filming of “Jurassic Park”. I had no idea that a hurricane had ruined the film set and how Steven Spielberg and his crew experienced such an event. I really like the movie, but seeing how the waves and air affected both the land and people was very interesting. The wind was something that really scared them, not so much the water, and that kind of surprised me. http://acrossthepondandbackagain.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/paper-and-lace/

On Tuesday I met with Janie Paul and shared with my ideas and sketches of my Natural disasters. She gave me great advice because she knows my working tendencies from having me in her classes over the years. She brought up the point that I was abstracting the storms too much. She told me to first draw out the natural disasters realistically, maybe in other mediums, and then start abstracting them. I learned that my sketches were too pretty but that they sort of looked like dancing as well, which was interesting to hear because I’m currently taking a ballet history course. Janie was really encouraging really liked my ideas for my project. I need to step back and draw better my natural disasters and not rush so much to get them all produced at once.  I also sketched out some more Tuesday in a more explosive style, it was fun to do but needed to be pushed more. I also found during my research this great article of paper storm recreations and that was really inspiring because of the light effects the paper had that made it seem a bit realistic.

Thursday in class critique was good because I got to share the feedback I got from Janie and hear how others agreed or add other suggestions. I got really encouraged to draw a nice sketch of a natural disaster and to blow up real big so people can see it. I need to explore how much of an impact and change scale can have on my sketches. It was nice to hear how people want to see my sketches bigger and better because it helps me be motivated. I also learned that some of the forms and movements of liquid that I was exploring could also be used to draw out lava because some people thought that was what I originally drew. I’m learning how a lot more of the properties of the storms and natural disaster are crossing over each other, so I have to be more carful with that.

What I think I should do next

This week I plane to draw a hurricane or tsunami, maybe both combined, in a more realistic fashion. I’m going to slow down a bit, study the actual forms of the storm and not concentrate so much on manipulating or magnifying their beauty just yet. I also plan on working on my grant application, especially the Arts at Michigan application I’ve started because its due next week.