Seeing is Believing

We are approaching our final critique - which will be done as a whole class. I have noticed that some people seem to progress faster than others, which is helping me to put my own work into perspective. I am beginning to realize that sometimes your work can't be rushed, and while it is a good thing to push yourself and improve, sometimes this must happen at a slower pace, through mistakes and discovery.

Some artists I recommend:

1) http://kyleatseniorstudio.blogspot.com/

2) http://technicolorstarfish.blogspot.com/

3) http://kgseniorstudio.blogspot.com/

Some artists (outside the class) that I have discovered:

1) http://mandrykart.wordpress.com/

2) http://www.kristahuot.com/

I was recently told by a painting professor to ask myself what I wanted from my painting(s). He gave me various suggestions of how to approach this question. It got me thinking....each time I sit down to begin a new project, I will try to ask myself what I want from the painting, how I want to change, what do I want the painting to say, etc...yet even my prof. told me how difficult these things are to answer. If I could do the same about my projects pertaining to this blog, I would probably choose to turn my back on the previous work I have presented in critiques. If I were to focus on the future and the work I will have for the final critique, I would say that I want my art to tell a story by drawing the audience in. Some aesthetic appreciation would be nice too!

*above is a preview of part of my project, in an abstract form

Critique 2

This post pertains to my second critique, which occurred a few days ago. In my opinion, it was more successful than the first, but I'm the kind of person who always thinks they could do more!

For this second portion of my semester-long project, I had a roll of paper where I could chart out various short stories. I opened a Word document and made a list of short stories, and then constructed the story by frames, which I drew on the paper. In the end, I had just under 20 stories, 1-5 frames/storyboards each, and 3 pieces of paper, total. I also chose 3 stories to express more fully, which I did using gouache and watercolor paints, on Stonehenge Cream paper.

Overall, I think the class was pleased with my stories. If I could critique myself, I would say that some of the stories were more poorly executed than others, however, I made it clear to the class that I was more focused on storytelling than the drawing aspect.

For my final critique, I hope to combine the elements of my first and my second critiques, and create at least 1 cohesive story, that is fully expressed (in terms of drawing skill, detail, and color) and demonstrated through 6 storyboards. Today, I am sketching out my storyboards to scale, while watching Harry Potter :).

"What Is It REDUX"

This is a week after my first critique, and even less time has passed between now and my personal response to my critique. Right now, I haven't accomplished anything else! I discovered some new direction and ideas, and I will be creating a strict schedule for myself very soon, but since the completion of my first part of my first project, I haven't done anything.

I plan on reevaluating my goal and the way in which I will create and present my work. I don't want to give too much away, because I would like to try out my freshly adopted artist attitude in secrecy first, just to make sure it will stick ;).

One thing I can say is that the character development and other less-important-tasks will be put on the back burner; stories and the practice of using my imagination is my priority! As is visually charting my thought process and progression. Next due date: November 9th.

Just today, I purchased the latest issue of my favorite magazine, Hi-Fructose. This is my fourth addition to my collection, and it is a magazine that highlights the artists of a 'new contemporary' and 'pop surrealism' genre. I like to to turn to these magazine when I'm feeling stumped and need a little inspiration to push me through a school project. I bought it for the purpose of giving my next painting assignment some direction, but I hope to find some use of it for this project, despite its distant (if any) connection to animation and stories.

Meanwhile, I have recently decided that October is my favorite month, other than March, which is my birth month. I love how its just getting cold, and you can break out the fall jacket, and the leaves start to fall, and the halloween is waiting at the end of the month, which means I can have my annual viewing of Hocus Pocus. I also LOVE being assaulted by pumpkin food and pumpkin flavored things everywhere! I intend to have a pumpkin crawl soon, in which my friends and I will troll the length of Main Street, sampling every pumpkin product being offered. I found this recipe on The Food Network website:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/pumpkin-french-toast-stuffed-with-blackberry-caramel-mascarpone-recipe/index.html

Response to First Critique

I am certain that I had more responses to my critique than my classmates! We had a silent critique, during which we wrote our opinions and constructive criticism, if any, on pieces of paper, which we handed to the artist. I was hoping that I would get some great direction and get torn apart by my classmates, only to improve that much more the next time around, but people were...nice. Too nice. In any case, I had a month's worth of time to decide what I did and did not like about my work for the first part of the project, as well as my process. For one thing, the overall presentation and quantity of the work was unimpressive. But that WILL change. Also, if I could confess, I didn't actually come up with a story. Oops! I got so caught up in the character development and creating digital paintings of a kitchen setting for my produce people that I let the storyline fall through the cracks. I also struggled with my own personal timeline, and drive (I found it difficult to make this project a priority when I had other classes and more prominent deadlines distracting me).

Things to do and things NOT to do.

*also, pardon the awful picture! I am no photographer.

"The Surround" -- Relevant Inspirations and Happenings

My one and only update so far....work on this project is not as copious as I'd imagined. I had this fantasy of having an impressive amount of work accomplished, created in various sizes and media. All I have is a couple of facial expressions studies of four fruit characters, done on sketchbook paper, and some color studies of the characters on the computer. I am starting to feel nervous and concerned about where my work is headed, as well as how my critique will go. I wonder how people will respond to my work so far, as preliminary as it is....

I had recently learned about Ossian in Art History, and how there were multiple paintings depicting how he was a great poet and writer who got inspired by the heavens and the gods and goddesses. I wish that I could fall asleep and wake up as a completely new and inspired artist, but unfortunately, my dreams are few in occurrence, and only concern silly, everyday things or the drama of a college girl.

I hope to have my breakthrough with this project soon, but if not, then I will turn the heat up on my project for the next critique! This is a learning experience for sure...

"What Is It? - What Is My Studio Practice?"

My studio practice will begin with a project that I created for myself. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have the objective of trying my hand at character and story development. This is an interest of mine that I am exploring in relation to my dream of working in the film industry. Specifically, I will be exploring the route of animation - however, I will not actually be animating anything. My first few projects will relate to the preliminary work involved with creating an animated story, which involves character and story development, storyboards, colorscripts, etc., and I will be exploring each of the these outlets in a variety of wet and dry traditional media, in addition to digital painting.

My motivation to create stories and characters is a result from my recent visit to the Oakland Museum of California, in Oakland, CA, where I viewed the Pixar exhibition, Pixar: 25 Years of Animation. I purchased the book from the exhibition, and have been treating it as some sort of bible since then. It pairs well with my Tim Burton exhibition book from the MOMA exhibition :).

Over the summer I bought a graphics tablet, and tried to teach myself how to paint digitally. I experimented with digital art pertaining to concept art and illustration, and spent most of my time studying the work of those who create what I admire. This project is another opportunity for me experiment in a field that I enjoy. I will begin by creating a small number of characters, and developing their facial expressions and colors. I would also like to create a story for them, and a setting in which they will live.

I live in a website called CGHub - this site houses the work of artists of all ages, all experience and skill levels, from all over the world. For example, the concept artist for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland has an account on this site, and posts his concept art for the film. Another favorite of mine is Dave Rapoza, a freelance artist who has a website called Crimson Daggers, where he uploads free tutorials for aspiring digital artists, such as me! I posted some examples of their work; hopefully everyone recognizes the caterpillar from Alice! This is Michael Kutsche's , the concept artist for the Burton remake. The other belongs to Rapoza.

Maybe one day some kid will be posting my work in their blog :)

Introduction

My name is Liz Feldstein and this is my artist's blog! I will discuss my artwork and my process as an artist while exploring my practices in the studio. I am a senior, Fine Arts major at the University of Delaware, and my dream is to work in the movie industry. I hope to discover what my true passion is within that field (illustration, animation, concept art, CGI, etc...), and more importantly, what I can become good at and succeed at!

As I try my hand at various media, such as 2D traditional and 2D digital work, I hope to increase my skill level by challenging myself and experimenting with the media that I have used in the past. My main goal will be to discover the relationship between the narrative and the image by creating and developing various characters and stories; however, another objective I have is to progress personally as an artist, by addressing the reservations that I have held thus far.