Weekly IP Blog#15

What I did

Sun. 1/29/12: 5 hours sketching out new digital thumbnails and compositions for my hurricane.

Mon. 1/30/12: About an hour or so talking with Hannah and James about my project, what Im struggling with and what I need to strive for in my hurricane and volcano.  4.5 hours editing and recreating new effects for my hurricane, researching new paint brushing techniques. 

Tues. 1/31/12: Abou1 hour and 45min. painting with gouache compositions of water turbulence and hurricane effects.   

Weds. 2/1/12: 2 hours researching water turbulence, other forms of water, and damaged landscapes. Got new photography books, Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky and David Maisel: The Lake Project.

Thurs. 3/1/12: studied coffee foam, reflected on how to relax more and approach my project more relaxed. Spent about two hours reflecting on my work this week and worked on my blog post.

What I accomplished/discovered/encountered

During the course of this week, creating better compositions and sublime effects for my hurricane was tricky. I keep reworking and reworking my ideas, and feel I’m losing concentration on the good qualities I had originally for my hurricane. Im overworking my hurricane, I need to step back and relax more. I spent a lot of the weekend trying to come up with new compositions with interesting vantage points, but they resembled the vortex and shape of a tornado. I tired to get inspired by studying more landscape paintings and even Disney's Fantasia “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” where Mickey is submersed in water. Its frustrating how much time I keep spending on my laptop with little success in creating an impressive version of my hurricane.

I went over my crazy work and discussed printing options with Hannah and James on Tuesday. They made me feel better in making see what aspects of my hurricane research and creations were good, such as the textures and earth tone color pallets I had in my original versions. They could see I was getting a bit lost and worried, so Hannah told me to just step back and try painting out some compositions and even study coffee foam or other things I based my key words and feelings for the hurricane. James also suggested that I look at Edward Burtynsky and David Maisel photography books and work.  The book Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky has great references for my volcano in the eroded and destroyed aspects his work exhibits of our earth’s reshaped surface. David Maisel: The Lake Project  I just got and am currently studying the book, so far the aerial photographs are inspiring in there color tones and unknown locations. We also talked about how important it is for me to distinguish the tornado, hurricane, and volcano in aspects other than color and to keep in mind some of the “family” traits they all three share. They all have a center, some forms of clouds or smoky effects, and the hurricane and volcano also share liquid properties the water waves and lava. These things I have been aware about, but I have to push my textures and unique storm elements in my digitally painting technique in order to really make my natural disasters stand out. We talked about how I should not concentrate so much on the eye of a hurricane and instead try to capture turbulence, foam, and violent waters. 

I took Hannah’s advice and did on some quick compositions and stroke explorations with gouache paint. I did this quickly, tried not to over think it, and it turned out to be fun. I liked a lot of the motions and wispy strokes I came up with. I plan on transferring these effects and experience to my digital working processes. I need to change up my approach to the eye of the hurricane and weak soft look in the water, an aspect I am misinterpreting from J.M.W. Turner’s work that I’d been looking at. I took index cards to paint on, both vertical and horizontal, then did some paintings on 11x17 sheets. I felt my smaller explorations with paint on the index cards were more successful because I felt less pressure in covering more space in a medium that is not my best. I took high quality scans of my paintings to use as reference for my digital work.

Thursday was great to reflect on my work thus far. I’ve been thinking about what changes or new inspirations I can use to push my hurricane in a less stressful and accurate direction. Right now I am still unsure about what composition will be the most immersive. I feel more comfortable about making my hurricane seen as a mass coming out at the viewer instead of putting them inside the swirls or funnel of waves. The books and explorations are being helpful. 

What I think I should do next

I plan to attempt to create better digital compositions again this weekend. I want to connect my actual painting experience to my digital working process by not concentrating so much on computer enhancement or textures. I also plan to distress a bit about my project, slow down and really think about what artistic decisions and I am making and why. The specific traits I have written down for my hurricane and volcano will serve as reminders as to what textures and feelings they should have distinguished. James also told me about mounting and surfacing options I could inquire about at Paragon, so I plan to visit them soon.  I think getting new perspectives on my work would be helpful as well, so I will try to make another visit to the College of Creative Studies again for advice.