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Exhibition Space Finally all up and ready, this is just a quick video of my exhibition space to show the transition in the video and how it looks all together. I'm pleased with it, I think it looks clean and neat! [June 8th 2017]

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MY FINAL PIECE

My final piece went through a bit of a change about half way through, the sketches in my sketchbook don’t actually match with this because I felt the composition didn’t quite work.

This one matches the sketch but l feel it looks awkward and the buildings look out of place. I also thought I’d lost a lot of the watercolour aesthetic that I actually wanted to show, so I went back to my original water colour painting and created what can be seen at the top.

As I stated, I wanted my final piece to look as though it was a water colour painting, and quite a lot of it actually is (and can be found in Sketchbook 01), and I then took the image and edited it in Photoshop to add detail, tweak colours, and create an entire new mood which can be found in the second image. I honestly feel like I could have made it a little bit neater, but I was a bit pressed for time due to starting again, and I’ve made it as tidy as possible for it not to look like a mess. As well with it being a bit neater, I would like to make it look a little bit more magical, the only thing really out of place is the colours, which wasn’t the only thing I wanted to have. The symbolism in the piece is there with the glass/crystal city, the tree and it’s roots, and the shift in mood to symbolise the emotional side of it. 

I’m really happy that I decided to go back and change it, I don’t think I’d be very proud of it otherwise. It just looks really bland and blocky, whereas the design I’ve finished with looks like it could expand into somewhere magical.

Overall, it could do with some cleaning but I’m pleased with the outcome. I’m just looking forward to seeing in on display alongside my 8ft piece from the pop up shop.

[June 7th 2017]

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Collection of all photos I’ve taken of various landscapes.

[June 4th 2017]

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THE NIGHTMARE (COMIC)

I started doing this comic a while ago to tie in with the nightmare that a friend had based off an illustration I did of his fear. I don’t have time to make it super detailed, which is also why there is a lack of people in the comic, however due to my project being about Landscapes, I decided to focus more on the backgrounds and creating atmosphere.

I kept my colour pallet to be black and white with a hint of red, to mimic something that feels uneasy and almost angry (to portray the war scene), this was also because I chose this colour pallet for the character I created to mimic my friend’s fear, so it felt fitting to keep it the same. I tried experimenting with a simplistic design, much like that of Journey and Hokusai’s work in order to see how much atmosphere I could give a simple landscape. It all came down to lighting and smoke to fill the spaces left and add that sense of space within each panel, and also using the different grounds to my advantage and making sure each depth of field was visible. There were some panels which involved more scenery than others, mainly due to the others involving more character expression.

Below I will post a closer look at some of the best panels.

As you can see from these panels, there’s very limited detail as I’ve focused more on creating depth than creating something extremely complicated. Granted, perhaps I could have added some bits and pieces to make it more detailed, but these panels I’ve shown above I feel are good in what they portray. If I was to attempt at doing this again, I think I’d put a bit more care into the smoke and the areas it covers, and also maybe add a little bit more into the far background. I would keep the same colour pallet, however I think I’d add a little bit more of a less saturated red to make the colour pop a bit more. I’d also clean up my lines more, to make it appear more professional.

Overall creating this comic has helped to think about positioning and composition, but also narrative as the world moves around the scene taking place. It’s also allowed me to practice and play around with lighting and how it can change the atmosphere of the scene.

[May 30th 2017]

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Hokusai

 A widely known and respected Japanese artist back in the 1800′s. Whilst most of his work was screen printed and not painted, the simplicity yet overall effect is closely linked with my research into the likes of Journey (The video game), and my tests with Graphic Design. I’ve been trying to decide lately on whether to make my piece quite simple, or very detailed in its execution, yet my research has been making me lean more towards a simpler composition rather than fussing over fine details (an issue I’ve had for many years).

THE GREAT WAVE - His most famous piece, The Great Wave is widely open to interpretation on what’s actually happening within the picture. Some people get a sense of dread or panic, whilst others feel determination. It gives the piece a great sense of narrative.

RED FUJI - This piece shows that not a lot of detail is needed for an effective piece. Probably one of his more simpler pieces, Red Fuji combines colour and composition to create something that gets the point across without being overwhelming.

WATERFALL OF AMIDA BEHIND THE KISO ROAD - This one feels the most surreal in a sense. The water pool at the top of the image looks like a sort of moon to me, and looks as if it’s pouring light or water (it also looks like it could be Willow branches). It create a sense of wonder in the piece. 

36 VIEWS OF MOUNT FUJI - This piece shows the most depth, yet has such a simple colour pallet. 80% of the print appears to be white, however you get an idea of the coldness of the mountains due to this limited colour scheme, but also the height the mountains due to the clouds swirling around it.

Looking at Hokusai’s prints and the game Journey, has made me realise that a landscape doesn’t need as much in it as I initially thought, and that a simple landscape can still be beautiful and detailed in its own right. I think from this I have decided to test how simple I can make it, and find out when simple is too simple, as I want some form of narrative. 

[May 29th 2017]

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Landscape Artists

JMW Turner 

The moodiness of this piece is brought across by the use of lighting and colour throughout. You get a real sense of the movement of the water by the way the light bounces off the waves, bringing your eye to the focus of the piece being the boat. There’s an unsettled air around the painting as if something bad is about to happen (to me personally anyway), and that it’s like the calm before the storm. This adds a narrative to the piece and allows the viewer to create their own stories, and that’s what I’d like to accomplish within my own piece. I would like somebody to look at it and create their own theories about what’s happening and the story behind it. I also want to create a great sense of atmosphere within the piece too, by playing with lighting and colour (colour schemes are already settled on). 

John Martin

The colour choices made in this piece are astounding. You get a sense of warmth throughout, perhaps to show battle or war. It adds a sense of mood to the piece, although whereas I assume it’s suppose to portray anger and blood, I find it oddly peaceful... and this is before you even look at what’s happening in the piece, I find that shade of red to be oddly calming. The depth within this piece adds a sense of scale, the image looks like it goes on for miles, adding a sense of journey or travel. I’m not too sure how much depth I want in my piece, however this is a good reference to how to achieve something with so much depth it could be miles and miles deep. Like the piece by JMW Turner, the painting is open to interpretation and creates its own narrative as you see more detailing. I am probably going to go for a more simple approach to a landscape, however I want to add small details that people will notice the more they look.

Constable’s Sketches

These actually look a lot like my own sketches, but maybe with a bit more refinement and detail. You get a really good idea of what he’s trying to show in each of his sketches even without lots of detail, atmosphere or mood. This is the kind of look my own sketches give, however mine are quite a bit messier in places. 

Constable’s Paintings

Much like the sketches, his paintings are quick and not very detailed, however he still manages to get across a sense of atmosphere just by using colour and movement of his strokes. It just shows that not much detail needs to be added to a piece to create a scene, just the right colours and sense of movement.

Samuel Palmer

Appears to be a very different style to the other artists I’ve talked about, it’s almost like it’s been screen printed rather than painted. It appears so simple when viewed at first, but when looked at in more detail there’s actually so much going on in one piece. I also find the sombre atmosphere from the colour pallet quite appealing as it kind of shifts what the actual story of the painting could be. This could link with my colour theory work and is something I want my own piece to show.

Albrecht Altdorfer

To me, this could be the map to some sort of fantasy world. The sense of space and depth is incredible, and you truly get a sense for the kind of areas that could be the different kingdoms or landscapes, etc... the atmosphere seems to change for each depth of field, implying a sort of coldness as the piece goes back (I don’t know if I’m the only one that gets that feeling, but it’s like there’s snow in the background). Whilst I’m taking a different approach to the way my final piece will be laid out, I’m taking note on the way he’s mapped out each area, and put careful thought into layout and colour. I’m also not planning on adding as much detail as he’s included, but his detailing work is spot on.

[May 29th 2017]

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My Context (for my final piece)

I’ve finally came up with an idea for my final piece and how it links to my original context that I proposed.

I’m still going with the concept art plan and I’m creating a piece of concept art for a game based around the idea of a Recurring Dream world (mentioned in the past). The idea behind this game is that the protagonist starts to travel back to the dream world of their childhood, a world that was frequently visited, however something doesn’t feel quite right. I haven’t came up with a proper story for it (because that’s not a part of my project), but I can tell you about the world and why it exists.

The idea is that during their childhood, the protagonist (not specifying Gender, gonna leave that up to the viewer) suffered some form of Trauma (not sure what type yet, possibly Grief or Abuse) leaving them with a form of PTSD. I have aspects of my characters personality that is reflected in the world such as Fragility being the Glass City for example, thus this world is unique to said individual. The world itself is a reflection of a person and their experiences, so with this world being my protagonist’s childhood dream, it can appear quite childish in appearance but with a certain off tone about it. The world can also shift depending on emotions, so if they experience a rather angry day, the world would reflect that when they fall asleep, meaning it’s always changing and rarely the same two nights in a row. This leaves it open to change and adaptation.

I’m going to represent 4 emotions in the world: Depression (or when having a PTSD attack), Anger, Contentment (The world in its most standard form), and Innocence (when the world appears most childish). I’ve already settled on colours and simply just need to settle on a design. 

More information can be found in my book.

[May 26th 2017] 

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LAURENT CHEHERE

Linking in with the last post on Surrealism, Laurent Chehere created these stunning photographs of different buildings just floating in the air. I’ve always liked the idea of things just floating around, and I think she’s executed it in such a dream-like (and aesthetically pleasing) way. To me, it seems like she’s using different types of buildings to represent different things, such as the Circus tent could represent childishness. This could link these to my symbolism research too. I’m going to have a think about what I could do to take inspiration from this and how it could link with my other research to represent something surreal.

[May 26th 2017]

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Artists such as Salvador Dali, Vladimir Kush, Max Ernest, and Jacek Yerka pull reality out of perspective to create their out of this world images. Surrealism is usually associated with dream-like scenarios due to the randomness of the images much like how a dream can jump from one thing to another. It’s going to be so much fun to play around with ideas of how I can bend reality and challenge people’s perspective and observation skills. This will be a challenge in itself to make something that goes against reality, but also something that’s never been done before, so I’m going to have to have a good think about what I want to use. This could be interesting to see where this goes.

[May 26th 2017]

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STUDIO GHIBLI

A Japanese animation company that specialise in the surreal. You can see from the colourful characters above that normal simply isn’t in their vocabulary. Their cartoons often focus on a female character (strong and independent too, no damsels in these cartoons) who live in, or are transported to, a weird and wonderful world, often full of magic. They also include elements of their cultures in the films, giving it a very oriental appearance, though they use aspects of other cultures too (Howl’s Moving Castle appears to be set in a Western Society). These brightly coloured cartoons feature beautiful landscapes that, as mentioned earlier, take inspiration from different cultures and countries. I’m taking inspiration from this due to the different type of fantasy these films portray, they have seemingly normal settings that have something off about them, making people feel like they’re somewhere else. 

Some examples of Studio Ghibli films.

Spirited Away - The most culturally obvious of the Ghibli films I’ve seen. This one takes heavy Japanese influence throughout in it’s setting, and in the creatures involved.

Howl’s Moving Castle - (My favourite film of the lot) This film has a lot of Steampunk influence (or so it seems), from the way the Castle appears and works, to the dress sense throughout. As opposed to Spirited Away, this one has a lot of Western Culture, especially European influence.

Princess Mononoke - Based heavily around the idea of spirits and why we should respect the earth and the creatures that live in it. The scenery in this film seems entirely normal, and it’s the creatures within that give it the fantasy sense.

My Neighbour Totoro - Much like Mononoke, this lies with the characters in its fantasy sense, but also this could be interpreted as a world through a child’s eyes, as the main protagonist is a little girl.

Castle in the Sky - The best example in Studio Ghibli of something in a landscape that doesn’t fit in with natural norms. The castle itself looks like a part of nature, appearing a bit like a tree which allows it to blend right in with the rest of the scene around it, however it also stands out by being suspended in the air.

There are many more Ghibli Films that have have yet to see, these are just a few of the ones I’ve seen.

[May 23rd 2017]

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GAME RESEARCH: JOURNEY

Probably one of the prettiest games I’ve ever seen. Journey takes gaming to the simplest form possible, yet manages to create some of the most stunning landscapes. The idea behind the game is to simply... go on a journey. You move the character, The Traveller, through various landscapes as you go on your journey.

It uses the simplest approach to landscapes that I’ve ever seen in a game, and executes it beautifully (also links well with my graphic research as I was looking at creating landscapes using simple shapes), the scenes can also change drastically from this:

to this:

giving the game a great sense of atmosphere and diversity, making you feel as though you’re truly on a journey through another world. I’m taking so much inspiration from this game as it’s so diverse and atmospheric, yet feels like you’re walking through a dream do to the quick shifts in scenery. I want to further play with atmosphere and simplicity in order to create something that’s visually stunning, yet interesting to see.

[May 23rd 2017]

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GAME RESEARCH: NO MAN’S SKY

Such an awful game yet so pretty to look at. The concept behind this game is to generate worlds and creatures as you play, meaning that each game is different for each person. This is a cool idea, and it means that you’d get lots of wacky looking worlds and animals that can range from something that looks like an animal, to something completely alien. The issue is, this didn’t really work for everyone. The game would often generate boring landscapes, or the same creatures making it repetitive and boring. So I’m not actually going to look at the game itself, because we’ll get no where; instead I’m going to look at the promotional art and concept art as they are the best representative of their concept.

This is the kind of landscapes they had in mind when creating the game. Bright, colourful areas full of creatures and plants. Each thing taking inspiration from real-life things, yet have been altered to appear alien.

They even mix landscapes, like my own ideas, to create something diverse and different. Each area looks like it’s sunny and clear, giving it a lack of weather and atmosphere however I believe this was the intention. Personally I think they could have added a bit more of a difference in the atmosphere of worlds, but this is something that I can take into my own work.

The use of planets in the backgrounds too also help to show the alien setting of the game (The spaceships do help too). They seem to have taken inspiration for some of their creatures from Dinosaurs (much like Horizon: Zero Dawn).

Overall, the concept art for the landscapes in this game is stunning, and help to show that the best way to accomplish something alien (or dream-like) is to take inspiration from nature and the animals that live in it, as these can be warped and put together to create something different. I’ll be taking these notes into my own work, so not to fall into fantasy norms and create something not seen before.

[May 23rd 2017]

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Meaning in Nature

I was looking to incorporate some natural symbols into my final piece, and use things that have significant meaning, however whilst scouring the internet for this, I came up blank. It appears that there is no solid meanings in nature (apart from things like the seasons and elements), and that it’s simply what it means to each individual. Lots of tree roots colour symbolise a well rooted person, for example, so what I’m going to have to do is to think about what kind of person I want to base my final piece around and decide from there what I should include in terms of nature. This will be interesting to see what I can come up with, but this could also add a surreal aspect to my piece. I’ll update soon with my character traits and will begin exploring what needs to be included and why.

[May 22nd 2017]

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TRADITIONAL DISNEY BACKGROUNDS

Back in days of Traditional Disney films, when Digital art and animation didn’t exist, every Disney Animated film’s background was hand painted. Whilst those artists used Acrylic paints to create these backgrounds, I’m thinking about using Watercolours to create mine. This is because I’m much happier working in Watercolours, they’re easy to blend and layer, yet can give bold and vibrant colours when needed. I aspire to the level of atmosphere and detail in the traditional Disney backgrounds, and I hope to be able to include this is my final piece. My plan is to create the base image in traditional watercolours, then scan it into Photoshop to add other details and tweak it a bit to create the final image. 

[May 22nd 2017]

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Where I’m at with my Project.

Lately I’ve been doing lots of experiments with different mediums to create landscape scenes, ways to create mood, and what kind of things could be part of a surreal landscape. I thought it was about time that these experiments get put together, and start to plan what my final piece is going to consist of. 

The main elements that I want included in my piece are: Scale, Emotion, Surrealism (things being where they’re not suppose to), and Narrative.

SCALE

I played with this idea a bit when looking at pieces I’d cut from magazines, and how I could imagine them being much larger than originally perceived. I find the idea to be interesting, but also good for creating dream-like fantasy landscapes as it adds a sense of abnormality. 

EMOTION

Dreams are affected by our emotions, all my research has told me this, thus it’s a key feature that I need to include in my final piece. There’s a few ways that I plan on doing this, the main way being colour theory and emotion through colour, but I’m also going to slightly edit things inside the image to show the shift too. Watercolour and Photo-editing will most likely be my medium for this.

SURREALISM

I want this to look unreal, literally. It’s a dream landscape so it needs to appear weird and well...surreal XD I’m going to try incorporating weird shapes, things that don’t belong, and mixing landscapes and objects to create something weird and a bit wacky. I’m going to take inspiration from Alien landscapes (Avatar, No Mans Sky, Journey (?)) and Landscapes around the world that don’t seem to conform with normality. 

NARRATIVE

I want it to tell a story, I want something that a person could look at and be able to form a story from it. It’s the best thing that concept art can do, when a story can be pulled from a simple image.

These are the core things that I want my final piece to include, I’m also leaning towards it being a mix of traditional and digital art, so to move away from standard concept art mediums. I’ve never really seen a game that looks like it’s been created in a watercolour-esque way so that’s something I think I’m going to try. I’ll talk about it more when I’ve settled on an idea.

[May 22nd 2017]

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PSYCHOLOGY IN COLOUR

Psychological Properties of Colour

So, as part of my final piece I want to include mood changes, linking back to how emotions and events can affect the way that dreams appear. The way I plan on doing this was to edit scenes using colour theory and showing the emotion through colour. I’ve linked above a page that talks through the positive and negative emotions that each colour represents which is being really helpful in giving me ideas for what kind of emotions I want to warp my art into portraying.

I’m still trying to decide what kind of moods I want to do, I know I want to do one that portrays Depression/Sadness, and I’m leaning towards one that does Anger. Might make this a set of four but I’m yet to settle on a fourth emotion.

[May 21st 2017]

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GRAPHIC DESIGN

I decided to try a more graphic take on my landscapes after playing around with simplicity when creating one of my film posters.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_FDEpgl3fkwZkZNdWZoaDZNSFU/view?usp=sharing

I decided to continue this idea of simple shapes and limited colour in order to portray a mood within a piece, much like the melancholy look of the film poster. I’ve been playing with mood for some time now, experimenting on how to create different feelings within a piece to mimic the way that dreams can change depending on a person’s emotions throughout the day. With the image above I decided on the pink/red colour pallet as I was using a Bonsai Tree as inspiration, so I felt like I should use the colours of Cherry Blossom to create the piece. Although these kind of colours don’t usually associate with peace and serenity, it gives me that feeling. I will further test with the colours of this piece, as well as creating others, to see how changing the colour pallets helps with the overall mood of the image.

For this piece I tried just using simple shapes the mimic a photograph in order to create a simple but effective image. I was using Richard O’Neill as inspiration, as he’s very good at using simple shapes to create detailed pieces. I’m not as much of a fan of this as I am with the monotone test, I feel like more realistic colours don’t set a mood as well as the other one did. I’m going to give this image another try, however this time I’m going to use a Monotone pallet much like the first one to create a sense of atmosphere within the piece to further my tests.

Whilst this piece doesn’t include any form of landscape, I was trying to create something that would make people think that it’s dream-like without mentioning the fact that it’s to do with dreams. The first idea that came to mind was that of a little girl with a balloon. It was that whimsical sense to it that comes with dreaming that made me use the idea and I decided to keep with the simple shapes theme that I’ve been using in all of my graphic work. I chose a colour pallet that reflects that of a galaxy, such as pinks, purples, and blues. Originally my idea was to create a “dream” in the shape, and include a sort of landscape such as a castle or something that little girls stereotypically dream about, however I realised that the shape behind her kind of resembled fairy wings, thus the outcome above. I would still like to see how the image would look with a landscape behind her in that shape, so to further test this image I will be trying that idea and create this little girl’s “dream-world”. There’s nothing else that I’d really change with this piece, I find it showing exactly what I wanted it to in simplicity and colour. I might add a shape in front of her though, to make it appear as if she’s splashing through water.

 I wanted to go back to the keyhole idea, as it’s a good point to use for testing. I originally wanted to create something similar to the other two keyholes I’ve done, however decided to take a different route and create a piece that’s quite relatable to nearly everyone. The feeling of falling. It seemed like a good theme to run with, especially as you fall asleep, so creating a different perspective of going through the key hole. I went through a few stages with this one, where I wasn’t really happy with how it was looking. I knew I wanted the positive and negative to make it look as if she’s passed through the keyhole, but I felt it was missing something. My solution, add another shape behind it mimicking the positive and negative space. I feel that even though it hasn’t added all that much to the piece in terms of visuals, it adds to the overall design sense, giving it a bit of spacial awareness.

I’m going to continue with my graphic tests, especially ones similar to the first one talked about, as it allows me to play around with the idea of colour theory and mood, but also lets me mess around with scale and simplicity.

[May 11th 2017]