Illustration
Exhibition Text :
This piece, "Working rotations of Sun and Moon," crafts the style of angels used throughout the Proto -Renaissance period like Giotto and uses that to create a story of how working gods use flying angels to create them with problems needed for their world. Using markers and ink pens, a dynamic scene is played out showing how those angels help with the rising of the sun and moon throughout our daily lives.
: Artist Inspiration :
Scenes from the Life of Christ - 3. Presentation at the Temple (detail) 1304 -06 - Giotto Di Bondone
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My inspiration divides form the artist Giotto Di Bondone. Giotto mostly did various works based on the life of Christ, painting out the various scenes of what deemed to be his life. My inspiration from him doesn't revolve around his religious standing, however. Although angels are a big part of Christian culture, I really wanted to use angels as a beneficial supporter as they look to be throughout his work. With most of his work, angels would revolve around the sky of the present situation looking to show their support or grace to the current situation, I wanted to formulate that into my work, but my work doesn't derive from the religion of the artist. My theme derives from the separation of real to reality, although angels are said to be real for some, there is no real proof of their inhabitance, although I would believe angels have some sort of presence through the world.
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Scenes from the Life of Christ - 4. Flight into Egypt (detail) 1304-06 - Giotto Di Bondone
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No. 35 Scenes from the Life of Christ - 20. Lamentation 1304-06
(detail) - Giotto Di Bondone |
Giotto's form of angels is not exactly what some would believe are biblically accurate to those seen online in days now. Still, I would like to use the human-like forms of these angels and capture how they fly around a current situation. Giotto's backgrounds are very different as well, as it seems various forms of blue show up in different hues with a lot of brighter blue in the sky. A bright color usually means that a happy situation is going on, this is what I would like to use, except I do not plan for an entire background after all. As I will be using pencils and ink for the most of the work's descriptive parts, I want to make sure I get the angels into a prominent position around the certain area I am trying to create. I also want to include the clothing aspects into my work as well, it seems these angels don't have fletched out full bodies, but I would believe angels change their forms to whatever they appreciate. Giotto's work was a big inspiration towards my idea. |
: Planning Phase :
My first step through planning is character building, in which was very similar to a project I had done before featuring two sisters. This time it was three different angels created by the sun and moon itself when figuring out it was very difficult to control their rise and set times through various days. These three angels were crafted to guide them throughout every day, and they follow the same schedule as well. Meaning that these three don't often meet up, only some say their spotted together through a solar eclipse, but who would actually be able to see them? Each angel is set with a different part of the day, one gets daytime, another gets the afternoon/noon-itself, and the last one gets night. They all were also created with a personality similar to the sort of time of day. Each angel spends quite a lot of time with their respective part of day, except for the one at noon because both the sun and the moon are growing or decreasing at that moment. Anyhow, each and every angel brings their own powers into helping the sun and moon grow into their right place at the right time, though not connected presently, their connected spiritually.
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Next was less on character building, but more on things I would do for the actual piece. The sun and moon would obviously feature themselves onto this piece and there's a reason why. Earlier I stated that the angels power keeps the sun and moon in their rightful place, but since the sun and moon are so powerful, they also help capture their power, so the moon doesn't overtake the sun entirely, which was a problem before. That would be shown through the burning sun and the cracking moon. In the piece, the angels will show their powers working through a designated color, one bright as the sun, one connected with both colors, and one a darker purple. Though the powers are seen on the piece itself, they are not actually visible to the regular human eye, as it would be too much to handle, so it is disguised as our usual day and night skies. There were also various other ideas such as clouds in the sky, in which would be added as clouds feature a very important piece into our bright sky. (More will be discussed about the Ink Pens in the experimentation). |
Lastly, though shorter, I wanted to take a page to outline where I exactly wanted all of these things to go, as each angel would take a respective place on one of the three illustration boards, while around them would either be a respective sun or moon, otherwise clouds or etc. I played out how I wanted each of the girls to go, and how the sun and moon would follow. As two of the angels would be more bottom-placed, and one would be way higher, almost showing how important some roles are to another. Though the sketch is very slim and definitely not fully detailed, it helped throughout thinking where I wanted things to go on the piece and it was a great idea instead of rusting into the project without thinking. Next was to move on into the creation of the actual pieces and my process in that. |
: Process :
After my layout was finished, I would work on the sunlight angels' section first, her status Is on the lower-left of the piece and she has a flowing hairstyle that goes through the end. I fully did all of this in pencil as I wanted to erase any mistakes quickly and eventually, I had a full out finished part of the angel herself showing the bright appearance of the sun. Though not all is fully shown, as this is a close-up. Like Giotto's angels, they are flying throughout the sky with brightness around them.
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Something more fletched out after my base sketch was to use the designated ink pen of my choice and basically "spice" things up through the piece, this added layers to the clouds and got more details out of the sun and the angel as it pointed out more of their features and in a lighter setting because of the sun's brightness. Although this looked nice, it definitely wasn't finished because there was so much empty space! That leapt into what I had to do with the clouds.
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Each cloud had an inside that was swerved and curved into various shaped that showed just how dynamic these clouds can be. Most of this part of the process was kept into making the clouds and background seem way more together and actually present in the piece in a way that they weren't before. Although it is not fully shown, her designated yellow color would be added much later as shockwaves glance throughout the piece connecting to what would be the middle, the left-side was finished.
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Next was the positioning of the noon angel, she is put through a higher placement than the other two would be similarly to my outline. The lines around her transform from both sides of the piece and go all around her in a way that shows a shift to the original lines starting from the left or right side. Her arms are put out between each side as she takes control of both sides during the shift between times.
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Though not a lot changes through the background the clouds connect between the sunlight side carrying onto this side to further connect each piece together. The clouds are similarly outlined to the ones from the previous side, as they have the same curved motions till the end of each cloud. As this follows what various sketchers do in making something look finished without it needing a full color using their materials.
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The cracks from the future side will approach the angel, but everything shifts through her powers that expel the color of a reddish pink which initiates the shift between both powers of the daytime and nighttime. This is the in-effect motion that shifts the day from night and vice-versa.
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Unlike the other two, many things have already been placed within the process of this one. The position of the nighttime angel is on a lower-right contrasting the daytime one. As she reaches her hand in the direction of the cracking moon in which she takes control in her dark waves that are eventually spawning. The line from the past moves forward from here. Lines are darker here as the nighttime is a way darker experience than the light.
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Here is a closer look into the eventual lining and color through the night goddess, her dress is filled with curves from her own power and starts shimmering through the night sky. Still, everything flows through her as similar to Giotto's works of angels floating through the air. She has less expression than the other two as her dark exterior overcrowds her, leading to the final product.
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This is the final product of the side to the right, as everything comes to a close, the moon shatters the sky in darkness, but is controlled by the moon angel in which her power swirls all around her figure and the moon itself. The moon and its cracking would also inhabit the middle are, so this was actually made before finalizing the middle piece of the illustration boards.
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: Experimentation :
One thing I had done before fully inking the piece was that I tested out all the different ink pens I had around, each pen had its own different variety and different form of line. One had a way bigger line for perhaps background use, while others had thin lines which worked a lot better when doing the line art of several different works, and some of them didn't work that well... I stuck with 1.0 and 0.5 of a set I had which provided for some pretty solid line work around each angel and its selected background. Colors weren't really an "experiment" because I had known which one was going to be used, but a variety of purples are used on the right-side of my piece. |
These two more revolve around the designs' of the different angels, around my sketchbook a variety of different designs were depicted all with a similar want, but these weren't used in the final sketch page. The reason why was either because they looked too sloppy, or I felt they didn't fit the exact design I wanted. For example, the photo on the left would fit better if the angel was for clouds, while the right is very similar to the finished character for the sun angel. Each design speaks towards it's certain area and background/ |
: Critique :
Similarities
- My work and Giotto's include angels in some way: Although their forms are different our works connect within each the presence of angel's and their locations upon a situation, they all revolve around a certain area, and our forms of what creates an angel are very similar.
- Our Work is formed from an idea: As Giotto's works revolve around his ideas of what is describes through the scenes of the Life of Christ, my work revolves around my own idea of how the sky works within each other. We take an idea and roll with the possibilities of how it went through our thoughts based on our own knowledge.
- The angels aren't the Main picture: Although their presence is very shown throughout our works, the angel's in both our pieces do not overshadow the situation that is being described through the piece. The various other situations draw in other attention, and everything gets it's of viewpoint.
- Religious Standing: This is not to say we have different forms of religion, but more in how Giotto's literally making a piece about the Christ they look up to, while mine is about angel's helping out special lifeforms. I gave the sun and moon life that isn't depicted through Giotto's work.
- Our Forms of Clouds: Though not entirely different, my clouds have layers that are more prominent than the works of Giotto, by the end of his angels they are almost silent to the eyes, while in my piece they are more focused.
- Complete form of Angels: Behind the angels in Giotto's work it shows some kind of sun behind their heads, my angels do not have this feature within their design.
: Reflection :
This was finally one of the first pieces I actually felt like I did something I wanted to, and that was mostly because I had the ability to. I was able to fully create my own characters without limiting them to certain restrictions, I had ultimate freedom into my decisions, and I think that left me with a pretty good piece. Using the past form of illustration because I enjoyed it so much last time was an excellent idea, and I love how each piece leads into each other in a respective way that was all planned out. I almost love everything that came out of this project. That "almost" is pretty key because I actually made a mistake during the project. When using the purple color my purple was running out, so I had to use some completely other purple, I just think it made it look kind of messy. Except I almost like that about the piece, there's so much to look at and draw you in, I doubt you can just take a full look and be done with it. I appreciate the way this turned out and the creative freedom I was granted into making it keeping with the classic formula of an art IB project, I cannot wait for the next projects upcoming.
Now let's talk connection to inspiration, although I can see the inspiration, I wish I did a bit more connecting to Giotto's backgrounds and form of angels compared to my classic style, but I do not believe the connection isn't there, it just isn't as easy to spot. I'm not going to talk about time management because I actually had this project done for a bit, I'm doing the website a bit later, so I am completely proud of my time management skills. I was able to work with an idea I had created from the start of summer break and create a dynamic piece that connects not only to my inspiration but to myself in general as I love all the ideas in this piece entirely. This project was really enjoyable, and I believe my own skills encouraged that thought more. I am excited for whats coming next in store (as I'm already working on it at the moment).
Now let's talk connection to inspiration, although I can see the inspiration, I wish I did a bit more connecting to Giotto's backgrounds and form of angels compared to my classic style, but I do not believe the connection isn't there, it just isn't as easy to spot. I'm not going to talk about time management because I actually had this project done for a bit, I'm doing the website a bit later, so I am completely proud of my time management skills. I was able to work with an idea I had created from the start of summer break and create a dynamic piece that connects not only to my inspiration but to myself in general as I love all the ideas in this piece entirely. This project was really enjoyable, and I believe my own skills encouraged that thought more. I am excited for whats coming next in store (as I'm already working on it at the moment).
: Connecting to the ACT :
- Clearly explain and describe how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork?
In an easy way to say this, cause of the inferences of Giotto's work throughout his Life of Christ series, I was able to take inspiration from angels from past art and incorporate them into my own work.
2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Giotto may take my own interpretation of angels completely different than his and that's fine because we don't agree on the same type of ideals, but I do believe angels can take any for they want to perceive.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
While it is easy to get confused by another form of culture, it is not to believe that everyone's different perspective of that is wrong, everyone thinks differently, and it changes our perspectives.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central theme revolved around the perception to angels in another's culture. I never actually looked into it before, but Giotto takes a renaissance style into how angels were how he thought were depicted.
5. What kind of inferences ( conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning ) did you make while reading your research?
I realize that the viewpoint of certain things changes from the various different things our eyes allow us to believe, although some may believe something is one way, anther might think differently.
: Citations in MLA Format :
“Giotto.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giotto-di-Bondone.
“Giotto Di Bondone.” Giotto Di Bondone - The Complete Works, https://www.giottodibondone.org/.
“Giotto Di Bondone.” Giotto Di Bondone - The Complete Works, https://www.giottodibondone.org/.