Artsvis 54

Edit #4

Done! In the end I went with the iPhone commercial song “Perfect Timing.” I figured this background music would be more fitting to the iPhone theme and plus its a lot lighter and cheerier than “Stairway to Heaven.” All in all I am pretty pleased with how everything turned out. In the beginning I thought this project would be very difficult, since I’ve had little to nil experience with animation. But it was actually easier than I thought it would be. The lighting could be better in some of the photos though. And if I had more time, I would go back and edit the photos so they all look identical in terms of brightness, saturation, etc

Final product:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WqIRfl7GBg

Storyboard:

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Edit #3

I was able to make a lot of progress over Thanksgiving Break and now just have some audio editing to do to put the finishing touches on my animation. I think overall everything went really well.

The basic plot of my story/game is broken into three parts..the three levels that the character of the game has to successfully complete into reach the gates of heaven.

Level 1: jump onto the clouds without falling off and try to reach the top cloud

Level 2: Climb into the right “hole” (each hole transports you into another hole) in order to reach the next level

Level 3: Climb up the stairs to get to the gates of heaven.

Right when he gets to the top is when the blocks on the bottom start to fall apart and the whole thing crashes. The figure starts falling into hell and that’s when the hand re-appars and click the button at the bottom of the iphone to return to the main screen.

I plan to use video-game audio for some parts while coupling the whole thing with the song “Stairway to Heaven.”

Will post final video and storyboard in entirety very soon.

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Edit #2

I was pretty pleased with the way my iphone and apps background turned out.

As for the Heaven and Hell application, I decided to make it into like a game. The objective of the game would be to get to the gates of heaven. The character would have to go through a series of obstacles to make it to the gates. I have some blocks and lego dolls at home that I plan to use for this part. I figure in the last stage in the series of obstacles, the figure would fail and began to fall into hell. But just as that happen, the owner of the iphone clicks the main button to return to the home screen.

Here is the rest of my storyboard along with the pictures of my makeshift iphone:

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I had a lot of trouble coming up with an idea for this project that was 1.) feasible to convey in a 30-120 sec animation and that 2.) incorporated the theme of heaven and hell. I scraped about 4 or 5 ideas the first two weeks just because they didn’t fit both criterion. I know I didn’t want to do something too serious or literal; I wanted to keep it original and lighthearted..

After doing some research on the different methods of animation, I decided to go with stop-motion. This one you-tube video I found that uses post-it notes and stop motion totally blew my mind.

So now I had picked a method of animation. I still needed a theme. It was when I was just playing with my iphone once that I had the idea of an iphone application named “Heaven and Hell.” If such an app existed, what would it do?

With somewhat of an idea down, I began to create a storyboard. Right now I’m still somewhat stuck on what the app will do. I thought I could do maybe like a game titled “Heaven and Hell.” A friend suggest the app will ask you a question and depending on your answer you either move up one toward heaven or down one point toward hell. But because I want my animation to be more picture based, I chose not to go with that idea.

Any suggestions on what an iphone app called “Heaven and Hell” would do?? Ideas at this point would be greatly appreciated.

While I still think about that, I made my oversized iphone, and I still need to create the default page and applications page. The cut out part of the large iphone will pretty much serve as the background for my entire animation.

Real iphone next to iphone I plan to use as the background for my animation

So finally, after spending many grueling hours trying to render my Maya project, I have it finished.

THE PRODUCT-

I want to make a hedge maze out of cans because after working with Maya that’s sort of how I felt the program was like: a maze. I added a hedge texture to all the cans except for the one in the middle. When I think of trying to complete a maze, I imagine there is always something at the end that motivates the journey through the maze in the first place. And in this case I made the “prize” the regular coke can. What I like most about my project is that the viewer can actually try to solve the maze in addition to viewing the work

THE PROBLEM-

My problem with this project came about when I went to render. For some reason the render view only showed a blank screen. It was after I asked Raquel for help that I knew I had duplicated parts of the cans for almost every can, which made my file HUGE. I believe this happened because I was in wiremode, under default rendering, and working with so many cans. I must not have realized duplicating a row/column and then must have used that row/column to make the rest of the piece. In order to fix the problem I had to go back and delete the duplicated parts for every can, which took forever. What complicated things even more was the fact that since the file was so big to begin with, it would die off on me on very frequent intervals. So I had to make sure to save my work very often.

In the end, I am happy with my product and very relieved to have fixed the problem, but I also very much agree with my fellow classmates who said the process was very frustrating.

Edit-

The base

final product!

Project Statement

“Cans Bouquet”

Originally, I planned to base my can sculpture off a garden or spring theme. I wanted to use the flower figures I constructed during the initial brainstorming stage while at the same time use shapes reminiscent of vines that could wrap around the pole that was in my assigned area. It was mostly the vivid reds and greens that were common to a lot of the cans I collected that I was inspired by this floral idea.  In the end, I still used the flowers, but this time instead of a garden theme I went with a more abstract, vase/bouquet concept. This way, the flower and vines shapes could still be incorporated into my sculpture. Although our assignment was to create an abstract sculpture, I didn’t want my sculpture to be entirely abstract; I wanted some parts to remind the viewer of certain objects. But I also want the element of abstraction available in my work so that what one person sees might be different from what someone else will see.

Edit-Final Project

My final project did still use the flower design, but instead of a garden theme, I instead constructed a sculpture shape that is reminiscent of a vase with stems coming out of it. This change of idea came about because I didn’t want to throw away any part of the can that I had cut up. I used the bottom part for the flower and was trying to think of a use for the top part. In the end I decided to flatten them, and figured they could form to make an image. And I simply turned some of my vine structures into stem-like figures.

(will post photo after sculpture is fully attached on wall)

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The idea for my sculpture started out when I first saw the space that I was assigned. At first I was disappointed that it was such a small, narrow space. But seeing the pole, I figured I could work with that, and the idea of vines come to mind. Vines then made me think of flowers. And after just playing around with some random figures/shapes I settled on these flower-inspired shapes that I really liked.

I’m planning on doing a “garden” theme, with vines that wrap around the pole and these flowers hanging on the walls. I do want to construct something to place near the bottom of the wall that resembles grass but as of now I’m not too sure how I should make that shape

“East and West”

By Claire Li

The theme of my work focuses on the formation of two distinct Germanys from the division of one country. I wanted to stress the disparities that resulted between East Germany, which was controlled by the Soviets, and West Germany, which was under the shared control of the United States, Britain, and France. Despite differences in the living conditions of East and West Berliners, they still shared commonalities in their experiences- such as their experiences of division, of separation, and just of being Germans. It is this simultaneous effect of similarities and differences that I tried to convey in my collage.

Edit #2-

As of now I am done putting the finishing touches on my collage and am just waiting to mount it tomorrow morning. In the end I decided to fill in the background using watercolor paint. I used the paint to add a colored sky. I also drew in some birds to both sides, which added a more hopeful element to the piece.I had a hard timing debating whether or not I should fill in the background of the wall somehow- either with color or a patter of some sort. In the end, I decided to leave it blank. Since the upper and lower portions of the collage contained shades, I figured the piece would become too busy with a filled-in wall. I added the black figures to highlight the concept of perspective that is present in my collage.  Even though a collage is pretty disordered by nature, I wanted to add some order and symmetry to my work. This is to show that despite the fact that there were huge disparities between East Berlin and West Berlin, there is still a common link that runs between the two.

Finished product (unmounted)

Edit-

So far I’ve drawn in the mirror-image wall layout and am now in the process of filling in the wall with collage elements. I got more of the “east” (right) side done than the “west” (left) side. Now I’m running into the issue of how to make the street lamps stand out more. I’m also thinking of putting in a brick texture on either one of the sides (west or east) or both sides. I’m still playing around with the idea of what to do with the area around the wall..

Mirror image layout showing "east" and "west" side

When I first started thinking ideas for the Berlin Wall collage, I tried to recollect what I remembered about the event. For some reason I really remember learning about the disparity between East Germany and West Germany that resulted from the construction of the Berlin Wall. With this idea in mind, I wanted to focus my collage my collage on this idea of two Germanys that were both similar and different. What I plan to do to highlight both the likeness and stark contrast is to draw two sides of the Berlin Wall, so that the two are mirror images of each other. Within the walls I will place my collage elements. On the left side wall there will be images of how the west was, including West Berliners, and on the right side will be images of the east and how the situation was there. So far I have finished drawing in the wall outline and am now in the process of compiling the collage to fill in the wall. Here is a sample of images I plan to use:

This is Romare Bearden’s water color collage work entitled “In a Green Shade.” This work especially stood out for me because of its colorful and serene quality. I can almost just imagine myself walking through the beautiful plants and green life in this image while listening to the blue water trickle and splash.

Bearden used a variety of different materials for his collage, including snippets from magazines, photographs, painted papers, foils, papers, posters, and art reproductions. His “In a Green Shade” consists of various papers with paint, ink, and graphite. The blue color scheme Bearden uses in this work is very typical of the colors he prefers to work with. In this case, it reinforces the cool, calm feeling this collage gives off. For a collage piece, the elements within the work are relatively recognizable and realistic. There are still some abstract elements in this work, and the combination of both makes the painting especially intriguing and engaging

These were some of the first works I encountered when I entered Smith Warehouse. I liked the fact that all seemed pretty interconnected- the similar hues and subject matter conveyed both a sense of serenity and nostalgia. I especially liked the photograph on the left. The lines within the tree branch highlights a certain mathematical organization found inherently in nature.

When I got upstairs, I saw a series of very different images. One that caught my eye is this one shown below. It’s actually a promotional piece for a music video for Duke DIDA. The shaded figures reminded me of the Apples Ipod commercials. The segmented phrases works well in conjunction with the pieced together feel of the whole poster. I thought they also incorporated the song lyrics into their message very effectively.