Method of Investigation (Task 4): Shadow proposal

      Aim

      Shadow has always been a support  to an art piece. So my aim is can shadow be an art of its own.

      Background and Significance

Before the period of Renaissance, paintings hardly showed the concept of three-dimension give people a one flat plane feeling with several squeezed layers. There was no depth. Looking back, some of us would probably hardly be convinced that people before did not have the idea of the "space". They saw what was in front of their eyes, they painted it down simply being faithful to their eyes. The idea of three-dimensional space itself has been gradually evolved for thousands of years, there was no solid feeling therefore people didn't have a great emphasis on the light and shadow which are two essential elements forming gradation, creating the "space"

Emotion in a painting is achieved from the sensitive use of light and shadow in the subject. Without its effects paintings often look flat and bland yet it is something that many artists find quite daunting. The Impressionists pioneered the use of light and shadow in painting as they attempted to capture light as seen from the human eye. Camille Pissarro and Leonardo Da Vinci were two of the famous artist involved in the Impressionist movement.

  

      Shadow play or shadow puppetry

     an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment which uses flat articulated figures (shadow puppets) to create cut-out figures which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim.

     The cut-out shapes of the puppets sometimes include translucent color or other types of detailing. Various effects can be achieved by moving both the puppets and the light source. A talented puppeteer can make the figures appear to walk, dance, fight, nod and laugh.

      Shadowgraphy or ombromanie

    art of performing a story or show using images made by hand shadows. It can be called "cinema in silhouette". Performers are titled as a shadowgraphist or shadowgrapher.

     The art has declined since the late 19th century when electricity became available to homes because light bulbs and electric lamps do not give off good shadows and because cinema and television were becoming a new form of entertainment. Shadows are greatly defined by candlelight; therefore hand shadows were common in earlier centuries.

      Chiaroscuro

      use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures. Similar effects in cinema and photography also are called chiaroscuro.

     Further related specialized uses of the term include chiaroscuro woodcut, for coloured woodcuts printed with different blocks, each using a different coloured ink; and chiaroscuro drawing for drawings on coloured paper with drawing in a dark medium and white highlighting.

      Experimental Design and Method

              Before I start my experiment, I need to choose an object to support the shadows. The object need to have angle and easily drawn. For the object I made my own object which is a cube. I used barbeque stick to make it and stick it together with glue.

              For my first experiment, I used a flash light and face it at the cube to show the shadow of the cube. However the experiment was a fail because it is like a normal image which concentrate on the cube not the shadow. It has no response to my aim which was can shadow be an art of its own

.

              For my second experiment, I placed the cube on a paper. Then, from a certain perspective  angle I draw a continuous image of the cube to make it as of it the image on the paper came to life with the help of the shadow. From what I can see, the image that I draw on the paper was like a shadow. So I get the concept of shadow came to life.

Figure 1

     The unique part of this experiment was, it can only be seen in one perspective. For what I can say, this experiment was a success.

Critical Thinking (Task 1: Think Hard)

Task:

Create a set of alphabets on an A2 size piece of paper or card without using any mark making.

We were  ask to choose a word that can represent ourselves. The word that I choose was "SPONTANEOUS". From what I understand, spontaneous is doing things without thinking hard. I use a clean cut style of cutting because it can really show what spontaneous represent. Spontaneous is something/someone  that can adopt any type of environment easily. Such as a chameleon that can spontaneously change its colour accordingly to the environment around it. For the background, I randomly stick coloured paper that has been cut to show of the spontaneous concept.

Digital Design (Task 4)

OBJECTIVE:

      i.        1) We show the texture of the infertility soil after the deforestation on projector.

    ii.       2) We will use papers, newspaper or material that be made using tree to show the wastage of paper that human use and this lead to the active deforestation.

   iii.       3)Using made tree bark to show the deforestation that still happen nowadays and still happen in future if there no prevention and the imbalance of the world.

AIM: This project is to create awareness and let people think about the impact of deforestation    toward the world and preserving it for the next generation.

CONCEPT: Our concept is to show the impact/effect of the deforestation that happen now and toward the future and also happen if this kind of thing cannot be stopped. Our concept also is to let think or reflect about they done for the skyscraper building and ignoring the land they stand now.

MATERIALS: Newspapers, 2 rolls of fishing rope, recycle/unused papers, a bunch of chopsticks, a bunch of toothpicks, 1 bottle of white paint, 2 bottles of glue and wood filler, tree branch, tree age ring texture and tree bark texture.

THE DISADVANTAGES OF DEFORESTATION:

      i.     1) One of the disadvantages of the deforestation is global warming phenomena that lead towards of the increase in sea level and climate change this is because of the increasing temperature from the co2 emission.

    ii.      2) Deforestation also lead to the decrease of oxygen level and the increasing of carbon dioxide because the there are no tree to filter the carbon dioxide and changing it into oxygen.

   iii.    3) Deforestation also lead to the destruction of the wildlife habitat and this will lead to the extinctions, this will causing havoc in the biological food chain and the imbalance of the ecosystem.

   iv.       4) Deforestation also the cause of the soil erosion, without the tree, the soil will lose the fertility because the lack of nutrient and this cause of the desertification.

    v.      5)  Deforestation also causing the flood or landslides, because on the heavy rain there no barrier between the rain and the soil because tree is the barrier between rain and land and slowing the rain flow.

   vi.        Deforestation also the major cause of the greenhouse effect. It’s happen because of the emission of the co2 and it trapped the radiation from the sun and increasing the temperature and depletion of the ozone layer.

RATIONAL: We use the white paint for the tree bark because it is the base paint for the concrete building and this show that the modern things nowadays come from a single tree. We also put the tree stump on the wall to show the people now look up for the modernist for example skyscrapers and forgetting the land they stand on and everything that come from the land.

Digital Design ( Task 2 : Movie Sequence)

Task:
We were ask to make a movie sequence by creating the characters and the plot of the previous poster task using software such as Photoshop or Illustrator. The poster that I've made was Sherlock Holmes : A Game of Shadows. The story is about solving crimes, solving mysteries  and puzzles.

For this task, I've took the concept of "A Game" from the title for the creation of character which my character look more like the a board game character (Monopoly).

In board games, there will also be traps so I set some traps to show that there are some difficulties in solving the case in the story.
For the background, I paint the paper in brown colour to make the paper look like the era of Sherlock Holmes and  I make it looks like a puzzle to show what the gender of the story.

Design Studio - Conceptualization ( Task 3 : Design Process Using Visualization Methods)

We are ask to choose an object and we must use it to make a form. For this task I chose BBQ stick.The form that I made was:

Figure 1: Object

Figure 2: Form

The hard part about making this form was sticking it together because sometimes the glue doesn't stick and another thing is balancing each stick( length, height, gap between).

In order to challenge myself, I improvise the form and giving it a function :

Figure 3: Form with function

In my apartment, most of the things are really messy and very untidy. In order to solve this problem, I've create a place to keep them by using the form and make it into another with the function of keeping things.