#emuscfall2019

[summerlangford]

Post Critique Response - Time

While a portion of this work was successful, the largest weakness was linking the measurement sheet to the doll made from the pieces of yarn I used to measure my body. Many people were not able to link them together due to too little information/data provided.

For suggestions given for this, there was suggestion of a diagram of a body with the text next to each portion and in the color of its designated yarn. Also indicating what the measurements are would also help to connect the chart to the doll.

For me, I learned how much of a fight I really have with my body. This project mainly taught me of what my body does as my numbers constantly got bigger and smaller in the process of recording information.

I think it’s possible to continue with this work, but I am not entirely motivated to do it due to my mental state when it comes to my body and how small it is.

[summerlangford]

Time: Weeks 7-9

[summerlangford]

Post Critique Response - Place

There were both strengths and weaknesses pointed out for this project by my peers. For strengths that it had was the usage of animation to help tell partial of a story, along with the strength of displaying the different homes in the different styles and animating them to go away and appear. Although the work did hold weaknesses as well. For the first weakness, it was hard to follow for many of my peers to follow what exactly was going on due to many weak areas. Some said the lack of audio made the narration fall apart while others said there was not enough within the animation to give information about the story.

There was feedback for the animation as well. One of the tips given was to add more visual information for telling the story of moving from location to location. Another suggestion was to add the dates to each home to give an idea about the time period. Another idea given for narrating the animation was to actually do a voiceover and talk about my family during the animation.

With choosing to make this an animation, I learned a lot of new tricks with both Adobe Illustrator and Adobe After Effects. I also learned more about the speed of working with these programs and also understanding how time-consuming it can be.

But overall, I could see myself doing something like this again in my own free time. It would be more spaced out and more thought out as I feel the limited time to create this was a major factor in many of the flaws that it had. I would use the same software again, but possibly try adding in some other ways of animating, like using the gif system in photoshop or making a page by page animations in Open Toonz. Next time I try this, I will definitely also make sure to not overload myself with work to do as well.

[summerlangford]

Time Project: Week 6

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Time Project: Week 5

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Time Project: Week 4

Progress on project 1.

[summerlangford]

Identity Proposal

The artwork being made for this project will be about twelve by twelve inches in total, made up of nine four by four inch panel canvases in a square shape. All of the canvases will be painted with acrylic paint and each canvas will be a fragment of my own personal selfie photos to construct a mosaic in nine different art styles and nine different selfies to create a disfigured face from the fragments. Some will have unique color choices as well, so they will not be accurate colors to the selfies they are based off of. It will be displayed on a wall. It’s still being determined if all the canvas panels will touch or all have a small gap between each.

For the start of this work, I start off with a 3x3 grid in a sketchbook and figure out nine different painting styles to do. With what could work in the frames, the nine painting styles selected are cubism, surrealism, expressionism, abstract, impressionism, figuratism, Chinese painting, Japanese painting, and tanjore painting from India. I will then photoshop the selected nine images by altering their colors and selecting one area after creating a 3x3 grid over the photo. Once all nine are selected, they will be printed at four by four inches to be real size before transparent vellum paper will be used to trace the images and then transferred on the canvases for guidelines. Once this is complete, I will select desired colors for the altered image and start painting the canvases.

This work is to bring a message about how society calls selfies “vain” and counter it with each unique fragment of the collection of canvases. The option of using small canvases is a choice for constructing a larger image, much like a tiling system while acrylics are used to mimic the painting styles used for this project as a majority are western styles. The different painting styles are to bring in the message of a style, much like how one would style oneself for a selfie. The change in color to some of the images is to represent the filters one would put over a selfie. Having only a portion of each selfie to construct a distorted face is to bring in how not all selfies look alike, that they are unique and different. Overall, the message is to say capturing one’s face in a photograph isn’t vain, but a way to show uniqueness and change in their individuality.

[summerlangford]

Language: Post Critique Response

The critique for this project was informative and helpful, letting me know my strong points and weak points. People stated that simplicity and text bring a simple but strong message across. Placement of specific texts also helped to show off how there are degrading phrases for all body types due to the words’ contrast. Another strength that was noted is how the body isn’t exactly female but can also be interpreted as a male due to a lack of breasts. For weaknesses, one mentioned a bit was that the figure could’ve been larger in areas so it didn’t look so thin. Another weakness pointed out was how some text was neatly stacked and didn’t work with the messy stacking of text in other areas of the figure. Another weakness is the size of the piece as it is too small to feel as if it is an actual body.

There were suggestions given to the work as well. One was that instead of a painting, I should project the artwork from a projector onto a white wall. Not only would it then be cleaner and adjustable in size but interactive as well as people could stand in projector light and see the words on their own body to make it a more inclusive piece for those who are affected by body shaming daily. Another suggestion was to create a cut out of words that is lifesize, making it a sculpture. A third suggestion was to actually turn the image into a series, creating more artworks following the same concept of bodyshaming words creating them. For all of these, I feel all are great to implement and do as all can be combined when in a series.

From this project, I learned the use of a new medium and also got a lot of insight into more I could do with my initial idea. I gained the knowledge of properly using rubber cement and ways to use it without damaging paintbrushes. Also, with critique from my classmates, I learned more ways I can help to spread my message about body shaming issues in different ways.

I believe with this project, it would definitely be something I would continue doing and creating. With how I would continue it, I would gather research on social media, following body tags and also viewing pages about body positivity and body shaming to find more areas on how people shame men and women for their body types. With the suggestions above, I would work in different mediums and techniques while continuing this series as well.