Weekly IP Blog#18

What I did

Sun.  2/12/12: About 4.5 hours redesigning my volcano. About 1 hour taking photos outside of rocks and earth textures to create new Photoshop brushes with.

 

Mon. 2/13/12: 2 hours researching rock and mountain textures, recreated more my volcano texture. 

   

Tues. 2/14/12: Spoke with Janie Paul about reviewing my whole project again. Got more pointers from my tutor from the College of creative studies, reworked more of my effects on fire lighting for about 3 hours and 45min.

Weds. 2/15/12: 2.5 hours digitally painting and recreating a draft of my volcano that got corrupted.

Thurs. 2/16/12: about 2 hours sketching new vantage points for my volcano and reflected on my work this week by writing my blog. 

What I accomplished/discovered/encountered

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand how I can capture more rocky textures in my digital paintings. I think the danger in recreating my volcano is how cheesy the rocks and fire can look together. This is why I think Peter Lik and Edward Burtynsky’s work I keep referencing are so helpful in how they both reface the power of proper natural lighting when they photograph. They also use magentas, violets, and warm browns in some of their photos of earth’s surface. So I’ve been trying to use that color palette instead of organs and yellows with bright reds I was originally working with. 

Dryland Farming #24, Monegros County, Aragon, Spain, 2010, 

Edward Burtynsky

Peter Lik

I also found Mexican painter Patricio Betteo’s work this week and his style with post-apocalyptic landscapes very inspiring. The simplicity yet layered effects create depth and awe in his compositions. The layers also have the push and pull effect that makes the viewer sort off step into the scene. I spent sometime outside Sunday with the better weather, and took some pictures of rock and earth textures I found interesting at Hines Park near my house in Livonia. Zooming in and out at some rocks and earthy floor allowed me to get the feel of the shades of browns, grays, and blacks I could incorporate into my work. Below are some of my photos.

 I also have been in staying in touch with Janie Paul this week to get more feed back on my project together as a whole. She has been busy lately, so touching base after the break is what we have planed on. This pushed me also get in contact with my tutor from the College of Creative studies, giving me some pointers on how to recreate some new brushes in Photoshop based on the photos I took this weekend. They also gave more feedback on the how the fire effects I’ve been creating look to computerized and that they don’t need to be as harsh. When I started to use one of the new brushes I made, I corrupted the file I was working on and lost most of the work I had for that rough draft. So I wasted some time recreating that sketch again and was disappointed in not getting it exactly the same. I need to reedit the effects I had originally made to make my fire and smoke. I think not being so literal with fire and lava will help my volcano be more in the style of the sublime, sort off like my tornado. I feel that my project as a whole is taking all three natural disasters in a dreamlike realm, which is really interesting to me now seeing the three interacting.

Again the struggle I am having is creating a successful vantage point of my volcano and making it immersive. My best results for getting somewhere good in composition is drafting and recreating vantage points of my natural disasters. So Im hoping that doing this again for my volcano can be quicker based the last two natural disasters I’ve already made. I think getting away from the usual explosions seen from a distance and concentrating more the interesting shapes and tails lava can make would be a good way to go next. Looking back on this week, I realized that I spent too much worrying about textures and not enough on my compositions. I need to concentrate on that a lot more for my volcano because my sketches right now are not good enough, you cant really tell what they are.        

What I think I should do next

I need to finalize how I am going to get my project printed. I’ve tried to get in contact with my contact at Artisan Color Inc. but she seems to be on vacation. I’ve needed to go to Paragon printing here in Ann Arbor in person to see the kind of finishings and printing methods they offer, but need a car. I’ve therefore planned to go there soon with another student from another IP group to see if we can get a discount together in getting our projects printed. Next week I will be working on another draft of my thesis. I also plan to continue working on my volcano compositions and get inspired to keep working over the break.