The first things I thought of when I heard about this project where a number of different videos that I’d seen on youtube like Grizzly Bear’s new video for Ready, Able
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puph1hejMQE
and a video of a Ukraine sand artist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOMgDbcA84A
From the beginning I knew I wanted to do a stop motion animation, but I wasn’t sure about what medium I was going to use. I knew I didn’t want to use clay, because while I think it looks great, I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied with the results of my efforts. I decided to do simple drawings and at first I was going to actually do the entire animation on a fridge using magnets and pieces of paper, but in the end I decided to just focus on the scraps of paper. I tossed around several different ideas for the theme and story and eventually decided to use Robert Frost’s Poem Fire and Ice as the focus for my animation.
To make my images for the animation I drew each frame on a square piece of paper that I had ripped by hand. I used a black sharpie and then a few colored pencils. When I had all of the pieces of paper ready I took a picture of every piece. I used a lamp in my room for good consistent light and put the pieces of paper on a black background.
Once I had all the images I uploaded them in Smith and added them to iMovie. I was worried that I would have a lot of trouble with actually making the movie, but I figure it all out after awhile and had the sequence and timing of all the images done pretty quick. I used an effect on the images which made the black background much darker and gave the pieces of paper a yellowish color and old look.
Getting the song I wanted and having it time with the video was definitely the hardest and most time consuming part of making the animation on the computer. I spent a lot of time working with one song and then switched in the end. I eventually found a program online to use to edit it the way I wanted and once I figured out the timing, I saved and added it to iMovie. After that I just exported it to Quicktime.
The finished animation is uploaded on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M16XwvERy1I
My original storyboard was on a scrap of paper and in boxes about 1/2 inch big, so for my final I redid it on a piece of computer paper.
Can Project
My first idea for this project was to do a snake partially hidden by a lot of leaves on a tree branch, but after messing with the cans on the first day in class I decided to do something with jellyfish instead after I made a spiraling element that inspired me similar to the one below.
When I got my assigned space I was pretty happy. I liked it and planned to make some sort of frame or support in the corner out of a heavier wire. I was picturing it being triangular, but in the end it turned out to be more of a free flowing shape. I had also initially thought about actually stringing the jellyfish up and over the door more solidly on the wall, but that also changed and they ended up hanging from wire. The first thing I did when I started to actually build my sculpture was create three different bulbous kind of shapes to be the body of the jellyfish. Below is the first one I made.
After that I made two more; one out of Pepsi cans and one our of grape Fanta cans, so that in the end I had red, blue and purple jellyfish. Next I set about making all the tendrils. Essentially there are three different types that I made. One had a type of fringe all the way around, another had a wavy edge, and the third was just straight and smooth. All were spiraling and I alternated the direction in which they turned. Once I had made those I worked on attaching them one by one to the bodies with wire. The picture below shows this process.
Once I had all the forms constructed I used a heavier wire to shape a frame in my space from which to hang my jellyfish off. The wire spirals out from the wall and loops back in and adds another visual element to the project beyond just being a structure for the jellyfish to hang off. The last thing I did was to take the bottoms of cans and attach them to the wall using thumbtacks in the shape of two pieces of coral. This helped to more fully utilize the space I had been given and contribute to the visual interest of the piece.
Maya Project – Hot Fuzz
Working with Maya was a bit stressful. I was worried for the longest time that I wasn’t going to be able to get it to work for me after a dismal first trial with it one day in class, but when I came in one night to start on my 3D sculpture I was able to navigate my way through the basic functions and tools with the help of the handouts from class. As I worked I picked up more and more tricks to save time and wasn’t quite as worried about the final outcome of my project. I had decided that I wanted to make a figure of a half crouching robot. I wanted the robot to be very thin, long, and lanky. By then end of the first night I had made some progress and had finished from the hips down on my robot.
However, when I came in the next time to work on it and actually try to finish the whole piece I had a lot of trouble with the program. I already had about half of my figure constructed when I came, but it took me hours to actually complete it, because Maya kept shutting down and no matter how often I saved (which took forever) I still had to redo a lot of things over again and spend a lot of time waiting for the program to restart. Once I had finally finished creating the scene it took a lot of effort to get Maya to actually do the rendering, but I finally figured it out and managed to print out my image, which I then mounted on foam board.
Title: Mauer Der Schande
Artist: Katie Noel
Statement:
When first presented with this project, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I started by just looking through as many images relating to the Berlin Wall as I could. The first image that really caught my eye and helped me form an idea was of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker. I believe the first picture of this I saw was actually of the grafitti art on the wall of them kissing. It’s become an iconic image known as “The Kiss of Death.” For my project I used a semi-transparent scrapbook paper that added a grey and smoky feel to my prints. I wanted my project to be very gritty and somewhat ghostly. When you look at the many images you are able to see hazy, phantom shapes from the images layered below. The title “Mauer Der Schande” is from one of the names used for the wall. It means Wall of Shame.
This was my first draft for the project. My ideas started once I found the image of Leonid Bruzhnev and Erich Honecker. It is an iconic photo commonly called ‘The Kiss of Death.’ There are several paintings of it on the Berlin Wall.
I knew I wanted some sort of horizon in the background of my collage. Originally, I had a picture of the Berlin Airlift, a picture of people standing on the wall after it had been partially destroyed, and a picture of the wall with barbed wire on top making up the horizon. At this point, I still had a lot of empty spaces that I still needed to fill. Also, there were several pictures that I knew I needed to flip, such as the photo of Reagan and one of a soldier.
My second draft had a number of changes from the first. The horizon was made from two different images of the Berlin Airlift instead of the earlier three. I had also found more images to use so there is less empty space. The center portion remained fairly unchanged, but I added pictures of military guns and tanks. For actually printing and creating the collage , I have a black poster board and then translucent sheets of scrapbooking paper to print the images on.
When I first started looking at the different collage artists Barbara Kruger’s work immediately stood out to me. It’s very easily identifiable with its trademark black and white pictures with red borders and blocks of text. Kruger seems to use her art as a means of voicing her political and social criticisms. Very often they deal with the materialism and obsession with shopping and spending money that our society has. Another strong focus of her work is the problem many people have with self-esteem and body issues. The picture I have chosen to include in this post is an example of that genre. What I think is interesting about her work is that she does more with her art than make something that looks interesting or pretty. She expresses herself and her ideas openly in a way that at times can be somewhat aggressive and disconcerting. But whether I agree with her opinion or not, I still think her bold manner of presenting it is something to be respected.
What caught my eye about this picture at first was the tree itself and in particular the low sweep of its branches. The way the artist adjusted the image gave it a very interesting look that I immediately was intrigued by. However, I’m not sure I like the overall effect it had on the photo.
I also really like the tire-swing in the picture. I have many childhood memories on tire-swings. Once when I was visiting family in Texas, I went to the park with my older cousin and her boyfriend and he bet me five dollars that he could get me dizzy enough that I couldn’t walk afterwards and catch him. He spun me around for forever and then I stumbled off and was able to tag him. When we got back to my cousin’s house he gave me five bucks just like he had promised and I was jubilant. I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight at the time. It was one of those times of course when the older indulge the young, but I was very happy and it is a memory that I still value.