It is sooooo hard for me to choose favorites with my art, especially since there is such diversity in my work. How do I compare a digital animation to a knit scarf? I'm going to pick a couple favorite pieces from different media, 'cuz I'm super indecisive.
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TIM BURTON. One of my greatest inspirations is the artist/animator/director Tim Burton. I love his dark aesthetic and unique way of portraying characters. Even though the subject matter is often dark, there's a morbid sense of humor to his work that I'm drawn to. I admire how he was able to take his distinctive vision to the public and become a successful artist and storyteller. His style is unlike any other, but he somehow made a niche for himself in the movie business. He is most well known for directing and animating films, but he also writes, and had an exhibition in the MoMA. The Nightmare Before Christmas was originally a poem he wrote, and is now published as a picture book with his original drawings. He also has another poetry book, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy. Tim Burton is one of the influences that inspired me to look into animation and movie making as a career. I grew up watching The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, and Corpse Bride, and thought it would be so great to make something like that.
The past week has been a rush of activity, and I think the rush is just getting started. Iv'e been delving deep into digital art, making animations on Photoshop and graphics on Illustrator. There's video to edit, and jewelry to make, and papers to write before midterms. I hope there's enough time to sort everything out.
There were some definite setbacks to my work, for example I set my hand on fire in the jewelry studio. Thankfully I wasn't really burned... And I lost a whole animation file. That was 10 seconds of video and 6+ hours of my life gone. For the most part, I'm really pleased with how my various projects are coming along. Here's an animation in progress:
This is from ten years ago. I remember watching this in my middle school computer lab. I don't surf the web enough to have a favorite link exactly, but this video has a special place in my brain. I admire the time and effort that must have gone into editing it. As someone who is awful at composing sound for videos, this remix really impressed me. I enjoy finding odd things on YouTube, but I don't need to share YouTube; pretty much everyone knows about it. My first thought for a favorite link was Pottermore, which is the official Harry Potter website. (Definitely check it out.) It's one of the only websites I browse somewhat regularly that isn't social media or school-related. For Harry Potter fans, there's always something amazing to discover on this website.
Of all the First Fridays I've been to, I haven't gone to the Phoenix Art Museum during any of them. Until this month. The Art museum is always open and free for First Fridays, but I usually stick to the vendor's area on Roosevelt. I think I've barely explored the above-water part of the iceberg that is First Fridays.
Anyway, this month I finally made my way over to the museum. It was really cool. The whole lobby and entrance hall were covered in black paper butterflies, which was kind of awesome. There was quite a different crowd in the museum than there was on Roosevelt Row. They were definitely less rowdy. I also checked out some smaller galleries, which is another thing I rarely do. There's this group I dubbed the Scary vegans that has a demonstration there every time. It seems like each month they get scarier. But this month was a definite step down from their December display, which featured protesters under plastic wrap like meat on a supermarket shelf. I am a whovian, a fan of the Doctor Who series, and recently this interest inspired me to go on a spur-of-the moment research escapade into the wonderful workings of the Gallifreyan language. In the show, Gallifreyan is a language used by Time Lords, and it is composed of beautiful interlocking circular glyphs. It looks so different from English- or any earth language, really- that I had to find out more. How is it read? How difficult is it to learn? Can I learn to write it?
Here's what I learned: Loren Sherman, a fan developed an alphabet system for writing English using Gallifreyan symbols, and it has become as good as canon among the whovian community. It was WAY easier than I thought it would be. This version of Gallifreyan is read counterclockwise, in a circle, starting at the bottom. Each word is contained in a circle, which can be arranged with others into circular sentences. Sentences spiral inwards. Gallifreyan fascinates me, because even though it expresses words, a certain amount of artistic freedom goes into writing it. It's like calligraphy. Alien calligraphy. A phrase can look either really cool, or really mediocre, depending on how you compose the letters and words. You can play with the scale of the characters, and often the same word can be written in a variety of ways. Since my little trip on the interwebs I've been practicing writing simple things, like my name, in the margins of my notebook. Maybe we'll see some Gallifreyan calligraphy art in the future. Hello, all! Alison here with a totally fascinating blog about random art thoughts. I've known pretty much my whole life that I wanted to do something creative when I grew up. Drawing has been my number-one hobby ever since I could hold a crayon, though a always preferred markers to crayons... But you probably don't care about that. When I was little, adults would always ask me, "do you want to be an artist when you grow up?" and I guess I would nod. In middle school I wanted to be a comic book artist. In High school I thought about costume design or graphic design. Now, in college, I'm looking towards animation or something in the entertainment industry. I could never fully wrap my head around a future where I wasn't in some arty job. There wasn't really a defining moment where I realized art was what I wanted to do with my life, but sometime in my senior year of high school I began to see it as a real possibility. I realized how many niches artists could fit into, and the range of opportunities available to me.
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AuthorHello. I'm Alison. I'm not really a blogger, but I have this blog now. I'm an art student at ASU, born and raised in the searing Arizona heat. I Like fandom and spooky stuff. Plz explore my meager site. Archives
May 2020
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