Week of 9/23-27/19

I finally have my idea. It will be more animation based. The idea is that it is a dragonfly and a bird are in a chase. The bird is chasing the dragonfly and the dragonfly is trying its best to get away without being eaten. I have my plot written out from start to finish, but I still need to finish storyboarding. I first struggled finding models that were accurate.

This model of a woodpecker is the one I will be using. It is not accurate but it was the best I could find without having to rig a model. Woodpeckers eat bugs but usually not one's that fly. I would imagine it would be plausible for a woodpecker to eat a dragonfly because this bird does eat mosquitoes and caterpillars, I just think it would be unlikely that it would eat a dragonfly because the bird would have to go out of its way.



The dragonfly model I am using is very nice. The problem is the woodpecker is blender render and the dragonfly is cycles. I am going to either convert this one to blender render or find another one. I would prefer not to use cycles because I plan on making a longer animation with a duration of maybe two minutes or more. I have done it in the past, but I know on my last project cycles ran too slow so I had to animate blindly a bit because I couldn't see the rendered project until I completely rendered and it took 3 days. I'm fine with going through the hassle again but it would be nice to avoid it.

Next Week:

Next, I plan on finalizing my storyboard and start on filming. I should probably film soon before it gets too cold and my story would not make sense because birds and dragonflies are not really out in the winter. Even now with it being fall I am wondering if I should work on a different project because the weather and the way the forest look right now are not prime for the story I want to take place. This story I would imagine to take place in spring, but I worry it's too late to even try and make it look like spring. Maybe, I will just have to make the whole thing animation even though I really don't want to. Maybe there is a solution or else I will just have to deal with it.

When I think of what I want to do I think of this Pixar animation. It is just a cute story about a bird trying to get food and is fighting the waves. In my case I just want a cute little story between a bird and a dragonfly. Sure, the bird is trying to eat the dragonfly, but I want the story to be more playful and comical. I am not going to actually have the bird eat the dragonfly, but It will make for a nice chase scene. I believe this is a nice film to start on because it does have a lot of work to be put into it, but it should have to be too stressful because the story is not supposed to be deep. I usually worry about that sort of thing but this animation will be much more relaxing than my others.

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Monday- Finding my story

Tuesday- Plot rollercoaster

Wednesday- Storyboard

Thursday- storyboard & acting for another project

Friday- This blogpost

David Salle: Layering

His Style:

David Salle is an American contemporary artist. He uses painting, photography and printmaking combined in his work through the use of layering. His art incorporates many different styles in one to create his masterpiece. One might think art like this to be complex and displeasing to the eye, but David Salle's use of vibrant colors and his ability to not over layer his pieces makes the different ideas complement each other. Although you might find the theme or idea of the piece to be difficult to understand, his art is still quite wonderful.

Analyzing:

The piece to the right is my favorite of his works I've seen thus far. The first thing I noticed was the colors. They complement each other greatly and are very vivid. It is very stimulating. Also, there is use of juxtaposition between the left and the right of the painting. On the left the main color you see is that clay red, while on the right blue is the dominant color. Also, the left has people bleeding, while the right has an angel. This adds a sort of violent or intense feel for the left side and calm emotions toward the right. The two sides are brilliantly contrasted and the more I look at the painting the more I discover. Personally, I find it hard to pin point the exact meaning or theme the painting portrays, but I do feel it has to do with the struggle with life and the calmness that comes after life.

My Application:
Layering is a lot like hybridity and I had said in my last blog post how I was excited to try it out. I already have an idea to combine 3D animation and film, but who's to say that that is not also layering. I enjoy the complexity of layering and think it is an important technique to remember if you want a less straight forward piece, that leaves more of the interpretation up to the viewer. Also, I want to study more avant garde art that is different from the norm. Many people are very cookie-cutter, which is not wrong, but with art nothing is wrong, so I want to try to make something more unique. Not saying I need to stand out or anything, but it is a fact that something that differs from the norm would get more attention. I think it is a smart path to follow and something I would like to learn. I'm ready to try anything to find where I truly want to base my art around, so during this experimental phase I want to apply layering as well as hybridity to come up with something never seen before.

Words From The Artist:
This video describes how and why David Salle creats his work the way he does. It is quite fascinating to look into the mind of this artist. His inspirations and motivations are quite intense and important. He talks about "the narrative power of the images themselves" and I find that beautifully put. Art is not art without evoking a sort of emotion or thought and that is what I mostly enjoy about art. I want to make something that evokes feeling toward my work or character that the viewer would have never felt if they hadn't seen what I made. After watching this video I respect and enjoy David Salle's art even more. He is articulate and pays attention to detain in a way I didn't realize until he put it into words. Art is very powerful and he is a prime example of this.

Chris Doyle: Hybridity

His Style:
Chris Doyle has a very interesting style of art. He combines 2D and 3D stills and video then projects them into real life. This approach is very different than many of the mainstream animation media we see out in the world, all due to how he uses hybridity. This adds an allure to his art unlike others. His art is also very consistent. He knows what he likes to do. Either he is animating something about nature and man, or he uses organic shapes and patterns to leave the emotion's evoked by his art up to the viewer. He very much likes to use bright and vibrant colors that catch the eye. Many of his art pieces, especially the animations, use vibrant reds, bright greens, and deep blues. The use of such lively colors allows the eye to travel from point to point without needing directed. You are left on your own to decide what to look at. He also likes to add black as a bold color that still somehow stands out against the bright colors. It is a sort of silhouette look, like an old Chinese painting and the thin lines in his 2D art also resemble old Japanese anime from the 80s and 90s. His art is also ever changing. The video will start out as something and be completely different in the end. It shows a course of time and how the world he is depicting is changing. Even with his more organic ideas, in the end the shapes or patterns they were in the beginning will be a whole new ones by the end of his creation. His art is easy to enjoy and understand because you constantly see something new that invokes your interest.

Analyzing:
Chris Doyle's short film "Waste Generation" shows the relationship between man and nature. It starts out with showing a junk yard, but over time it changes. Nature then starts growing and it turns into a lush habitat. It uses juxtaposition to compare the two stages the world was in. There is the age of waste and the age of nature. Especially when showing the growing age of nature he decides to use 3D art as well as 2D this form of art is common in his work and is a form of hybridity. I enjoy his original techniques and it stimulates the viewer differently than if it were just 2D or just 3D the whole way through. He also uses patterns and organic shapes to create the sense of the world changing. They slowly change as you look at them and add a hallucinogenic effect that seems to warp your sense of reality, which if fitting to the story his film portrays. Overall, it was quite interesting and new. I liked the feeling of watching something I've never really seen before.

My Application:
Over the summer I actually had thought about using hybridity myself. I planned to make a film combining both real footage and 3D animation. So, I find it quite convenient we are studying this now. That is why I chose Chris Doyle. His art was the closest to something I would want to make. Art is a platform where nothing is wrong and you can do anything and that is why hybridity is important. Many people stick to the cookie-cutter one genre and one art form, but for me I just don't know if that's quite what I want. I've always just enjoyed too many things. I love all forms of art; I love to
draw, write, act, paint, animate, and make films. So, why not put them all together. Chris Doyle challenges the norm and I'd like to try so to. Maybe I can do something great, or maybe I will fail, but either way I will learn from what I have done. Studying people who have done things like this before me also inspires me and let's me know that I'm not alone in feeling that I don't want to stick to one genre or art form. Everyone starts out somewhere and needs to test the waters to see what they enjoy, so I plan to use hybridity and everything I've discovered while researching Chris Doyle to start my art making.