Weekly IP Blog#13

What I did

Sun. 1/8/12: About an hour reading more of Landscape and Memory by Simon Schama

Mon. 1/16/12: 6 hours reworking and editing my tornado. Researched more on the subject of the sublime and explored cleaner digital painting styles.

Tues. 1/10/12: 4 hours reworking my tornado’s natural lighting and line styles, also experimented with composition. Created new digital water effects and sketched out new compositions of my hurricane. Also go feedback on my thesis and how to organize my research better.  

Weds. 1/11/12:  About 7 hours crating different versions of my tornado. Experimented with lighting, vantage points, lines, and perspective.

Thurs 1/12/12: About 1 hour and 45min writing my blog, got feedback from Hannah on what specifics to fix on tornado. Meet with Mark Nielsen for about 1/2 hour.

What I accomplished/discovered/encountered

This week I concentrated on really developing my tornado and defining my digital style with the sublime. I made many versions concentrating on how I could create more natural light, clean up the parts that looked like poor digital computer effects, and create the immersive swirl I want my tornado to have. Below is the version I reworked early this week, the parts in the inside swirl looked kind soupy and too bright. 

I got feed back from Hannah that the yellow lines were looked like car headlights in a bustling city, which I had not noticed and totally agree with. I discovered that I have to be careful with the certain aspects of my work referencing other things that don’t have to do with nature. I worked on 5-6 versions of my tornado through out the rest of week tweaking lighting, line quality, and color on each and compared all them together to see what aspects were the best. This is what is really helping me improve my digital style and quality, but it is a bit time consuming. The second version below shows more shift in my light source and the type of dashed line I can use, where as in my third version my lines are too bold and solid with more contrast. 

I’m thinking of combining the both solid and dashed lines in order to keep the tornado immersive and fix my darks a bit. The third version I liked the best out of the 5 I played with is below, my lighting is where I want it to be coming from the top left and the center vortex having a slightly deeper shadow of depth. I still need to fix the lines in the foreground in relation to how it covers the tornado’s body.

For my hurricane, the plan I have is for vantage point to be from looking inside or down into the hurricane’s eye. I want this to have a much more overwhelming feel with walls of water closing in on the viewer, in contract to the speedy and electric feel of my tornado. I’m also debating if I should have my hurricane in a vertical or horizontal composition. The tornado and the volcanic eruption are vertical, but exploring both directions for the hurricane is something I want to try. Keeping them all vertical will make they fit better as a series. But also having each displayed could be interesting, such as seeing the hurricane from the floor or the tornado hung from the ceiling.  Not quiet sure yet, but I am excited by the possibilities and what new kind of looks I can create.

I also got great feedback on my thesis this week. My concerns of it being too long got resolved and I learned that I need more statements as to why I did things in my art on the basis of my research and connect them more to each other. I also need to be more assertive in my tone, so that was a great to know. Sitting down and getting at how my new research is pushing my project and how I can better articulate it in writing helps me focus on the strongest parts of all my research. We discussed how my analysis of paintings featuring sublime landscapes relates to the travelers’ challenge, and also my own, of recapturing something new and a bit unknown in nature. I should be looking at how other artists in the past rose to the artistic challenge of capturing landscapes for others who never experienced them before, the same way I am doing so now for people who never have experienced a natural disaster.

I also meet with Mark Nielsen on thursday to talk about displaying my prints. We talked about how I can hanging my glass prints on the wall or ceiling, or use light boxes or other forms of mounting with plastic tubes. He went over the type of screws I could use and options of plastic tubes to have space behind my work for light to come through, he was very supportive of my ideas and liked how I want to print on glass. He also recommended me to get in contact with Ann Arbor plastics for any method of printing I do to get mounted onto the walls properly. The information I got was great because I did not realize how many wall mounting options I had.   

    

What I think I should do next

I am much happier with digital look and sublime style my tornado is having right now, I just really want it refined. I will be combining the solid and dashed line styles I’ve created and try to refine my tornado’s look to a really good level by next week. Working on my hurricane’s composition and style is also something I will be working on. I want to try compositions that are both vertical and horizontal to see what works best or if any other ideas of presentation can originate. I will be looking in on more options of presenting my work next week and how I can my project hung from the ceiling or the wall.