In Real Life
In this project "In Real Life" I chose to do three works to represent my idea. The idea is to bring a mix of real life and fantasy into one thing. With that i took 3 photographs of places i believed would fit well with the setting. Then created small characters to represent forest spirits. I wanted the forest spirits to look like they are part of the scenery around them. Creating mushrooms that are actually living. Or acorn creatures that use leaves and flowers to dress themselves. I even created fantastical bugs and other creates that inhabit the forest that live along side the forest sprites.
My Process
Inspiration
The Kodama shown in the Studio Ghibli film Princess Mononoke are little spirits that show as a sign the forest his healthy. I was inspired by their small forms, creating a character that would be able to blend into the forests surroundings.
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Kodama (木霊, 木魂 or 木魅) are spirits in Japanese folklore that live in trees. . A kodama's appearance is a tree, but if one attempts to cut the tree down it is said they will become cursed. The book that the painting by Toriyama Sekien is in, is a supernatural collection of ghosts, spirits, and monsters that are found in folklore and other forms of literature.
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Compare and Contrast
Compare
-Based in nature
-Use of thin and thick lines
-Inspired by the Japanese Kodama spirits of the Forest.
-The design of the Kodama from Studio Ghibli inspired the small size of the creatures.
Contrast
-compleatly different mediums. One is a photograph and digital editing while the other is ink and paper.
- Japanese stylized art while the other is a stylized rendition of my own art with no cultural ties.
-The overall character designs of the creatures are different.
-My piece and Toriyama's piece are different. His is black n white while mine is highly saturated colors.
-Based in nature
-Use of thin and thick lines
-Inspired by the Japanese Kodama spirits of the Forest.
-The design of the Kodama from Studio Ghibli inspired the small size of the creatures.
Contrast
-compleatly different mediums. One is a photograph and digital editing while the other is ink and paper.
- Japanese stylized art while the other is a stylized rendition of my own art with no cultural ties.
-The overall character designs of the creatures are different.
-My piece and Toriyama's piece are different. His is black n white while mine is highly saturated colors.
ACT Questions
- Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your work? I used the inspiration from the Studio Ghibli film and the folklore of the Kodama to drive my inspiration. I used the overalll suroundings of my photographs to drive the designs of the characters to place into the background.
- What is the overall approach(point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration? The over all approach i wanted to go for in this piece is staying true to my own personal style and preferred medium, while also branching off and learning about a culture I myself do not belong in. Using their folklore and stories to inspire a peice of my own yet also staying true to its original bases.
- What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration? That many different cultures and religions have different spirits that represent different things. Folklore and literature can be used to create peices of art that create a visual representation. These stories can be spread around for generations, and so can the artistic representaions.
- What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research? The central theme around my research was how can folklore and stories inspire artwork. And how these stories can be merged into real life.
- What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research? That there is many things that can go into creating the meaning and the execution's of ones work. That by simply mixing two vastly different ideas, especially one being a study, can show that the artwork was done with fun. The intention was there to what it was needed to be, but by also allowing creative freedom with the colors and character designs.