Reflective Journal

Journey - Unit 7: An intergrated approch to time-based problem solving in art and design.

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Final Piece

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Digital Drawing I drew this rather quickly as a sketch of my boyfriend during a train journey home using an digital drawing app on my phone. It was my first time drawing anything on my phone and it was more challenging because the screen is quite small and my fingers can not create as much detail as using a fine pen or pencil. However I really like how smooth the lines are with digital drawing and you can obtain the perfect colour palette because of the CMYK RGB spectrum. I am happy with the way it came out as it was fun to try a new method and the colours help portray a feeling of tranquility due to the pink and peachy hues.

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Original Drawing and Various Edits This piece is less based upon the storyboard as I don’t think I’d be able to create something as detailed digitally but more of a combination of ideas and imagery in one piece of work. I like how it came out because it looks cute and floaty however I wanted to play around with editing it to see if i could change the mood and feel of the piece and I believe the other two more vibrant versions are very bold and loud which is the opposite effect of the original.

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Story board designs/Inspired Artwork I created these with white ink on top of photos of the sky similar to how it was in my video, it is a loosely representative storyboard because I will include imagery such as this in my film, It is also just artwork based upon the theme of nature and scenery. I am particularly happy with the top one because of the contrast between the pink and white. Please excuse the shine at the bottom of the pieces as they were scanned in to upload.

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Kinetic Sculpture Update I finished my kinetic sculpture towards the start of my project however decided to leave it at college till I need to photograph it. Unfortunately it got very tangled and bent, i think it might have been tampered with by mistake but it no longer functions as a mobile. This is fixable but it takes a lot of time and effort so in order to meet the deadline for this project I decided to photograph it like this but include drawings of what it hung like when it was intact. As you can see it dangled the painted shell like asymmetrical raindrops in a spiral. It is a shame it got broke. but I am still happy because at one point it came out exactly how I hoped it would. My favourite aspect is the rain itself because the shell shines when the light hits in and turns a beautiful pale opal colour due to the blue paint, this gives it a delicate and fragile feel to it.

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Proposal

In preparation for my final piece I am pitching a treatment/proposal, this will outline the concept visually for my short film as well as any research strategies, technical methods for making it and intentions i have in mind.

My inspiration came from staring out of the window on my routine 🚇 journey home, the sky was a deep pink colour and the raindrops reflected this colour making me realize how beautiful the scenery is when you notice it, this led me to film the whole journey home. All the way through this pink theme has stuck with me, the peachy hues perfectly encapsulate the feeling i was experiencing; tranquil and reflective. I have included some images captioned ‘COLOUR’ of what I am drawn to in terms of colour.

 I want to include my 🚇 video combined with digital drawing on top of the moving video in white. I decided on a pink and white colour scheme because white is less harsh than drawing with black and I feel that white makes the mood feel softer and delicate when matched with pale pink, to compliment this I want the drawings to be childlike doodles because I think it gives the impression of fresh and sweet innocence. I would like the drawing layer to be moving, as opposed to stop motion, it will flow as if you are 👀 it being drawn in front of you, however i have no experience doing this and it seems complicated but I am determined to learn. 

My intent was originally that I wanted to just draw 🌧️ on the video but after looking a examples of doodle illustrations in research I decided to draw a range of things related to nature in the video. Examples of doodle research above captioned ‘DRAWING’.

One problem I encountered which I knew would surface due to me having not much experience with professional level video editing, was not knowing how to make the drawing live on top of the video. I have used a lot of common editing software before but when researching tutorial youtube videos it came to my attention that this is what professional 🎶 video makers use and it would be a huge challenge for me.

I started looking at alternative methods to portray the same effect but nothing seemed up to standard, I decided to dig deeper and found a website which explained the tools and methods in the simplest form. With this I was able to achieve the effect I wanted and although it was slightly more rough and less detail that i’d originally pictured, I am very proud of myself for setting an ambitious goal and achieving it.

After tackling this problem I was able to concentrate on the 🎶 and sound, choosing the right soundtrack to enhance the visuals. All of the samples I recorded are appealing to me but as there is no talking in my video and it is of the same subject matter all the way through I wanted something to make it more 🙌 rather than a repeated audio clip. I asked my musician friend if i could record her singing the most nature-themed song she’d written and she reluctantly agreed. What she came up with is perfect as the lyrics are focused on plants, bugs and the outside and her voice is soft and delicate which perfectly compliments the theme of the visuals.

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Animated GIF/Tweening on Photoshop

A looped bouncing ball gif made on Adobe Photoshop, I chose to decorate this slightly by adding a cute little face to the ball. Im happy with how this came out and I like the pastel blue and pink colour scheme.

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“Homo Sapiens Sapiens“, Pipilotti Rist, 2005-06

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This piece of visual art very much inspired some of my moving image experiments, I love the extremely saturated and contrasting colors clashing together. To me it creates a psychedelic effect which entices me and leaves me mesmerized which is what I was aiming for with some of my GIFs earlier in the project.

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Sound Recording #3

On another walk home from college I heard the birds singing and decided to sample some to use in my projects, the sound resembles my video because it is focused on nature and scenery. I also find the sound relaxing and therapeutic as it reminds me of being outside surrounded by countryside.

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Sound Recording #2

Whilst visiting my grandparents house which also happens to be the house i grew up in, I remembered the sound the tiles in the hallway make as you walk through the house, this memory is very personal to me and I wanted to capture the nostalgia through the recording. Although I like this sample very much I think it doesn't have much relevance to my final piece so I am going to look for something more fitting.

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Sound Recording #1

As I was walking home I recorded the sound of a waterfall I walked past, the sounds were really soothing to me and gave an air of soothing tranquility. I want the music to my final piece to be soft and calming.

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Moving Image Experiment #3

This GIF is definitely my favourite so far, I used the footage from my first ‘Journey’ filming at the start of the project, I love the colours and the imagery of the rain as it is so calming to me. I managed to loop the gif so when it ends it rebounds backwards and to me, when it goes through the tunnel and goes black its quite mesmerizing. I definitely want to explore further and use the original video to experiment with more editing and eventually for my final piece.

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Moving Image Experiment #2 This is my second GIF, I love this one because the colours are so bright and vibrant, it was originally a video of a crystal ball and the room i was in had many multicolour strobe lights flashing which reflected and refracted through the ball making amazing clouds and patterns, the sparkles on the sides i added on Adobe Photoshop.

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Moving Image Experiment GIF made from looking through kaleidoscopic glass out of my window, I like this a lot because it is chaotic and the colours are extremely bright and hard to distinguish. This makes it intriguing and want to keep looking to make out what it happening, despite how much I like this it is a bit too hectic for my idea of my final piece so i think i will try and make calmer more soothing gifs.

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Haiku Research Collection of haikus I wrote based on nature, I like how you can create strong imagery in short sentences. I did struggle a bit with finding words that fit with the right amount syllables in. It is great for setting a scene and I may possibly use some as spoken word in my final video.

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Documentation of making Kinetic Sculpture Whilst looking through the resources i grew to love this big bit of springy wire i found, it it well with my sculptures because of the kinetic movement energy when it dangles. I also found some mother of pearl shells that i would like to incorporate also, I want to paint them and perhaps craft them into raindrop shapes. I really like the progress so far because it is made out of unconventional materials for a mobile but i am confident it will look effective, the raindrops are going to dangle on invisible wire and chime against eachother.