Crits

A quick blog on the feedback on my final image last friday. Just like to apologise for not being able to see everyone's crits and I hope they went well. I was rather pleased with how my crit turned out (including the small trip at the end lol). When talking in front of group like that I prefer to have something planned before had on what to say, but this time I didn't have time. However that didn't bother me in the end because I wasn't first, so I was able to see what others said and base my own speech on theirs.

Something which did make me stop to think was what Phil said about my figure in the picture looking like something out of a fairy tale. It wasn't until it was pointed out that I saw that theme coming into play.

Could I also have the assignment in my folder on my UCA to be emailed to me please. I can't seem to find the folders in which to access it from.

Final Image

Sorry for not posting this earlier. Got home on Friday and completely forgot. That and by the time I had everything together for Copenhagen it was too late to do any blogging. I'll do a separate journal on my trip as I've a lot of stuff to upload to this sketchbook of mine.

But first the final piece. The main idea really is to portray how I feel about being Autistic. The bases of the idea is that I feel trapped by it. The chain, padlock and room represent the Aspergers Syndrome. It is meant to represent that I am chained there and that even though I may leave the room (the worst part of AS) I will never be free of it. The pencil represents the fact that I will try and break free but it will be completly uneffective. I wanted to show vulnerablity by appearing half clothed.

I also hoped to show that as I've been with my AS for so long, it has allowed the wild life to grow metaphoricly speaking.

Scene Editing

I didn't create anything in this scene. Just edited it in Photoshop like the tutorial said.


Not a lot to say, other than this took less time than I thought it would.

Texture Practise

Enjoyed doing these, mainly because they were a simple exercise compared to the bottle.

Drinks Bottle

I didn't make the bottle or glass, only textured them

Ok this didn't turn out how it was supposed to. Not quite sure what I've done wrong, but will come back to it once I've completed all of the other Maya exercises.

Poker Chips

Once again changed the colours a bit




Rather enjoyed making these. I did get stuck on editing the UV's but soon figured it out.

Photos for Final Piece

I wasn't too sure about uploading these photos as I'm barely dressed in one of them. But then I saw on Farideh's journal she put up photos of herself in her underwear, so now I feel brave enough to upload these. They're photos I had help by my sister taking, to use for my final piece.

Also do we need to have our summer project uploaded onto here as part of our deadline?

Life Drawings- Last Lot Before Deadline

Rather enjoyed this way of drawing, just concentrating on the negative space surrounding the model. In Maidstone I never did something like this, at least not for life drawing. Did once during the 3D section of my foundation course, but there's a difference drawing negative space of 'paper buildings' and real life people.



For these ones we were simply told to draw however we wished and only had about 7 minutes to draw each pose. As much as I enjoyed doing it this way, I don't like these drawings. They remind me that when I draw I tend to lean towards that Manga style. It brings me back to the reason I did a foundation year before advancing onto this course.

This drawing is my favourite. Once again we were given the choice on how to draw the figure, so I chose to have another go at using only the negative space. Plus I think I enjoyed drawing on sugar paper. This made things a little more interesting and challenging because one gets bored with drawing on plain, thick white paper all the time. I was forced to use a darker and softer pencil. Otherwise the pencil marks didn't show up. Overall, even though I felt rather rough that evening, this life drawing class has been the best one so far.

Maya Exercises

Don't own the one eyes models in the lighting pictures

Had to re-do the lighting on these two as I accidently changed the colour of the shadows rather than the actual light itself.

Changed the background it rested on. Very easy to make

Animations

Robot model not mine. Same goes for the rocket.

Animated the Robot. Didn't turn out quite right though. The lighting is too dark and the angle of the camera is wrong but making the animation was easy enough. The rocket animation however turned out how it was meant to look. Had help from

Two Weeks Life Drawing

Life drawing- Not much to say. Just I think 1 hour or more is too long to do just one drawing in.




We also had a change of models due to the woman being ill. It was rather a shock having to draw a man insted. Having never drawn a male model before meant the shock was tenfold

Isabelle Dinoire

Watched a documentary on Isabelle Dinoire. I found it fascinating. I find it amazing what surgeons can do now days. It's hard to think that about just over 80 years ago no one knew what an antibiotic was. It's hard to believe that it's only a year after and the technique of face transplanting has improved. The documentary wasn't a gory as Phil said it was. The fact that her lips and part of her nose was gone didn't bother me at all.

3 Point Lighting- Try 1

First try with the 3 point lighting. Will give it another go as there isn't a shadow behind the figure.

2 Point Lighting

Not a lot to say about this. Just, there was no chance to change anything. And that it was another easy exercise.

1 Point Lighting- Back

This one was easier than I thought it would be to.

1 Point Lighting- Front

I was quite surprised to find that I found this rather easy. And again I couldn't resist changing it slightly. I changed the picture on the 'screen' to a picture of my Silver DoE group rather than the image of London.

Final Idea Rough Designs

I have decided to use the image of my crouched down with a chain on my arm for my final portrait. I will be manipulating it and I already have some ideas as to how the final image might look like.

The first part of the final idea was that I could blank out the face or even just the eyes. This would show that on the outside, there appears to be no feeling or emotion shining through. Because this is how Autistic people tend to look. Although they feel emotion like everyone else, it doesn't always show. E.g. someone could be really excited about something and be telling the autistic person but instead of smiling back the autistic person would stare blankly back. Not because they intend to be rude or don't feel the same, they just find it hard to express their feelings.

I then moved onto designing a background to fit in with the theme of my final portrait. The first background idea would be to have a window to the side of the blanked face figure with people outside showing emotion. One of the people outside would also be the autistic person with a smile or frown on their face to show the emotion inside. A similar idea to this would be instead of a window and other people being seen with expression, a ghostly form is seen instead. This would be the Autistic person with an angry determined look on their face behind the expressionless figure.

My other idea, which I'm not too sure on any more would be again back to the window idea, but of the Autistic person riding away on a horse with a smile on their face. This would be to show that they would be happy to be free and show how their feeling. However, I won't be using this idea as I don't think it expresses correctly the true feelings of not being able to show expression.

The Elephant Man

Watched the Elephant Man today and it was amazing. It was fascinating to find that although I'm the kind of person who doesn't mind that sort of thing scary I was rather afraid at first of the Elephant man. However as the film progressed, my horror soon turned into pity. If I had to choose which character I would relate to, I'd be Frederick Treves. Shocked into silence at the first sight of Joseph but then eventually would warm up to him, enough so to even give him a hug. But it's also this sort of thing which I find a strange sense of fascination in.

Toaster

Finally I finished my toaster. Looks pretty good I think…although the scene is a bit dark. Also couldn’t resist changing all the colours from the ones in the tutorial.

Half Term Crit

After getting the feed back from Phil, I was a little bit confused. However after reading it again this week it all makes sense and I'm not sure what confused me to begin with. Maybe it was all the activity going on around. But as said it all makes sense now.

In the half term critique Phil mentioned about 'you've drawn represent the dreaded 'style-creep' that you MUST avoid; those faces are drawn in a very particular style that can say nothing about identity, because they are too stylised, too 'toony'. I think you're drawing them like that because you are comfortable doing so.' I am aware that the style was too cliché and leaning towards either a Disney' and 'Manga' style, however that was merely because I was sketching roughly, trying to get the idea down before I forgot to do so. If I had gone ahead with that idea, the faces would have been realistic. I'd have avoided the popular styles of Disney and Manga when I created them.

Fantasy World

This was designed for a competition for an art website I spend a fair bit of time on. The theme of the competition was 'My Fantasy World'. My idea at first was to have a photo of me sleeping but instead of a bedroom wall, the background would be a mixture of different things ranging from all sorts of fantasy creatures, such as dragons, elves and werewolves etc. Also included would be things to do with my hobbies such as a tent for camping, horse galloping for horse riding etc.



However, I'm not too sure with the way the images are positioned on the left hand side. I would prefer them to have a story like state as if with the right hand side of the picture.

My idea changed when Jolanta offered to take some photos of me working on a prize picture for my friend. At first I wasn't sure what to do with the photos she took as they were rather 'spur of the moment'. But then I realized I could combine it with the contest theme and so I came up with a rough sketch. The idea would be that it would show what goes on inside my head not only whilst I'm drawing but also most of the time.

Essay- Frida Kahol

For my essay I thought about talking about Frida Kahol and how her paintings changed through out her life. The reason I chose this subject was because I found it fascinating how one event can change a person’s perspective on the world. The main change was the surreal way she painted whilst recovering from her major accident. She refused to paint anything ‘normal’ because she said it was unrealistic.

Optical Illusion

Thursday’s lecture’s I found slightly uninteresting as I have had the same lecture at the Maidstone UCCA campus. When I first saw the optical illusions at Maidstone I found it interesting that not everyone saw the same thing. What appeared to be a cat could also be a picture of a mouse with a thick black outline.

Dorian Gray- Original

After watching Dorian Gray on Wednesday after lunch I was pleasantly surprised to find I rather enjoyed watching it. There were a few things about the film that I liked but the main one was the pace. I rather enjoyed the way the film flowed. Although there were times such as when all of Dorian’s friends showed their age because time had fast forward a few years and Dorian himself didn’t it was easy to keep up. I also loved the way they showed the painting of Gray in colour twice. By doing this I found that you only got shocked by the painting once and therefore kept the horror of seeing it with you. However there was one thing with the film I wasn’t too sure about the speed of the speech in the majority of the scenes. I found I could only grasp half of the conversation because the characters spoke too fast. It also didn’t help that they spoke using old fashioned phrases, which although I know what they meant I’m not very familiar with.

Expressions

....and understanding them.

Going back to the symptoms of having Aspergers Syndrome, another problem which often arises is a lack of understanding expressions and emotions. Although I can understand both emotions and expressions there will always be a time when I am unsure whether someone displays signs of anger, sadness etc. With the aid of _____ I experimented with different expressions, taking photos of each one. However even though it was more for experimentation, I had no idea on what to do with the photos taken. But when I thought about how people with Aspergers struggle with expressions etc, I attempted to come up with an idea featuring the pictures I’d acquired.

I finally came up with an idea. A series of expressions based around a close up shot of an eye. The expressions are ones used on an everyday basis. The eye is meant to be the view of someone with Aspergers. The pupil has been blanked out completely because they can’t comprehend what emotion is what.