Sea week and parade

Unfortunately, we missed main events due to our trip to London in the same week as the Sea week took place. Here are at least some pictures I took during a walk around village after our return in the end of October.

My animation

Here is the final animation...It cost quite much time and effort and I am not completely satisfied with it, but it's my first animation at all...Music used in it is a song, which I'll have always connected with my stay in Ireland. I listened to it so many times on my ways across the country and I am glad it works pretty well in combination with my drawings...

Drawings in sand

Just few pictures from making my project at beach in Tully...

Research part II.

After some unpleasant dificulties with technical equipment and some time-out I would like to finish what I started. In this post I would like to show the best animation videos I have seen, and which had the biggest impact on my own work. I was thinking of which kind of animation would be the best for me as a beginner in this field.

i) graffiti animation
In my opinion, graffiti can be also art - I don't mean random signings and devastating somebody's property, I mean truly artistic and elaborated pieces, which makes some place more beautiful. I admire inner thoughts and ingenuity of every artist, including graffiti. I like to explore cities and look up for interesting drawings on buildings. I also found a webpage on this topic, where everybody can appreciate street art daily. (street art utopia) There you can find my favourite artists like Banksy, Herakut, Eduardo Relero or the most crazy: Blu. His works are impressive, insane and beautiful all at once. Here is my beloved animation about big boom:

And this is similar one, but a little bit more crazy. But after all, graffiti animation like this is really demanding on time, place, money, not mentioning the ability to spray what you want...let's look what else can be done. (video from 6th Oct)

ii) light graffiti

The light (as the main theme of whole work) can be also used directly for making pictures. It is spectacular and not so demanding on equipment (as you can see in video there), but on the other hand, you are limited with colours and shapes possible to make out of light. It is very interesting method, but not suitable for my purposes. The video was seen on 6th of October.

ii) salt and sand art

Another way how to use light for animation - you illuminate box with translucent bottom from below and just play with sand or salt... Very good in this area are Ksenia Simonova and Arthur Kirillov, as you can see in videos here (watched also on 6th Oct):

 

I have also spotted (12th Oct) animation by salt, when you can literally draw with salt and make pictures on dark surface. It is also interesting and very beautiful, if you are handy enough. For example, Bashir Sultani is very skillful (gallery).

iv) During the research I was watching to many videos and there are definitely more ways to do animation - flipbook, drawing on whiteboard (very cool and educational RSA animate here), very large or truly tiny stop-motion animation using real objects as stage props, hand-drawn animations (I really love Ryan Woodwards's short film)....and many more - in this age of internet and camera in any mobile phone, it is very easy to make something...Last thing I would like to mention and which has affected me a lot, is the beginning of a movie I have seen many years ago, but this research made it come up to my mind again. It is like a fairy tale and I wanted my animation to look like this:

Research

Very important part of doing some artwork is research and findig inspiration. It's good to find out, how others approached to the topic, what is already done and what still can be done.

If thought is the mother
of all good action,
Then what is the child
of plain distraction?
Think! pay attention!
Let your mind change!
Make everyday things
complicated and strange!
There are fish to be fried,
but first to be caught:
So spread wide the nets
and get tangled in thought!

First of all, I have to form all my thoughts and ideas to find to right way. I would like to do some projection, maybe animation, so I have focused on this area and found some really good works, from what I could draw inspiration.


I) artworks from La Biennale di Venezia in autumn 2009, where I was with my friend. Photos are taken by myself in period of 29th - 31st October in Venezia and unfortunately I don't remember names of artists (all leaflets I have back at home). Every piece is although connected somehow with animation, playing with light and dark, and with the sea theme.

 

The storyteller

On Sep 20th we have a meeting with an Irish storyteller. Her name is Clare and she was absolutely amazing! This thin brown-hair young woman has a lot of dramatic potencial. During her performance she was using a scarf as a requisite - to ilustrate the story (for a woman mask hiding heroic man - aroung her head, for covering the baby and throwing him to the ocean (little Lug)...). She was telling us some of old irish legends like Birth of Lug and others about Cú Chulainn (Cullann's Hound). I still vividly remember some scenes from that stories, I have them in my mind as series of pictures, but I'm missing the time to put them on paper...For example, this Balor, who can kill just with opening his third eye...I picture him on ground surrounded with angry druids..his daugter Ethniu locked in the tower with twelve nuns, which druides Biróg puts to sleep one after another like a blowing out the candles...Sétanta's rage growing somewhere around stomach, deep inside like a volcano...and young Sétanta standing victoriously on killed hound and not knowing what he did...and more...I had to find out every of this names, because Irish names are very difficult to remember for me (if I even understand them)...during this research I've found nice picture of Sétanta by Stephen Reid (Cuchulain Slays the Hound of Culain from the book of Eleanor Hull: The boys Cuchulain, 1904)

Irish history and legends

First meeting with irish (local) history was during the walk to the Diamond hill on my fourth day in Letterfrack (and in Ireland in general). Our czech schoolmate told me, he was already on the walk and he found an old cemetery, so we go there together to take a look. This relatively small cemetery is hidden in the forest behind the school, circa twenty meters from road. We noticed that all the graves are dated in the beginning of twentieth century and all burried people were children...I counted about seventy graves and I wasn't feeling very well about that. Later, we asked our landlord about it and he was telling us the story about old industrial school, which was run in buildings our present day university. The orphans and abandoned children was forced to work there, in not very pleasant conditions a most of them died of tuberculosis. This terrible (troubled as speaks the official leaflet) history now seems to be over and people in Letterfrack are trying to do their best to "move forward in a positive manner".