"Last Fall"

A friend recently sent me a series of animations made by students in the Animation Workshop school in Denmark.  Some are disturbing, some are clever, and this one in particular is incredibly touching.  Honestly, I don't mind saying that this work had me teary-eyed:

Works in progress 2

I'm still working at the idea of telling a story in an image.  Some playing around brought me to some fun images with silhouettes in ink.

This was the first one-- I tend to return to brush and ink work when I'm frustrated and exhausted.  As a result, this image kind of accidentally happened.

The next couple were just experiments with what I could do with the ink + silhouette idea.  Perhaps it doesn't quite fit the narrative idea I've been going for, but I think these would be a nice concept to work on in my free time.  

"The Idea of the Artist" - Thesis Prep post

"Artist" tends to relate to everything, in my mind.  I can't speak for anyone else, but in my life, I notice that it affects who I am, what I do and how I think.  More than anything else, I've always felt that being an artist means having a certain way of looking at the world.  It's unique and conspicuous, but beyond that, I have to admit it's difficult to put into words.  Moreover, it's something I'm still learning about.

I believe that pursuing a life as an artist means a particular appreciation for the visual aspects of everything around me.  It means attention to little things, and an understanding of what these visual cues (large and small) mean.  It means seeing something meaningful and worthwhile, not just in things that are visually beautiful, but in the aesthetics of anything and everything, if I care to take the time to really look at them. 


So far as I'm able to gather after some time reflecting, the ten most important values I defend as an artist are roughly as follows:

1.  things hold meaning-- I'm not the nihilistic type
2.  Honesty and openness, not putting up pretenses
3.  communication between people
4.  our stories and experiences are what make us
5.  emotional connections are significant
6.  apathy means you're dead
7.  censorship is art's natural enemy
8.  never stop striving to improve, ever
9.  art should illicit an active response
10.  never take yourself too seriously-- you should always be able to laugh at yourself, no matter how world-changing you may think your work is.  Stay humble.

I do believe that these values guide my work to a great extent; they are likely the reason why art with a narrative captures my attention more than any other.  Because of these priorities, I strive to create work that engages and connects to people.
So why should anyone care?  Frankly, I'm not sure, and if they don't care, I can understand that.  I can't expect my priorities to be in line with anyone else's.  Aside from which, I'm young and still in school-- I'm not nearly arrogant enough to think that my values are what everyone else should care about as well.  However, if anyone else does see the value in the same things that I do, or catches a glimpse of it and finds it worthwhile or interesting, that would be extremely gratifying as a way of connecting to someone.

"Thought of You"

This is one of my favorite animated pieces of all time.  There's so much you can choose to read into this, or you can just enjoy a beautiful, simple and touching video about a relationship between two people.

Works in progress 1

Lately I've been working on the idea of telling a story in one image.  

So far I feel like I've only half answered the question here.  I've been drawing from some personal memories and experiences for my subject matter thus far while I get used to the idea of what I'm going at.  We'll see where it goes from here.  Some times my work does it's own thing and I just follow along.

In a screen printing class that I'm taking this semester, I may have accidentally ended up telling a story in a kind of unexpected way.  

The assignment began with creating a kind of imaginary perspective, and then adding some forms that would look like anthropomorphized, gestural figures.  I got a little bit ahead, and given the extra time I found myself with, started messing around and ended up adding actual, literal figures as well.  I really enjoy imagining the relationship between those two people; it looks like I've caught them in the awkward, tense silence right after finishing a serious conversation.
 
 

"Beauty" (Thesis Prep post)

The result of 10 minutes of free-writing surrounding the word "beauty":

Awe-inspiring, theological, personal and varied, highly subjective but with some usual, common themes.  The people I love, my friends, laughter, the sound of someone you love saying your name.  Emotion, sincerity, truth.  Simplicity, understanding, clarity.  Anything which connects to people in a deep and fundamental way.  Music, silence, a smile, a genuine moment between people.  The best of humanity; mercy, love, joy, forgiveness.  The way ink moves on a page, when someone gets wrinkles at the corners of their eyes when they smile, people who snort when they laugh.  The little details, instant connections, breaking the touch barrier, nostalgia, endearment, opening up.  Color, light, shape, motion.


Next I was prompted to write on my own sense of visual beauty, whether beauty is merely a veil or means to enchant, whether it is associated with decadence or class values (or something else), and finally, what would be the nature of my own commitment to beauty.

To start, if beauty is to be associated with class values or indulgence and decadence, I would posit that this is only because of the socially constructed systems of commerce.  With the existence of currency, those with more of it are naturally going to be able to acquire more of what is desirable, and because of how beautiful things naturally attract people to them, they will be what is sought after by those with money.  This breeds the association of beauty with decadence or "upper class" living, but it certainly isn't innate to the concept of beauty.  As far as the idea that beauty may only be a veil, a decorative gloss or means of enchantment, I would argue that, while it certainly can be used in this way, given the broad and subjective definition of beauty, it seems silly to limit it to only this.  In addition, to relegate the concept of beauty to only a "gloss to decorate" seems wholly inappropriate for something which connects so profoundly to so many people.  Beauty has a way of affecting people and hitting at their core, inspiring and motivating them to feel or even act and speak a certain way.  My belief is that it takes something more substantial than a veil to have this effect.

I see visual beauty on its own as a fairly straight-forward and natural response to any visual cue which attracts people.  Endless psychological studies have looked into what human beings find beautiful or attractive, and some distinct norms are present; symmetry is beautiful, typically the natural world is more beautiful (or at least in some way visually preferable) than the man-made, etc.  When it comes to people, those traits which are considered "beautiful" are those which would imply good genes or a promising mate.  So in some ways, it could be argued that beauty is a natural human response to certain cues which appeal to our basic instincts.  Personally (and quite subjectively), I would say that beauty is anything which truly touches us in some way, be it emotionally, spiritually, or otherwise (I believe it could even be argued that this holds true whether the response is negative or positive).  I feel there is a certain kind of beauty in anything which rouses the subject from apathy.

If I have any particular commitment to beauty, as of right now I feel that it is only insofar as beauty can attract people to the story that I want to tell.  If they then see some kind of beauty in the story and images that I've shown them, so much the better.  The most beautiful things to me are those which teach us about ourselves and others.  I want to make characters and tell stories, and if anyone sees the beauty in it that I do, then I'll consider my work a success.

Music Videos

Just a couple of animated music videos I recently went back to re-watch.  Something about music videos must really do it for some animators.  The first is from the Correspondents' Well Measured Vice.  The story about this one as I've come to understand it is that the lead singer suffered a foot injury, and during the months for which he was recovering, he took the time to hand draw each frame of the following video.  I always really appreciate the very rough and unpolished look of it:

This one, the video for Miss Atomic Bomb by the Killers, is kind of an odd one for me.  The animated bits seem fairly corny in a Saturday-morning-cartoon kind of way, but in this case, I think it works nicely.  I tend to interpret it as a way of expressing the idealized, unrealistic way this man looks back on his former lover with, now that time and circumstances have distanced him from her so dramatically.

Or, you know, the animator was just a sucker for nostalgic cartoons.  Who knows.

Wordless Comic

As follow up to yesterday's rant (because everyone needs a few more reasons to think I'm a complete dork, right?), and because in preparation for my thesis, I need to have a collection of images ready to be presented as an example of past work and where I hope to go from here, I'll be posting a 10-page comic drawn last year for my Drawing IV class.  The idea was that it had to tell a clear narrative without the use of words.

 (This is always the page that trips people up-- apparently I didn't do the best job of conveying my male-lead's difficulties navigating around people in the city very well.  Oops!  This is also where I tripped up on the "no words" rule, and didn't realize until too late that I'd labeled the taxi... double oops.)

 (The lazer-tag panel in this one also tends to cause confusion... whoops)

Nothing too high-concept here, just a shameless, silly first date.  Apologies for some sub-par image quality.