Yet Another Gif

I'm considering it a trial. I wanted to experiement with the use of more than one bottle being polluted to demonstrate that this is a mass problem. I also had the ink polluting from the back to the front to demonstrate the growing issue, it's coming. I would change the angle of the camera if I shot in this setting again and not focus as much on the landscape. I would want the bottles to be bigger and convey a sense of importance. I also got a remote for my camera to create steadier pictures which worked great, but I have learned only works at certain angles.

I did shoot to create 2 more gifs too, some flower based and will continue working on these. Here is some unedited shots of the upcoming GIFs though.

Happy-ish

"Will I ever be happy? What does it mean to be happy? Is happy just a feeling or is it a state of being? Maybe it's just being able to get out of bed in the morning. I mean, sometimes I just have moments where I'm satisfied by some thing, or ... I see something that makes me feel wholesome. But, is that the same as happy? If we're always pursuing happiness, does that leave time for anything else? What's the difference between that and being addicted and chasing your next high? I mean, isn't that kind of messed up? We're always constantly pursuing knowing that we're never going to be able to hold onto it forever, but constantly trying to anyways."
- Happy-ish (2018)

People who spend their entire life trying to be happy, do they look back and see wasted time? I don't think life is about always being happy. Always being comfortable and relaxed. Who would want to be locked into a content state of mind? Sometimes the appropriate response is to suffer. If you were happy you were robbed, would you figure out how to put a lock on your door? No, you fucking wouldn't.

--
In editing is a series of short skits. More to be discovered soon. The project, content wise, is developing. Thankfully not stagnant.

Illustration Style Development

These are some style studies that I will be more formally inking once I have all (predetermined) 18 spot illustrations completed. In the mix are included final sketches of 5 of the spot illustrations.

Style Tests and Desert Sketch

Aquatic, Forest, Grassland, and Volcanic Sketches

Plant Sketches

Smaller Scale Comps

Reducing from the larger patterns to just detailed aspects of the piece.
Both away from the border and against it.

Reference names: Scientific names in botany for fruits

Grapefruit-  Citrus × paradisi

Orange-  Citrus × sinensis

Banana- Musa × paradisiaca

Kiwona- Cucumis metuliferus

Lemon- Citrus x limon

Formatting and Color Sketches

This week I focused on how I want the information to be formatted in the book. I began doing a rough sketch of how it might be presented in a small sketchbook and made a few quick ink paintings to portray color coding that I want to happen for a few of the more information-heavy sections.

Collecting Photos

Spent the past weekend collecting an assortment of photos, next will be narrowing down to the best of them and editing them, overlaying text, etc. I'm also in the process of editing my writing with help from Erin Dionne and narrowing it down to more concise narratives, which I should have some of for Thursday to look at, either directly on the blog or via a shared google doc again. Below are some of the photos I found more interesting out of the bunch that I took, as well as a contact sheet showing some of the others I'm still considering including, but need to be worked on more, or replaced with better photos to better get my point and mood across. Still debating if I want to do solely photos with text, or if I want to still include illustrations/hand drawn work, whether it be incorporated into the photos themselves or if the books had a mixed variety of photo and drawing across the pages. With illustrations or hand drawing, I feel it could lead into a nice series of images I could screenprint and hang at the show, with one image for each of the main themes of the book (if I do one book) or for each book (if I separate them into individual stories based on theme/mood). This is something I'll keep thinking on as I head into the next stages of putting drafts of the book(s) together.

Printing/Cutting

I'm working on cleaning up the vectorized cracks more, I've set up six so far to be cut out and place them around Montserrat. I'm also placing more cracks into tinker cad and I've placed an order for my first 3d print of the cracks and we'll see what problems arise if any. 

Vector cracks to vinyl cut

Flip Book

I've been experimenting with photographing in settings, creating flipbooks and some language to accompany my work and thought process. I also got some new things to play with this weekend and looking forward to trying them in my future work.

Through the creation of human-made materials such as plastic, and natural elements, I am demonstrating the pollution and suffocation of our environment. In my works, ink falls down into the landscape by myself, the hand of human and introduce the ink into an environment I created. The ink acts as it's own though, not fully controlled and takes over the space it fills. Through my gifs and flipbooks, the ink can be viewed as suffocating and taking over or can be reversed. This demonstrates how there are solutions to this issue. It's up to the viewer to view the problem as receding or growing.  This also gives the viewer the ability to control their situation. A way to symbolically choose if you like to view the work and create the problem or fix the problem in a non-lecturing style. All of my work came from recycled materials and was recycled correctly afterward and did not destroy any environments they were placed in.

Flipbook Scene Demo

Also thinking a little bit about how I want to display my work in the show, not at a conclusion yet, but this is a trip tix of the daisy using my favorite forms of the ink.