Hello everyone! This is the promised post regarding the thematic aspects behind the work
Connection to the assignment:
I was quite excited for this assignment, as digital art is something I rarely do anymore. I started doing art in digital--on an ancient iPad that barely ran procreate with more than 4 layers (14 years old and still kicking!). Thanks, covid, for accidentally,
I wanted to work with the themes of Kitsch and "Hyperreal"
Here is the definition of Kitsch as I understand it: Excessively sentimental, in a way that's both too much and endearing.
This use is a bit more apparent in the work. It's a bit of a love letter to my previous forms of art. I also used to love fantasy as a kid, so I wanted to work with that. The work itself is a bit tacky--I did what I wanted to with it, with not too much of a concern for how it would look. Showing the "childhood whimsy and want" of it.
For the connection to the hyperreal, I have a bit more to cover first on my research journey.
Photobashing in Industry:
Like I mentioned earlier, I used to want to do digital art. My main reason for this was animation. I wanted a particular niche, though---background painting. Background painters are the ones who determine the colour scheme, design, details, feel, etc of a background for an animation. It's different from "Background design" as they are the ones who figure out the perspective and logistical aspects of the work (which was still a huge interest!).
Here, I was introduced to the term "photobashing." This is more commonly used in video game background art--since the CGI rigging is realistic, and a cartoony background on a tight deadline may not fit the aesthetic--but also in some digital art platforms. Photobashing means combining multiple images into a work (especially in areas with high amounts of details) to create a stronger sense of realism. It can include adding textures, far away background details, and sometimes encompasses image tracing. It's a way to take a "shortcut."
It's somewhat of a controversial technique, but I won't fully get into that. Mostly because it's seen as "cheating" in the art world. It's commonly used in the professional landscape.
So, I wanted to do something similar with my work in regard to photobashing, since that's what this assignment basically is.
"Paleoart"
To take a bit of a turn, you may not have heard of the term "Paleoart." But I promise you have seen it before. Paleoart is essentially, drawing dinosaurs for scientists. Which is potentially the coolest job ever. A paleoartist is responsible for taking all known knowledge of a creature (habitat, location, genus, etc) and making a visual work as close to the real thing as possible.
For example, all artworks of the quetzalcoatlus are complete speculation--they don't even have a skull for that species, they only guessed based on others in the genus.
So, going back to the idea of "hyperreal." Essentially, all paleoart is 'hyperreal,' turning something that cannot exist and making it into something tangible, based on our understanding and photographs of other things.
Goals:
Relating this to my work, I wanted to make a bunch of "real" animals into fantasy animals that don't exist--dragons. I worked with an arabian sand boa, a fancy pigeon, a blue heron and a great eared night jar. All of which look like dragons already, but I wanted to take this a step further.
I used a lot of reference images for the design--around 2-3 each, so 6-12.. From there, I edited, restititched and changed the refrences to fit my goal for the art aspect. Then, started painting.
Once I had finished the painting, I wanted to tie it into the theme of Kitsch further. You know how when you're a kid and very bored, you start imagining creatures in your enviroment? That. I left the background images relatively untouched, and altered the creatures into them.
And there you have it! The final project. Great. I'm going to take a long nap and get studying for my exam now.
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