Sketchbook 2
Welcome to my blog! Currently, this website is a work in progress that I made at the beginning of the semester. Since we are writing artist bios and statements in this class, I thought it might be a good idea to have a website where I can share my work with my family and friends (I made a similar site for Patricia Maurides’ Intro to Photography class last semester which can be found here).
I have switched to documenting my work digitally because I have switched to working primarily on my computer. This post will share snapshots of my digital workspace through Photoshop and After Effects. This week I created my first GIF. I started by drawing the main characters, the human-like character who enters the forest and the flower that intrigues this person. These characters will be placed in the center of the image to emphasize their relationship to one another and create the feeling that they are being drawn to one another. When I told my friend about my “body of work” proposal, they told me that the storyline I proposed reminded them of a guided meditation they did as a child. I have been thinking about their work since the beginning of the semester because last year they presented their senior art thesis as “a body of work.” I like their interpretation of the phrase because they created a website that is like a digital diary that shows their art as a whole interconnected web of ideas and individual projects.
The narrative of the meditation was to picture oneself holding a basket of your worries…walk toward a gate carrying the basket…unlock the gate with a key and enter the gated area…stumble across a tree…place each worry on a tree branch…turn back to the gate entrance…leave the gated area, close the gate, and lock it shut. This idea resonated with me because I view this GIF in a similar way in that I think it is sort of dreamy and imaginative. I wonder if viewers would agree. This reminds me of a similar meditation I heard about as a kid as well, in which you picture yourself as a child sitting under a tree, and you speak with the child. I have been thinking about myself as a child as I work as a teaching assistant at the elementary school that I went to myself, and I dwell on memories.
This first depiction is a test for how I want the figure/flower characters to look. I wanted to create a distinction between the marks I used to create each figure so that when I combine them together in the future, the viewer would be able to delineate between areas where the forms are distinct and where they fuse. A challenge I faced when drawing this initial sketch was the disconnect I feel between the drawing style I had at the time when I invented these characters, and my drawing style now. The image below depicts a more “sketchy” style, whereas I used to draw more smooth lines. I chose to use the “smooth” style in order to optimize my time.
My next step was to draw the environment. This environment is based on a project I did last year that I lost because my files were corrupted (I back up my files on a hard drive now!). I made the background black because I personally prefer to look at white lines on a black background as opposed to black lines on a white background. This is a preference I would also be interested in hearing about from the audience. Does it work?
I construct the file by giving each shape a layer. I label each layer so I know what I’m working with. I give each shape a layer so that I can manipulate each layer if need be. I find this to be more efficient than animating the entire composition at once because it helps me compartmentalize the individual movements and it allows me to layer shapes on top of each other by filling the shapes with color if need be. This is potentially useful in case I make a mistake–if I animate a large area and make a mistake in a small area, I don’t have to re-animate the entire area and I can just adjust one piece.
An obstacle I faced when setting up the composition was regarding the timeline. When animating in Photoshop, there are video layers and regular layers. Only video layers can be animated on for frame-by-frame animating. I learned that he duration of a video layer can only be extended so far as the length of the regular layer that was present when the video layer was created. After drawing the environment, I realized I could only pull my video layers for about four frames because the regular layer was that length when I started drawing. I recreated each layer giving myself lots of extra time in case my plan changes and re-drew each layer. After reading online forums, this is a common issue for others that seems to be an unfortunate feature of Photoshop. I wonder if there is a way around this that others have found!
Despite only having the bones of the animation, I pulled the Photoshop into After Effects because I want to create a collage effect. I want to use the layering function of After Effects to place photographs within each animated shape. This is an idea for if there is time but it is something I am excited about. I like collage right now, I am taking a graphic design class in which I am collaging as well. I have been taking a surface-level look at Richard Hamilton, Wangechi Mutu, and Robert Rauschenberg.
The first animated object. I move the flower in a windmill direction because I want to show movement that gives the shape life but is surreal. This took about three hours because I was working out the timing and how I wanted the shape to land in its original position within three seconds. My original plan was two seconds, but three seconds makes more sense because the timing is more natural. In past experience I learned that GIFS are very large file sizes, so this is something to keep in mind.
These two flowers are currently the objects that are positioned the furthest away from the viewer’s perspective. They rest at a similar distance away so they both rotate at a quarter turn per three seconds. I draw the bottom petal as long and top petal as short to create the effect that the flower’s face is parallel with the ground and the top petal is the farthest from the viewer.
Although this third flower is slightly closer to the camera, it also spins at a quarter turn because the distance is not drastic and I want it to make an even turn so it lands in the same place it started. This flower took an hour to animate. I think that the quality of this flower holds up with the quality of the first, which took more than double the time. I think this is because I started drawing about every five frames in order to track that the movements lands where I want it to. I find if I don’t do this it’s very easy to lose track of the drawing’s movement. The I use the onion skins to fill in the movement in between these tracking points.
