Location drawing was very refreshing to do as it focuses less on details and more on emotion, and the overall landscape. It allowed me to make bolder marks more quickly and be more thoughtful in what I captured in my drawing.
My narrative centred around family in public spaces. My first two drawings captured a mother and baby in a pram on the go, embodying both the connection of family and the essence of routine everyday life. The last was in the same location as the second but this time focused on the image of a mother and small child. Being in open spaces and being able to capture the beauty of familial love and affection in harmony with everyday life was a wholesome experience.
The shapes in my composition are a mixture of both round and harsh. The largest and most central curve outlines the bottom and frames the entire composition nicely, as all the lines within it are all small, parallel lines juxtaposing the large, rounded contours of the edge, creating a focus to the detail in the middle.
There are also varying sizes in my photographic, as the traffic light was made to be abnormally large as the central object in the piece, and the difference in line density both inside and outside of the curve balance out the composition well.
The textures, too, work in opposition to each other in order to create a visually stimulating piece. The intricate designs etched onto the outer cement of the arch beautifully contrast the rather harsh , brittle lines of its inside shadow. Also the bricks inside the composition are surrounded by plain, white and smooth walls, which all work to distinguish the different scenes from each other.
The absence of colour in this piece is effective in drawing attention to the many textures, shapes, lines and sizes which occur in this unusual and un organic visual piece. To achieve a good range in tone, to compensate for the lack of colour and still make it dimensional, I played around a lot with the contrast, brightness and opacity features in photoshop to give my photographic depth and luminosity.
Background
Middleground
Foreground
Before I was able to make this photographic, I had to create material to make it from. To do so, I spent a day following my normal routine with a camera, and focusing on the designs and patterns I saw around me. The first photograph, taken at the entrance to my local library, had a bold and beautiful arch which was immediately eye catching and would end up creating a wonderful base for multiple other textures and shapes I saw around me. To contrast the simplicity of the first arch, I captured the second photograph of a busy, cramped building filled with loads of small, close but varying vertical lines. The final picture was of an ordinary traffic light, but was structurally an interesting pick for a bold and prominent foreground, as it stood apart from the complex patterns behind it but adhered to the same theme of overlapped architectural and manmade design.
Using a mixture of both straight ahead and pose to pose techniques, this animation was created depicting the dynamic of a bouncing ball
This animation created with pose to pose techniques focused on a single character’s facial changes
The longest animation I created here not only used pose to pose techniques but required us to think about spacing and timing
To further the previous animation, I stylised the moving ball to a character of a small star which had various expressions and reactions to its fall!
Overall, this week's rotation was very informative and helpful in understanding some of the basics in animation.
Exploring both the technique and importance of pose to pose animation as well as straight ahead, opened up the possibilities of different animations and how to achieve different effects.
With pose to pose centring around specific movements, it allows for more selective and thoughtful animations created with structure in mind.
While the spontaneousness of straight ahead animation allows for a more dynamic, fun and fluid animation style ideal for transformations and flowing work.
The connections theme was quite broad and I ended up brainstorming many ideas including the internet, technology and how society connects us all. However, I ended up thinking more literally: what connects us to places? What connects a city? What connects routes and areas? Something important to London, not only technically but also culturally. The tube. The underground map connects all of London through its many routes and intricate systems and as something I use everyday, I thought it would be a perfect concept to focus on for this motion graphic.
To simplify such a big concept as travel, I created my motion graphic centering around the single route that I use to travel to university multiple times a week.
I found after effects to be a very difficult software to navigate for the first time but utilising key frames, trim paths and manipulating positions and scale, I was able to create a simple 15 second piece about the connections in travels and routes in my everyday life.
If I were to do this again with more time and experience, I would improve on many things, like adding different effects such as motion blur, play around with more shapes and twists and rotation, which is something I didn’t get round to fully mastering and including in my finished piece. However, I think I did a good job using trim paths, opacity, timing and text.
