ILP 2010 – prep – natural disasters November 6, 2010
Posted by dilutedwater in artworks-traditional, coursework, inspirations, prep, rants.Tags: cloud, dinosaur, fire, ink, painting, pen, pencil, volcano, water, watercolour, wind
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this will be a long and arduous journey through the macabre recesses of my mind post.
the prep pieces are not in any order. not even chronological. or thematic. i had actually arranged them nicely but after grading they came back messed up /: so anyway, here’s all the prep…(be awed by my skills yeah)
volcano on the left; illustration of thunderclouds on right. please tilt head for better view.
this is supposed to be an uprooted tree, not a pile of rocks as commonly believed. my first major nice piece in coloured pencils! i used mainly blues and browns. i don’t know why i like the combination of blue/brown.
forest fire. yes i know the tree trunks are purple. but they aren’t that charred as to be black yet. and i hate drawing fire. i can’ tell if i’m right or wrong since they’re all just patches of colours. and squiggles.
this, my dear readers, IS NOT A PILE OF ROCKS. it is a thundercloud laced with lightning (except the lightning isn’t very clear when it’s rendered in pencil). and it took me ages to do. because the forms are so organic and insanely hard to get exactly accurately correct.
poor little t-rex. this is where this was inspired from. fun stuff.
trees swaying violently in the wind. this was actually quite fun to draw! and the nice smoky background was done with weirong’s charcoal powder that was all over the tables.
i think this is a cyclone or tornado or something wind-related. see the ribbons of currents? yeah…
whirlpool. with pen. i don’t think it looks like one though…anyway. this was one of the last-minute prep done the night before. to make sure i had 32 pieces of A4 worth of prep. so this is kind of scribbled and substandard…but the effect turned out quite interestingly.
now this is definitely a cyclone or tornado. done with copic markers in 4 different colours. i guess this this is quite okay for a first attempt with copic? i mean, you can tell it’s a swirly thing right?
landslide! finally something that looks like rocks that’s supposed to be rocks! (you’ll understand my frustration in a little while, when the snow prep studies come along.)
landslides again. the one on the left is actually rice terraces. the one on the right is those sort of scientific labeled diagrams.
now here’s the avalanche! a lot of people said it doesn’t look like snow but rather, like rocks. i mean, okay so what if i can’t really draw soft fluffy things. it’s no reason to insult my nice snowscape! heh i love the school’s box of 72 colours.
landslide watercolour. last-minute prep again. random scribbled-in unfinished foliage and suggested town buildings. the brown thing is the landslide by the way.
ice cube and stalactite. do a headstand to see it properly please. i know this isn’t really a natural disaster but…i was looking at transparent things and how it could be recreated, partially because i initially wanted to do an avalanche (which later was scrapped in favour of the landslide), and also because of the wave clock.
this was copied out of a marvel comic book i think. i think i was in love with one of the art styles. this is actually some really old (last december) piece that i realised could be used as prep. hang on let me gush about the marvel style a bit more. the colouring was so exquisite! and the linework! and it looked so real and yet retained the comic-like quality! okay moving on.
this is a nice big turbulent wave. done with ballpoint pen. a lot of people (including mr lo, yes i asked him randomly) said it looked like a mountain. but IT’S A WAVE. and i actually liked how it turned out, even though this was one of the pieces that was supposed to look soft but ended up looking like -ahem- rocks. which led me to think that anything i draw turns out looking like rocks.
now this is a frozen tsunami. go google if curious. after many many many failures are drawing soft flowy things, this was a relative success.
this isn’t exactly a natural disaster either. it’s like a splashing droplet. i love high contrast. i love monochrome. but then again, i love colours too. oh and clean lines too.
geyser. last-minute prep. if you notice, (most if not all) of my last-minute prep are half-completed…
nice huge crashing wave in pastel. this was quite surprising for me, because i realised that pastels are not my worst nightmare and enemy. as a rule of thumb, i don’t do soft flowy objects or medium very well. objects like water, clouds, etc. and medium like pastel, charcoal, smudgy stuff, etc. so this was quite the personal achievement! someone give me a treat please (:
glass wave. was exploring the concept of a transparent wave. this was a last-minute prep too. the base is so botched because i lost patience…
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THERE! i have finally finished putting up all the observatory drawings. next should be the designs. and photos of the execution of the final. but my fingers are tired from typing captions. i mean, this post alone has nearly a thousand words! imagine that! and from just captions. plus today is sort of a post spam day…surge of productivity or reluctance to do other things (like cleaning my room)?
i think my skill with coloured pencils and pastels have improved. as well as pen. and i think practically everything except paint. for some strange reason, i’ve been avoiding painting. could be because i feel strange whenever i paint, as if i’m imparting a fragment of my soul with each brushstroke. and i’m afraid of what people can read through that. my innermost thoughts and feelings which i may or may not even be aware of will be revealed. but wouldn’t other works also have this clairvoyant effect? actually no, because i think painting is the only thing which requires full concentration. thus painting is sort of a connection with my inner self. and i fear the day when i do enough paintings that i have no soul left in me. what will i be then?
okay that was probably emo-ness. but it’s true. which is why i’ve been avoiding painting, because i don’t trust the people i’m surrounded by now. i don’t trust them enough to show them a bit of my soul. am i making jc life sound really bad? it isn’t that bad really. just that i’ve met with some really bad setbacks this year which have forced me to take a more macabre view on things. which means i’ve gone from cynical to uber cynical? haha. i still remember in june during faccomm camp in malaysia, mr teo said to me “you’re too young to be so cynical”. and i think his words really affected me and made me reconsider my personal values (please don’t remind me of magritte), which i think is what led to the hour-long crying-and-emoing session in july. which until now i’m still really thankful for because he missed half an hour of lesson just to make sure i was okay. and i think he would have missed more except that i insisted on leaving and attending math lecture. and he sat there for the whole time and consoled the unstable me, and i think not really caring what his colleagues around thought about the teary female student confiding in a male teacher…
i shouldn’t be saying these things on a public platform right?
right.
(oh phish now i have to go and tick the ‘rants’ category because i went and typed stuff. and i’m too lazy to tag everything so i shall put generic tags.)
ILP 2010 – prep – clocks November 6, 2010
Posted by dilutedwater in coursework, inspirations, prep.Tags: clock, ink, pencil
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i think i’ll split my ilp post into parts. or else i’ll never finish it.
watch and clock in oriental blue and pencil.
more timepieces. top one in pen.
cuckoo clock in blue ballpoint and black ink. some hands in ink.
copied from dali’s persistence of memory. i love how he can make even something as mechanical as clocks seem so wondrously ethereal.
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i started out this ilp drawing (what else?) clocks! plain observatory sketches. i think it was because i didn’t know how to get started so i just drew clocks. and natural disasters. and sort of procrastinated doing the actual thing.
for some strange reason, ever since sec 3 i’ve been avoiding paint. i have no idea why. but initially i had wanted to paint the scenes of natural disasters on a flat surface and use it as a clock face. then my mentor decided to make me represent the natural disasters through actual materials, and not depiction. but i digress; this post is on clocks.
another initial idea i had was to make the clocks vary in…time period, so to say. so one would be…a sundail and another a minimalist modernist clock? something like that. but in the end i couldn’t figure out how that would work since natural disasters have been around for ages. and no one came before the other (so to say).
prep boards! DONE (: September 28, 2009
Posted by dilutedwater in coursework, prep.Tags: board
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board 1: idea development and medium choice. includes references to coldplay, oren lavie and wallace&gromit.
board 2: research on various fast foods.
board 3: reseach on various computer games + fight sequence.
board 4: character design for the purple pig. includes references to disney, warner brothers, and roald dahl.
board 5: character design for the mons. includes reference to moyashimon.
board 6: room.
board 7: scene layouts (oesophagus, stomach, ileum).
board 8: storyboards and music. includes reference to “Secrets of Oscar-winning Animation” by Olivier Cotte.
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i have muscle aches from standing up and bending down repeatedly when spraying adhesive on my prep /:
overall, i think the section about the parquet flooring is the one i like best (: because i stuck little bits of ice cream sticks on and it looks like those sort of things contractors do. and the storyboard/music board. i like the binding i did for my storyboards. i stapled and then used insulating tape over. i actually wanted black but popular only sold it in blue, green and yellow D: so i took blue.
(parquet flooring bit. i just adore it.)
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through this prep board thingum, i have learned how to organize my development/thoughts in an orderly way (to others) so that it’s easy to see the flow of ideas. to me, this is especially important because the way i perceive things is usually not the way others perceive them. by forcing myself to link up my ideas, it lets a wider range of audience to understand my work.
what i don’t like is that i have a lack of stunning prep. like really nice drawings etc, which are what the general (non-art) public define as art (ie it must be pretty). so i worry that these prep boards and this medium cannot show my drawing/painting skills to its full extent. but since i voluntarily chose not to do painting, i’ll have to live with it.
storyboard September 26, 2009
Posted by dilutedwater in coursework, prep.Tags: paper, pencil, storyboard
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all paper A4 sized. template made by me. multiplied by a photocopying machine.
version 1.
version 2. drawn with aid of a lightbox.
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i think storyboarding is really tough. because you have to imagine it in three dimensions, like how are you going to animate it, how fast/slow do you want it, where to position the camera for best effect/convenience, etcetc. anyway though this, i have learnt how to draw with clean lines! becasue usually i just scribble everything. and when the line isn’t right i just go over it again, which results in my poor eraser being sorely underused. but not to worry, i used the eraser more when doing these storyboards, especially the second version. because it had to be prep-board-presentation standard.
in all, i think it is an enriching experience to storyboard, because you have to create an interesting story which is visually impactful. like a novel but with images.
writeup for music September 26, 2009
Posted by dilutedwater in coursework, prep, writings.Tags: music
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well actually it’s not much of a writeup. just some text next to my storyboards on the prep board.
here it goes:
- opening theme is lively and chromatic. gives a digital feel.
- slowly ascends when showing microbes playing. makes viewer/listener think some event is progressing/happening.
- main theme agian, this time escalating to a high note to bring out the ‘danger point’/'turning point’ — eating the burger.
- descending chromatic scales gives the illusion of falling.
- omnious phrase leads viewer/listener to recall something menacing approaching, a la JAWS (in this case, the enzyme pepsin).
- main theme. by now, the viewer/listener should be able to connect this theme to the scene(s) in the room. this time the theme modulates to a minor key, suggesting a change or events from happy to disfunctional.
- lively chords mimic the fun experienced by the surfing microbes. use of a minor key, again, suggests something omnious.
- use of a dominant seventh chord to suggest distraction, like a sudden insert.
- whole-tone scales feel alien and digital. the alternating ascending and descending phrases suggest repetition (the cycle of attack-defend). it then moves to a climax, with a rapid dischordant descent.
- use of the same dominant seventh chord, this time to suggest shock/surprise. ascends to climax gradually.
-diminished seventh scale suggests computer’s shutting down.
- use of a (minor) chord to give finality.
- a slightly jazzy ending to give a downcast ending, with room for imagination.
