Here are some images that I created while experimenting and learning how to use various programs and tools.
In November 2012 I had a chance to go to Berlin on a study trip with the Foundation Course. During the five days that we were there we visited many of the art galleries that the city had to other as well as explore the city and its sites.
We took the time to make a journal to document all the things we saw and heard that inspired us as well as personal experiences while we were there.
One of the memorable experiences I had was the One on One show that was showing at the time at the KW gallery. The artwork was shown within closed off rooms allowing only one person at a time to enter them. Allowing you to interact with the artwork in a direct and intimate way without no one influencing your opinion.
Creative Destruction was the first project in our chosen specialism, for mine I chose animation.
My first thought of creative destruction was art mediums getting broken, crushed or/and destroyed. Thinking more on it I decided to experiment using chalk pastels and crush them onto A1 paper and rubbing the dust in to the paper. The media was easy to crush and manipulate though it did create a mess on the floor due to the dust. It found it interesting how the colours of the pastels would mix together intentionally or not. I then though how I could ‘destroy’ this more. At the time it was raining so I took it outside to see if the pastel would smudge due to the rain. Surprisingly I found that that pastel didn’t smudge, in fact created a water proof barrier over the paper. After that failure I bought the paper back inside and ‘destroyed it’ by crumpling it up into a ball.
From this I continued to create work by crushing pastels. The first animation that I created I placed a pastel on the paper then took a photograph, I then crushed the pastel with my foot and then took another photograph. I repeated this process until I had enough to make a short animation, destroying charcoal as well as chalk pastels. (Stills and the animation below). I am happy with the results, and the comments received were positive and one of my peers commented that it reminded them of fireworks and comets.
With this success I wanted to explore other ways of filming, trying different angles and perspectives. Equip with a digital camcorder I create several videos with zoomed out and zoomed in with the camcorder on a tripod, and with it in my hand as I destroyed the chalk pastels and charcoals.
I took stills of certain parts of the videos to create an animation and combined these with the videos. For my final out come I combined these videos together with the animation in them. It gets more intense as it goes on due to colours filter and over layering of the videos and animations. I also added sound effects to the part where I crush the chalk pastels.
At the time I was happy how it came out but now looking back there was so much I could do. I though of experimenting with other medium such as paint and had the idea of filling balloon/water balloons with paint and throwing them at the wall or a piece of paper. But sadly never explored it.
The artists that I looked at included Jen Starks’ colourful paper animations, Cai Guo Qiang‘s video of using gunpowder to create artwork and the Sony Bravia paint advert.
Rebecca Young
9th November 2012
Ryan Woodward is an animator and a storyboard artist who has worked on live and animated films such as Space Jam, Spider-Man, Where the Wild Things Are, Ironman 2, and Cowboys and Aliens. He is currently working as a storyboard artist for the new Captain America 2 movie with is set to be release in 2014. Woodward also teaches storyboarding, figure drawing, visual development and animation at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, United States.
Since I was young I have always wanted to work with animated film and create animations, and this aspiration is similar to what Ryan Woodward once had. Though not many people know of him they will recognise the names of the films that he helped animate and storyboard. His animations and the style of his illustrations is the drive that will hopefully make me a better artist, and one day an animator. The style of this artwork inspires me, the raw sketch-like quality that his animation has that shows the early stages of what animators want their animations to show, making those imaginative ideas come to life of paper. It makes me want to create something similar that will amaze and inspire future artists.
I first discovered Ryan Woodward’s work in 2011 when he commission an animation for Google celebrating what would have been the 117th birthday of dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. At that point in time I didn’t realise who made the animation, just that I was astonished at how fluid and dramatic it was. It wasn’t until this year that I came upon another well-known piece of animation by Ryan Woodward during my animation rotation that I final found out who he was and what he was involve with.
There are two pieces of animation that I favour the most. The first one is a short trial animation called Dark Fairies. The animation show mythical figures rising up from the ground, moving and fighting. It has been created using monochrome colours and has no sound to it. I believe that, after looking at what movies Woodward has taken part in, that this animation is a tester for the movie Snow White and the Huntsman showing how the Dark Fairies would move. The reason that I enjoy watching this animation is that it is a simple, raw hand drawn animation that shows the skill and effort that the artist has put in. Even without sound I can imagine it within my head, the ‘swoosh’ sound whenever the figures move and the rustling of what I presume are leaves as they rise and fall.
The other is more well-known called Thoughts of You. The animation is part of Ryan Woodward’s personal project Conte Animation. The animation consists of two figures, one male and the other female dancing to the song World spins madly on by The Weepies. There are no cinematic movements, and the people in the animation are figure based, there is on facial expressions to convey emotion. It is done through the contemporary dance that the silhouettes perform. The short piece of film is 2 minutes long, has 24 frames per second and over 2 000 different drawings. The idea behind it was to show the emotions that come with an internal struggle; of miss and love, wanting to be somewhere but also somewhere else, being overwhelmed. Woodward had a professional choreographer choreograph the dance sequence with no input from him. He watched them dance and from that created the emotion and the fluid movement of the dance in his animation. Within in it Woodward placed personal symbols that had meaning to him but allows the audience to relate to it and take what they want from the piece. I find it interesting how he portrays emotion without the use of facial expressions and close-up that would be normality use within an animated film. I find that the music adds to that piece, the hopeful but also regretful feel add to what the artist was trying to do. I feel that music and the animation combined draws me into the piece, immersing you in the pure emotion that it portrays.
Ryan Woodward informs my work by simple showing me that an animation doesn’t have to have ‘fancy’ cinematic transitions, or be overly detailed, that a short simple one can be just as effective if not more. His work has awaken my passion for hand drawn animation that I had since childhood, rekindling the desire to create and draw animation and to explore its possibilities. The raw sketchiness gives the feeling of care and worth into the work that makes you sit there and marvel at the animation.
The brief for Fine Art was The History of Space and Surface.
The previous Friday we were informed to bring in objects that we thought had a interesting surface or look to it to draw, however I was absent that day so when Monday came I didn’t have nothing to draw. Luckily I had some crystals in my bag that I could draw. The stones were interesting because of their different colours and how they blended together and shone. But what I found intriguing was that each of the stone where supposed to have ‘special properties’ and/or ‘healing abilities’, such as Jade which is used to bring joy and love and is also used as a protector.
I had wanted to grow my own crystals however I didn’t have time so I tried to grow sugar crystals instead. It was an easy process to follow however even after three days I had no crystals growing, later I concluded that I may be due to that I didn’t add enough sugar for the crystals to grow.
I liked the idea of having an object that you can hold within your palm that can bring conform among other things. So I decided that I would make and find small objects that I could change the appearance of and create stories for each one, giving them ‘special abilities’ and ‘powers’ to make them unique. The reason behind this is that not many people believe in the power of crystals and stones, that people have this choice of choosing to believe or rejecting it. I found this similar to objects in museums as we don’t known what they are saying are true of if that object is the real thing.
My objects will be displayed similar to a museum exhibit and the audience would made up their own mind to whether or not to believe in the ‘powers’ I gave the objects or not.
This week has to be my favourite out of the rotations as crystals have always been an interest, their colours and meanings drawing me in. I found it interesting to explore how we can take things at face view and easily believe while with others we are more cautious.
The brief for Glass and ceramics was Action:Reaction.
There wasn’t real brief for this week. The plan was for use to experience the different ways of working with glass and ceramics and learning new skills that may be of use in the future. Throughout the week there was a range of different workshops, on Monday there was tester sessions to give you an idea of longer workshops later on in the week. These workshops included modelling with clay, drawing with clay slip, painting hot glass being blown using a small plank of wood and white paint, silk screen printing, and drawing glass prisms capturing light and shadow.
On Tuesday I chose to take part in the ceramic workshop. On the morning the group took part in a collaboration to create a large clay landscape. We added to it in response to words such as landscape, buildings, flora, fauna, technology and destruction, when we destroyed it after documenting it.
On the afternoon we painted images and designs on to ceramic mugs which would be fired later on (to keep the design on) which we were able to keep, during this we were shown how to throw a pot on a potter’s wheel. Some within the group had a go though I didn’t as I didn’t feel confident enough in front of everyone.
The Thursday workshop was printing. The morning was dedicated to taking photos of the group and a drawing in response to the image. Both of these were to be printed on to glass and could be layered on top of one another. The afternoon was when we started printing; we were shown how to prepare the screens for printing as well as the technique. I was already familiar with screen printing so it wasn’t as difficult for me as it was for others. During the course of the afternoon we printed on multiple plates of glass experimenting with colours and overlaying.
For 3D the brief was Super Structures.
The instructions that were given stated that we could make anything we want at all but it had to be made only using paper, which in its self provides problems. I had no clue what to make I ended up created three random paper sculptures that I didn’t know how to develop. I originally want to do origami sculpture but the only origami I knew was the paper fortune tellers.
After a much needed tutorial I decided to make use of what I knew and create a sculpture using paper fortune tellers. So my initial idea was to create multiple fortune tellers in a range of different size from small to large. The large one that I create was made from ten A2 sheets of paper and took over an hour to stick together with masking tape and to fold. It was problematic as the paper was delicate and could easily rip so once I had it standing I didn’t want to move it. Maybe thinking about it now I should have made it out of a thicker material such as card.
I stung all the small fortune tellers together putting some within the large scale one and some outside it. I was going to make a trail of them that people could follow but due to time I couldn’t also I was recommended that that I leave it as it is so that the audience could make their own minds on it.
The thought process behind it was that paper fortune tellers were and are part of childhood. I remember myself and my friends playing with them in the playground at primary school wanting to know what our ‘futures’ where going to be like. The rules of the game is similar to those in life, once you make a choice you can’t take it back, you have to keep on going. The different sized fortune tellers represent that choices we have to make in life, some large some small and some having a bigger impact on us than others, and these choices also affect our future choices and future options.
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