bullet hole

the semester is coming to an end and printmaking is done (until i take it again during the summer) and i made one last print tonight for kicks and giggles.

ashley had a couple little boards that were covered with a cheap canvas  and i thought that one of them would make for a nice collagraph... so i straight up stole one... after nicely asking permission.

an artist generally doesn't give away his or her trade secrets but i am not an artist... so... i took the cap from my bottle of gesso, centered it on the board, painted gesso around it, played plants vs. zombies while waiting for it to dry, inked it up with a raspberry color, smeared a black-ink-cover-cheese-clothe around the center, wiped it clean, and pulled the print. tah dah.

i find it kind of interesting that my best print of the semester (in my opinion) won't actually be used for a grade since i had already turned my portfolio in... i just did it for the fun of doing it... i guess i am an artist after all. please ignore the previous paragraph.

walking woodcut... for the dogs

here is part two of my two part woodcut animation prints (that is just as hard to type as it is to say). i decided to go with a walking dog. why? i've never animated a dog before.... doing it with a piece of wood seems like the logical choice.

i have come to the conclusion that this new media could make for some really interesting projects and i plan to explore combining printmaking and animation more in the future... probably this summer since i signed up for a printmaking summer course. woodblocks are fairly easy to do and have a very distinguishable style and texture. it could be interesting to see what other styles of printmaking could create in terms of animation.

i am aware that i could most likely recreated everything with computer and save myself a ton of time... but gosh darn it. there's just something about seeing an animation that's created from a piece of wood that is much more satisfying.

here is the final animation of the dog walk cycle:



www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG2L3Vr12bY

walking woodcut

one of my final projects for my printmaking class is to make a two different prints with the same theme, each with an edition of four (eight total). i decided to make my theme 'animation' since that is my focus in school and i thought it would be interesting to try and combine printmaking with my major.

it all started with a piece of wood. i then created a grid on the block and drew a human walk cycle. all the space on the print that is white was carved away and i pulled four prints using the green color. after cleaning the block, i carved away the parts of the block where you see green showing up on the print and pulled four prints using the very dark purple (which just shows up as black on the computer screen).

i let the print dry for a while then captured it digitally, created cropped layers in photoshop, and then compiled everything in after effects. here is the final result:

collagraph

my last project in printmaking was a collagraph. i wasn't a big fan of the process at first, but i've grown to like the odd details you can get from very few light marks. for the first print, i started with a thin piece of particle board a painted the background pattern with gesso (canvas primer and glue substance). i then glued on an m&m wrapper. i finished the plate by cover the wrapper with gesso and tamping my brush on large gobs of the stuff to create the pouring effect. inking the plate takes quite a bit of time. the goal is to spread ink across the surface and get it into the recessed surfaces and then wiping away the ink from the raised surfaces. it's time consuming. but it looks nice when it's all over with.

the assignment was to explore the theme of memory. the majority of my class explored specific memories about vacations, family, etc. i wanted to be a little less obvious with mine. my thoughts were about how memories dissolve like sugar in water. it's there... but rather diluted.

my second print is a monoprint AKA one of a kind print. i need to make six of them in total, so stay tuned for that. my first monotype was complete experimentation. i took my plate out into campus commons and attached a bunch of grass with gesso. there wasn't really a great way of achieving this that didn't rely heavily on the use of my hands. i made quite the mess. after allowing my plate to dry, i inked the plate similar to my collagraph, but then i used a brayer to put different colored ink onto the raised surfaces.

i wasn't completely satisfied with the finished project, mainly because it didn't work exactly how i thought it would... but how often does that happen?

run piggy run

i taught myself how use maya, specifically, how to rig characters in maya today. i modeled my pig character that i'm working on for a class assignment in modo and then brought it over to maya for rigging. the process of rigging and animating isn't so terribly hard... but maya really needs to work on their interface design. it's miserable being a new user. i understand how powerful the software is and how many functions are available... but holy crap. just take a look at the screen shot i took of maya. you're not even given a button label when you hover over anything. it's a complete guess. i'm sure with time i'll become familiar with everything and navigating the endless drop-down menus and tab bars will become second nature. but until then, i will continue to be hit and miss.

but i figured things out enough where i could start animating a running pig. considering that i am a maya/character-rigging virgin, i did pretty well. my pig still needs to get smoothed out, shaded, and put in an environment... but i shall leave that for another day.

block of wood

i made a good decision this semester by adding polar opposite art classes. most of my classes, since i am a multimedia design major, involve staring at a computer for long periods. i generally forget to blink. to counter balance this, i am also taking printmaking which, up to this point, has generally consisted mostly of woodblock prints. it really is a great combination. manually carving a plank of wood is very relaxing and a nice change of pace. there are no key frames to concern myself with. their isn't render times to manage... although... pulling prints and editions can get lengthy... but at least i am doing something as opposed to just staring at a computer monitor.

i really enjoy the look and texture of the prints i have made, especially the one i attached to this post. the digital version does it no justice. this printmaking process has given me some good ideas for animations as well. look for that in the future.

3d job application

i am applying for an internship with an established marketing company in minneapolis and part of the process was to create a blog post that discussed how i thought in social circles (company motto). my original concept that i began working on before spring break was a video about brain tweets. i had a bunch of footage shot, but for some reason i decided not to upload it to my computer before i left for spain.... and for some stupid reason i left my camera bag on the plane in madrid. needless to say, i never saw it again. so i got back from spain (which was awesome!) with no camera, no great blog idea, and a week and a half before the deadline.

after a couple days of going from new idea to new idea, i somehow landed on the thought of doing an anaglyiph 3d animation (the blue/red kind). i'm not sure why. i have never done anything like it before... but i guess what better time to go for the gusto than with a job application?