Weekly Update #4 (Mar 1st-Mar 7th)

This week has had a lot of ups and downs. I've had the privilege to go to Rochester for an 'interview' with Phil Gomm, the course leader of the Computer Animation Arts course I'm going to be starting next year. It made me feel even more confident that I chose the right course after speaking with him, I felt like he understood what I was all about and it felt very welcoming and he gave me various suggestions for my FMP. He suggested some sort of stop motion animation and gave me some artists names including Jan Svankmajer (specifically his film Dimensions of Dialogue I've already seen clips from Little Otik), Jiri Barta, and Oliver de Sagazan (I've only looked in depth at Sagazan so far). He also recommended Power of Horror by Julia Kristeva, I'm very happy I felt so comfortable there and I really do think I'm going to love my undergraduate course...I hope so at least.

Digital Painting made in Photoshop CS5

However, the train ride home took much longer than anticipated due to various delays so I was slightly behind on work that day and I also had a pretty bad day on Thursday and I had some very unfortunate luck on Saturday morning but I won't go into those things. But this has caused me to feel very crammed with work since I feel the need to complete what I set out to do that week no matter what. I did, however, accomplish my goals in the end no matter how frustrating and exhausting it was. I completed my digital painting for the week, although I did not expect to. It's not my favourite one I've done, maybe it's due to just how my week has gone I lost my enthusiasm with that piece. But it's done anyway.

Acrylic finger-painting on A1 paper

Other then my digital painting, I wanted to continue to experiment with different ways to draw/paint wolves. I've drawn more realistic wolves, more emaciated/stylized wolves and I decided to try to draw a more 'werewolf' looking one this time. Phil Gomm showed a real interest in my finger-painting, most people tend to. I love doing it, I find I can get a lot of my frustrations out that way and makes it look more expressive. The only thing that annoys me with it is difficulty getting details, in which case I'll usually swap to a brush for whatever parts I want more detailed (for example, teeth, eyes, other facial features). I did a werewolf finger-painting based on this image I found, although the foreshortened legs in my version somewhat fades into the background but I like it anyway.

I like this one more - Ballpoint pen on paper

Ballpoint pen on paper

I also experimented with more unusual looking monster-wolf creatures after seeing this image. I liked the first one I made and then I admit with the other one I got somewhat lazy. I like working in pen because I need to improvise...with those drawings I wanted to change the creature as I made it. For example, I started making fur and then decided I wanted it to not have fur so I did my best to turn it into muscle. I like these a lot, it's sort of like thumbnail drawings only thumbnail drawings are obviously smaller and don't take long at all. Maybe I'll do more of these or a few sheets worth of thumbnails just to try it out.

Acrylic paint on paper

I've also done another version of that Gas Mask digital painting I made. This time I printed out a copy of my original digital painting and then painted over it using the same monochromatic colour scheme as my wolf painting (excluding yellow highlights) from the other week. It was somewhat difficult to do since I only have one colour to use to distinguish different objects, but I like how it turned out. I might consider doing this with some of my other digital paintings or importing some of my traditional drawings and recreating them in Photoshop.

Fineliner pen on paper

Fineliner pen (thicker pen vs pen used on wolf picture above) on paper

I also did another more realistic wolf study (yes, its belly looks kind of tubby but it did in the photo too...it was fineliner anyway so I couldn't go back and fix it). I then did a quick octopus sketch to practice more with tentacles. I really like how octopus eyes look so maybe I'll do some studies of different animal eyes or something like that. Other then that I've done a lot in my sketchbook which is already about half full which makes me happy. I love writing in my sketchbook...anyway, hopefully this upcoming week holds better luck for me but either way I'll continue working to the best of my abilities. Also, I'm going to include a little video of an animation I found which is less 'creepy' that I absolutely loved...probably because I love dogs. But it also has a very good message to it, I highly recommend watching.

Thanks for reading!

-Deanna