Animation Exploration

Getting to Know the Space and Place

Modigliani

An Italian artist, most successful around 1906-1914... about the time of Picasso's blue period.
Heavily influence by Cezanne, he used flat areas of colour to produces elongated, contorted profiles and nudes.

    

Galway

Galway

With our most recent project being "Space and Place" for CVS, I've been spending a lot more time in the city, familiarising myself with the buildings and streets, and learning a lot about the city scene. Not knowing a whole lot about cameras or taking pictures, i've been playing around with different angles, and light and objects, to try and show off the city in an interesting way. I really enjoyed this exploration, and definitely think it could become a regular thing for me.

William Kentridge.

On one of my recent trips to the library, I came across a book of William Kentridge's work. Over the past few weeks, from working with ink, and monochrome and most recently animation, there has been a lot of talk about William Kentridge, so I was intrigued to get a look at his work. 

William Kentridge (born 28 April 1955) is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. These are constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. He continues this process meticulously, giving each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two seconds' screen time. A single drawing will be altered and filmed this way until the end of a scene. These palimpsest-like drawings are later displayed along with the films as finished pieces of art.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmvK7A84dlk

His drawings, most using ink, are very simple, yet very effective. I loved their print-like, yet raw and gritty quality.

This is one of Kentridges charcoal drawings of a Rhino, which reminded me of Durer's print, which I took an interest in a couple of weeks ago.

Animation Project..
For L2L we've been given an animation project, which is very exciting, but also worries me a little, because I've never produced an animation before, so I'm a little lost about a starting point.
After researching a little about stop motion, I've found some very interesting and creative projects, some music videos, some just for fun.



http://vimeo.com/51959225
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1oA83I/www.webpronews.com/this-amazing-stop-motion-animation-was-made-entirely-with-pumpkins-2012-10/

I really liked this stop motion, humorous and just in time for Halloween! I found it on stumbleupon.com, a website i spend hours and hours trawling through!

The second link is one I found on YouTube, it's sweet and quite dream like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=mwX7uEiEWx4&feature=endscreen

Local Artist..

 I took this photo over the weekend, the last flower standing in the garden, I adore fuschias, and I thought this one looked magical amongst the foliage.

I remembered a local artist, here in Mayo, and one of her watercolour paintings of fuschias that's in my parents house. Her name is Bernie Prendergast, and is a fantastic artist who specialises in drawings of old men, and beautiful young women in the medium of charcoal, pencil and watercolour. 

Autumn / Winter..

So its a little late to be posting about autumn, but I'm definitely in time for winter. I love the winter months, the cold air, the slow down of nature but most importantly, the colours.

Yes, I'm a big fan of the vibrancy of summer flowers, and flowers alone are my first love, but there's something very comforting about winter leaves. The oranges and browns and reds, its exciting to see the change of colour around the place and the nakedness of the trees, like you're seeing everything for it's real self. 

So when I go home to Mayo, I love to be surrounded by trees and grass, and I appreciate it more now when living in the city. This weekend I needed some fresh air and inspiration, so I took a walk around the garden, and enjoyed the colours.

I was inspired to draw some print like leaves, and play around with the notion of negative space.

Artist Research

Artist Research

I really enjoyed researching this artist, firstly looking at his book on sculpture, but more so his book of drawings. Although his work mainly consists of black blocks of colour, I found them very meaningful and interesting. He often works in series, and on a very large scale, giving greater effect to his work.

I experimented with some of his ideas:

"god damn these reeds on which men stand"

Mind Mapping:

What is a mind map? In my opinion, its organisation of your thoughts, its a visual brainstorm, a road map, it allows you to free up your mind, and analyse your ideas.
Creator of the Mind Map, Tony Buzan, describes a mind map as a thinking tool that reflects externally what goes on in your head.

YouTube video on Tony Buzan.   

A mind map needs to be colourful, interesting and  clearly mapped out. This makes it easier to track your thoughts and ideas and develop on them.

              An example of a mind map:                                

                                

                    My mind map on Mind Mapping:

I included some images and colour

    My own experimentation of a mind map, and which would be most effective:

Make a Mind Map based on Why I Want to Study Art & Design :

    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Why do I want to study art?
• World of possibilities
• Like I have several branches of possibilities with art
• Like arms?
• Hindu Goddess Dura (18 arms)
• Strong, invincible, a warrior 
• -> like my dreams, ambitions & hopes about art
• I become like Durga
• ->Anything is possible & I'm open to the many branches, extensions, & opportunities that could arise from my study of art.

                          ...)Durga(...
               meaning "the inaccessible" or "the invincible", is a popular fierce form of                            the Hindu Goddess. She is depicted with multiple arms, carrying various weapons and riding a ferosious lion or tiger.

                        

Why Do I Want To Study Art & Design?

   I want to develop myself as a person. 

                                                                 To grow, and discover my true talent.

                                                        To expand my knowledge, and to learn from others.

                                                        To be proud of myself.

                       -And so by doing these things, learn to help others.

ME:

STARTING POINT... 

I'm unsure about where I should start with this blog.. a picture?.. a personal statement,.. a witty joke? 

So I've decided, I'll begin by outlining what I hope using this blog will help me achieve.. 

• Firstly, I just created and am using A BLOG! Something that I've always admired and appreciated about modern artists, but still a genius way of viewing artwork and also getting into the thoughts of the artist! So I'm pretty happy to have just joined the blogging world.. :D
• I plan to use this blog as a diary!.. (strictly for my thoughts and troubles of the art world, not to document the antics of my social life, although one may influence the other at times.)
• As this blog is part of Leanring2Learn, I feel I want to LEARN! Learn about artists, techniques, thought processes, the world of art, and most importantly.. me! and how all these things relate to me, and my life!
• I want to explore my thoughts.. because so far, I'm enjoying every minute of my new life in Galway,(not that I didn't like my life before this).. the course, the people, the experience, .. I'm feeling happy.