piece in the mix

a piece i am currently working on is an assignment where we had to use layer mask to make some sort of image out of a variety of photos, the same as you would do for a collage in theory, just without the stickiness that comes with the glue.  i chose to do a giant turtle with and island formed on its back, you see this in some Asian inspired stories. and i find it to be a cool  concept and was inspired by the trailer of a game i play online. wow!, where as a pandaren you will supposedly begin you journey on the back of one of these mythical creatures named shen-sen-zu. being pumped for the expansion i thought id bring it into my art.  

essay 1

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The piece i have chosen to write about was one of my own and the process of how I arrived at its completion. In the beginning it was nothing like its end, different in medium, form, and thought. I started with a sculpture of a monster like head, rat like in features, a sort of mole man to describe it vaguely. From the point of bringing in a chosen object you were to study it, contour and fully rendered drawings. After which you had to derive an abundance of thumbnails/ sketches to somewhat deviate from the original piece. Trying to find something to trigger an idea or design. This was the creative process we were being instructed to use at the time.

My end results were not meeting the expectations as all my thumbnails did not stray to far from the actual sculptures design. So instead i looked at it as what it was and not what it looked like because the teacher asked me what it meant, and i had no answer. So i went with the idea that it was a head, or to farther focus my train of thought it was a face. Then i asked myself what a face was, what its used for, its purpose. And what i came to as a final design was something i could make to demonstrate what a face was, and its symbolic purpose.

I designed a steam-punk inspired sculpture of an almost silhouette like human face, but the mediums used where such that it was not human looking, but robotic, metal, gears, and bolts. I designed it to have its three-dimensional effect by using a layering method one over all piece of sheet steel as the back with a functional and interaction friendly gear/cog system made from both plastic and metal pieces from a busted printer and clock, this rested on the first plate making the second layer. The third layer was risen by using spacers made from a brake line from an automotive store (a thin piece of pipe essentially). These spacers made the simplistic cut outs of the “face” seem to be floating above or around the gear system, looking as if you could see the inside of the head, or rather the mind at work. The cuts outs had no facial features besides the over all contour shape making it as simple as i could. And the pieces were held in place by and small nuts and screws. The concept was that we are trained to recognize faces from birth, its how we tell people and creatures apart, but that without one, the human species was no better then a biological machine, nothing setting people apart. This idea probably coming partly from that i believe more and more the world is brainwashing certain ideas into peoples heads about various subjects so i wanted the becoming a robot feel, secondly i really like the steam-punk genre and its aesthetic style. Modern technological designs with a victorian, brass, gears, and steam powered limitations of what they had in the era to work with. So it just looks awesome!

When it comes to making “art” I don't usually think about it in the way that the teacher wanted the assignment done in. I draw something mostly cause i think it looks cool and thats it, no hidden meaning or deep emotional story behind it. I found it hard at first to try and think of meaning behind what i was creating and found that i still did not have one until i was well along my way to finishing the piece. Mostly due to the fact that the way i go about doing my drawings is that they are just ideas, mainly just focused on the aesthetic impact of the illustration. This is the style of thinking that is required in the field i am trying to become a part of (concept art for the entertainment industry) i personally consider it art as well as some others but at its core its just putting ideas to paper etc. In my opinion graphic designs without a customer are the same as art. So what if i didn't turn into some crazy person to make it, and maybe i have a style that is not too unique or new, but i still think its art. This being a big topic in a few classes i thought i would tie in a few of my opinions to rant a little bit, as well as take up some of the word count required for this piece of writing :P. But where it was relevant to this piece i figured why not. I mean does coming up with the design before i gave it a meaning really say if its art or design, il leave it to others to make up there own mind, but to me its all one and the same.

reading # ? :P

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In this chapter i found myself reading some thing i knew already about the media world. The in depth thinking wen it comes to producing imagery is a basic known thing. Especially when in context to branches of media such as news papers, videos, hallmark cards and so on. The different types and categories however did catch my eye. But in the end it pretty much said that so many of them were just sub classes of one kind of thinking or viewing something and therefore lost my interest again. ( they should have used their own advice on researching interesting things and applying them to the subject matter.)

critique 3

            MADNESS by Simon Lee made with chavant nsp medium. It’s a bust (sculpture) of a twisted looking squid like head with bodies fused to its sides.

The piece looks about a foot tall and about a hands width wide. Or round (squared)

In my interpretation this thing is something from a nightmare!!!!!

critique 2

            Egyptian Queen by Frank Frazetta, oil on canvas vertical rectangular piece.

In this piece there is a dramatic lighting focused on the center with a woman standing against a pillar with a man in the background slightly in the shadows, and in the foreground is a chained leopard walking from left to right fixed on the woman, its back to the viewer.

 I believe this piece captures the imagination so well do to its awesome use of the renaissance style dramatic lighting like a baroque piece.

critique 1

            Jabba the hut scene by Richard Whitters: Ink and pencil on paper. Rectangular in shape with a heavy bottom portion with most of the scene taking place they’re with a slight round to it in the center, with a centered character being the focal point.

            In this piece the artist has taken a scene from the popular sci-fi film Star Wars, and turned it into a more fantasy oriented twist on the subject matter. The bottom perimeter of the piece is clustered with characters and objects to mimic the scenery from the movie. All of which in the film were sci-fi and have bin drawn in a way to give it a fantasy style.

           

favorite artist in my field

In graphic design my favorite style is digital paintings/concept art mostly done threw Photoshop, and my favorite artist for this is Fang Zhu, a teacher/ contractor for the media and entertainment industry. Founded his own school in Singapore and has an interesting career.  I think it would be awesome to take one of his courses, as his online tutorials he offers on YouTube are very helpful, without even giving away any fundamental information.  His work covers a large span of genres from movie scene story boarding, environments, industrial, and character design. Which is awesome to see where someone like me has just one focus, so its cool to see someone so creative in many topics. He has even worked for George Lucas.