Thursday, May 7, 2015

Jackpot Grant

Here is the link to the Jackpot Grant I wrote:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwlFOBm1GWWFdjgwSFVHSGR2LXM/view?usp=sharing

Final Paper

With art, I feel there should be craftsmanship behind it. I enjoy a piece when I can tell that a lot of time and skill was put into it. If there is a piece that is more on the minimalistic side I feel that it has to evoke thought, otherwise it comes off as lazy. In my art I try to show craftsmanship, but time constraints do show. Describing my own artistic practices can be difficult, because I feel like I have two categories which is Music and Art. I tend to blend the line between those two, and most of the time music gets more of an emphasis because it is what I know best. My own practices usually involve things I already know how to do, but when I try something new it is related to something that I have always been interested in. To put it simply, I make art that I know how to make and I make art that I like.
    Recently, I have been really into the styles of stop motion animation with 3d printed objects. I love making 3d objects because I feel like while drawing is trying to figure out what lines can create something, 3d is what shapes can create something. The work that really got me inspired to do 3d modeling with stop motion is the “Bears on Stairs” piece. It has a very whimsical nature about it, but I love how fluid the motion of the entire piece looks. After doing research, I found the artists behind it are a set of studios. DBLG and Blue Zoo made the project together, but DBLG is the one most credited for it. Their works and business model is something that I am interested in. Their piece “Bears on Stairs” was made as a fun project, to test out what they could do with animation. The fluidity of their animation is what I aimed for in my piece with the cello model. In the piece I’m working on for the final, I got the idea for 3d printing the animals because of this piece. I wanted to try and print out several models of one animal, such as they did, and use it to make a stop motion video. My favorite part about their project, something that I would like to focus more on in the future, is the fact that it was simple, and made for fun. The bear did not have any significance other than it was a model they had reused off an animal planet add, and they wanted to try something new. While I do appreciate the value of a project back with concept and thought, sometimes it is nice to do a project for fun sake and not have a deeper meaning behind it.
    This last semester has been a mix of both good and bad in regards to projects. The Heidger project was perhaps one of my weakest pieces, mostly due to time constraint and not having a clear idea of the project soon enough. My work on my cello piece really opened me up to works I would like to continue in the future. I found stop motion to be time consuming yet rewarding in the end. I also enjoyed 3d modeling and printing. I had made things in 3d modeling programs before but never had I printed. The use of color key was also a new technique to me. I have known about it for years but I did not know how video editing software actually did the technique. I found it simple yet frustrating at the same time. It made me a lot more aware of the lighting that was going on in the piece. This semester has been an exploration of new projects but I have not improved on one of the ones I wanted to work more towards. I enjoyed working in game maker, but I also really enjoy working with electronic music. While I can easily provide music for any of my projects digitally, I wish I had worked a bit more with sound this semester. I felt the grant writing was really helpful. While I myself might not continue onto doing gallery art or needing a grant for artwork, as one of the organizers of the Reno Video Game Symphony we have to write grants every year for our organization. I feel now I can help our one grant writer to make our presentations look much better.  I am glad that I got to discover my enjoyment for stop motion animation though.
    In the future there is a lot I would like to do with art. In my free time I usually draw, and I would like to continue working on that to become better. Most of my drawings are for commercial reasons or entertainment. As far as the fine art world goes, I know next semester I will still be in art classes but after college I do not think I will be continuing as much. I will keep drawing but I’m not sure if I will do much else. I hope to get a job at a company where I can work with digital art though. Someplace that uses 3d models would be fun, but I would also be interested in any sound job. If I do continue work in the fine art world, it will probably be more on the music side of things. I enjoyed making electronic music and I hope to continue making it. After seeing Rioji Ikeda in class it made me want to start doing works similar to his. I greatly enjoy the sounds he is making and I feel his visuals complement his work very nicely. I already know how he is making his electronic music, so the next step would be exploring in video editing and trying to make visuals that complement the sound. If I make any works after college it will more likely be for fun though, and not for a gallery.

Work Cited
http://dblg.co.uk/
"CR Blog." CR Blog RSS http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2014/april/bears-on-stairs

Monday, May 4, 2015

Natural Trash


For my final project in Digital Media we had to create and work and present it as a grant. I used the concept of beauty as the basis of the project. Using Nevada landscapes, I wanted to recreate the environment out of trash relating to the environment itself. My piece should bring up the question, is something still considered beautiful if it is made out of something that is not. I used different news papers from all over Northern Nevada to make the foundation for the land scape, then using magazines advertising UNR I made the branches of the tree. The tree itself was made from card board from an Amazon box. The plastic in the river was the packaging from Nevada made candy. The animals were 3d printed to help them stand out from the environment. The entire project was shot using a stop motion animation technique. The end result feels like a camera was placed in the landscape to observe nature and took several pictures, making it into one big time lapse. The sounds in the video are a recording of the Carson River. Overall the project should make the viewer think about the concept of beauty and the trash that we as Northern Nevadans leave behind.