Animating Elmer's Animation Studio Practice: OUAN603 - Extended Practice: A Change of Character

OUAN603 - Extended Practice:

A Change of Character

After much debate and thought about Impressionism, along with some well-needed research, I discovered that my first choice of mascot for the Impressionist movement - Van Gogh - was actually considered post-impressionism and therefore would not be a completely suitable candidate for the animated short. I was so stuck on using him and him alone for the piece that I was disheartened to discuss in my tutorial that I should use more characters and have them interact with each other.

I thought about which Impressionist artists had the most recognisable and appealing faces (not meaning attractive or desirable, but in a sense of who looks more fun to draw and oozes character). I thought about Degas' angular, pretty face but felt he was maybe too "prince Charming-ish" to draw. I felt more attraction towards Pissaro's fluffy beard, as this would add some well-needed texture to the animation. However, I decided to go for a little bit of both popularity and appearance, and went with Paul Cezanne, an Impressionist favourite of mine (I have many memeories of his work from High School and know very well that he is taught about in GCSE level Art class).

However, I spoke to Mike regarding some of the artists I had in mind for all three movements and he suggested that rather than focusing on appearance and which were more aesthetically memorable, try researching into their stories and histories a little bit and use artists that have a humorous background as this will be more appealing.

We also spoke about maybe trying to introduce a female protagonist into the mix, and decided on an artist named Hannah Höch who was a part of the Dadaist movement and focused very much on "found art". After seeing her photographs, she actually has a very interesting and angular face and hairstyle, which would be brilliantly fun to draw and recreate as a puppet! DuChamp will be thrown in as a mention, but nothing too forceful on the audience as I would like to reinforce the idea that a female changed the art world massively and it's not all about one gender.

Monet, for the Impressionist movement was actually severely blind due to cataracts. This could be a great opportunity for some light humour as he could bump into things whilst narrating and struggle to interact with things. Van Gogh was known for alcoholism and substance abuse - an avid drinker and a user of kerosene, turpentine, and absinthe. These rather hallucinatory substances would make for a great Van Gogh addition to the Impressionist animation - fumbling around, seeing real auras floating about from his "Starry Night" painting. A comical message to the audience about not doing drugs would also be a great add-in! I also decided to use Berthe Morisot in my Impressionist cohort as she's a strong female artist who was also highly influenced and friends with Manet, another painter of the era.

The issue I discovered that was so prominent with most of my artists I had researched was that many overlapped with the genres they were categorsied in. DuChamp wasn't strictly Dada and fell into work much earlier. Van Gogh was also part of post-impressionism, and a couple of others I looked at worked over many genres. I thought that in order to be stricter and really pull in my ideas, I would go for artists that fit the criteria, even if they spanned over a few genres. However, if an artists fell into a few, I would make sure their "main movement" was one of three that I would be working on, so as to be as accurate as possible.

Impressionists: