Manchester Art Gallery Visit - 'Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing'

Today I went to see the Manchester exhibition 'Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing'. The exhibition is marking 500 years since the death of Leonardo da Vinci and there are twelve simultaneous exhibitions occurring across the UK showing some of his most influential drawings. I found this experience breath taking as it my first time to see real Da Vinci work with my own eyes. Looking at something through a computer screen and looking at the same thing in real life, can really change your perspective of it and I found it strange to think that I was stood cm's away from drawings that Leonardo da Vinci had drawn himself.

Here are some examples of his work:

I really like the style of Da Vinci's writing and it was particularly interesting to learn that he wrote his sentences 'from right to left, with every letter reversed' because he was left handed and found it easier to 'pull the pen across the paper rather than against the paper'. In order to read his notes, you have to use a mirror.

Here Leonardo da Vinci drew 'Studies of Men in Action', the actual size of these drawings shocked me as they are alot smaller than I had originally expected and yet he managed to maintain beautiful detail in these small observational drawings.

Its great how these drawings show that he was much more than just an artist, Da Vinci was a skilled scientist, looking at the anatomy of the shoulder which is shown above.

Overall I had an amazing experience which will remain with me forever. Leonardo da Vinci is truly inspiring and his work will no doubt continue to inspire many others in the years to come.

Study Task 4 - Creative Making - Diorama Scene

Here are some photographs of my Diorama Scene:

My inspiration for this scene came from my 'Day 11 - Inktober' drawing!

Paper Cut Out Creation - Castle with Knights:

For this study task we had to create something using paper and only paper. Once again I found my inspiration in my Inktober drawing for 'Day 13' which was based around the word 'Guarded' as you will be able to see in my previous posts. I really enjoyed this task and the learning that came with it, as I found that I was able to use one sheet of paper to create the main structure of the castle, without actually separating the piece of paper. Here are my results:

This photograph is great in showing how each element of the main structure of the castle is taken from the same white piece of A5 paper.

I found it really interesting to photograph my creation using different angles of lighting as it worked very well to help produce some beautiful shadows!

Manchester Animation Festival 2018

Today I attended the Manchester Animation Festival for the first time, at the Home cinema in Manchester. The screenings that I watched were called 'Short Films 2', 'Student Films 2' and 'Tito and the Birds'. I finally attended a talk called '40 Years of Barry Purves' who is a professional Stop Motion animator, celebrating 40 years of being an animator.

I really enjoyed watching the different films and seeing some of the work of other Animation Students. I think that I particularly enjoyed 'Tito and the Birds' as it surpassed my expectations and it had a deep meaningful lesson, that we should never let our fears take control of our lives, however we shouldn't aim to get rid of them completely as our fears help us to survive and give us key instincts that we may sometimes take for granted.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the Festival and I can't wait until the next one. I have to say that it was great to listen to the life of Barry Purves and learn about his career as well as some of his most favoured experiences. A key quote he said is that "A puppet is like having a good piano, you can’t play anything without a good piano!” and my favourite quote from the event was that “Bringing a puppet to life in your hands is fantastic!” as i think that this is so true. It is also one of the main things that I really like about stop motion animation. 

#Inktober Day 31

Happy Ink-o-ween!

Todays final Inktober word is 'Slice' and below is my final Inktober result:

I have thoroughly enjoyed taking part in Inktober! It has been a great task, drawing whole scenes or even more minimal scenes, all from the starting point of one word every day.

#Inktober Day 30

Today is the penultimate day of Inktober, with todays word being 'Jolt'! Below is my drawing of a thief getting a jolt of electricity from the electric fence which is connected to the switch he is trying to turn off:

#Inktober Day 29

The word 'Double' lead me to the idea of a 'Twin-o-matic' machine that could duplicate anything, for example a cake!

#Inktober Day 28

'Gift' is the word for today and it got me thinking about this terrific phrase:

Yesterday is History,

Tomorrow is a Mystery,

Today is a Gift,

That's why it is called the Present.

#Inktober Day 27

Todays word is 'Thunder' which I have depicted with the sound wave lines in the drawing below:

#Inktober Day 26

The word 'Stretch' made me think of the idiom 'Stretching the Truth':

Visit to the Manchester Science and Industry Museum

This morning I visited the Science and Industry Museum and photographed interesting objects as well as videoing some of the weaving machine on show!

My aim today was to capture interesting shapes that could help influence future animation designs!

These archways looked beautiful on this model of a cotton mill.

I really like the way the light shines off of the central blue marble.

The following images link quite well with my second collection for creative making, based on light sources:

I think that the Aurora Borealis is most definitely one of Earths most beautiful and magical natural phenomenon. It is in fact an electrical phenomenon that occurs when charged particles from the sun interact with particles in the Earths atmosphere.

Here are the cotton weaving machines: