Engage and Persist & Express

The Studio Habits of Mind being explored in this unit are Engage and Persist and Express.

Engage and Persist

To engage with the art that we create as artists, we must pursue subject matter that is interesting and important to us. Often these subjects are of a personal nature, but are something that we wish to share with the world through our art and the meanings we create using visual symbolism and metaphor. Through the practice of making art we develop a focus in terms of the themes we create work around, the processes we use, and the tools and materials we choose to work with.

Creating art can often times be frustrating, and difficult. We can lose our focus. To persist we must find ways to move beyond the frustration and difficulties we may be having to keep working on our art.

Express

To express ourselves as artists we must learn to create works that convey an idea (an aim or purpose), message (an important point or theme), feeling (an emotion or belief), or personal meaning (an intended communication of personal importance). Expression is created by artists through the use of symbolism, metaphor, and personal beliefs and experiences. Artists use various artistic conventions to show their ideas, messages, feelings, and personal meanings.

Just as in other units explored so far, the ability for an artist to engage with an artwork or medium, persist when it gets difficult, and express themselves through their work takes repeated practice.

Give an example or two, outside of the art room, where you've engaged with something that interests you and persisted even when it got hard to do?

Give an example or two, outside of the art room, where you've expressed yourself freely?

Artistic Concept

A concept is an abstract idea. They are the fundamental building blocks that lead us to think, act, or create in a certain way. Artists use different concepts to take their ideas from abstraction to reality. The concept being explored through the lens of the Studio Habit - Engage & Persist and Express is Problem Solving.

What do you know about problem solving?

Problem solving lies in an artist's ability to use a series of steps to identify a problem or goal, generate ideas, develop solutions, implement a design, and assess the outcomes.

Let's Problem Solve!

IDENTIFY

What's my problem?

Our design problem is to create a character - executed as a stop motion puppet - that is influenced by, and designed to fit a story.

Labyrinth

Corpse Bride

Wallace and Gromit

Watch the trailers from different movies that use puppetry. Pay particular attention to the stories in each. How would you describe the stories? Then pay attention to the characters. How would you describe the characters? Do you think the characters are influenced by and fit into the story? Why?

"Those who tell the stories rule the world."

- Hopi Proverb

Why are stories important?

Think of your favorite story. Think of your favorite characters? Why do you love them?

Take some time and tell a story from yesterday to your neighbor. What makes that story interesting to tell? What makes it interesting to hear?

IDEATE

Brainstorming: Story Basics

To begin, we need to create the general idea of a story. We need to consider the genre of the story, its audience, the setting, the overall theme, and the protagonist's goal as we start to create.

What makes a great story?

All great stories follow the same basic structure - or an arc that travels from background information, conflict and rising action, to the climax, falling action and resolution. This is known as the "Story Arc."

Create your own story arc for the story of this stop motion puppet. We will not be completely fleshing this story out entirely, but we will be using the arc of the story to create the look of our puppet from.

Develop Solution

Sketching: Character Design Basics

Element of Art & Design

To begin designing our characters we must fist learn about some important elements and principles of design.

The elements and principles of art and design are the foundation on which all art is created. They can be thought of like a recipe. There has to be ingredients in order to make a certain dish; no ingredients, no chocolate chip cookies. The elements of art are like the ingredients. Without the elements - line, shape, color, value, texture, space, and form - there is no art. That doesn't mean that all elements of art must be used in an individual artwork, but at least one must be present.

What element of art and design will help us create an interesting character?

Engage and Persist & Express will focus on the following element of art & design:

Line

Discover some interesting aspects about the most fundamental element of art & design: line

Learn more about line by completing the guided practice worksheet.

Shape

Discover some interesting aspects about the element of art & design: shape

Learn more about shape by completing the Shape Guide worksheet.

Why is line and shape so important to know about when designing our puppets? How are these puppets using those elements to communicate who they are?

Examples:

Kubo and the Two Strings

Chicken Run

Coraline

Principle of Art & Design

If we think of the elements and principles of art & design like a recipe, with the ingredients being a metaphor for the elements, then the principles of art & design are the instructions. The way in which you put together the ingredients dictates how the recipe will turn out. Adding the ingredients in a certain order, using different methods to cook them, and doing things for the right length of time all change the outcome of the final dish. The principles of art and design are the way in which an artwork is arranged. They are the instructions for putting together an artwork. Does the work appear uneasy, or relaxed? How you put it together using the principles would determine that. Without the principles of design - pattern and repetition, contrast, movement, emphasis, balance, rhythm, and unity - an artwork would not have a unique look and personality to it. The principles of art and design are more subjective as well. This means that they can be viewed and interpreted by one person differently than they are viewed and interpreted by another.

Engage and Persist & Express will focus on the following principles of art & design:

Emphasis

Discover some interesting aspects of the principle of art & design: emphasis. Explore examples of how to create emphasis in their artwork.

Learn more about the principle of emphasis by completing the guided practice worksheet.

Why is emphasis important to know about when designing our puppets? How are these puppets using emphasis?

Examples:

Early Man

Corpse Bride

Frankenweenie

How can I make sure that my puppet's design fits in with the story I create?

Artistic Convention

A concept is an abstract idea. They are the fundamental building blocks that lead us to think, act, or create in a certain way. Artists use different concepts to take their ideas from abstraction to reality. The concept being explored through the lens of the Studio Habits - Engage and Persist & Express is Visual Storytelling.

Visual storytelling is the art of telling an interesting story through images. Everything that goes into an artwork should serve the purpose of adding to, or moving the story forward.

Visual storytelling involves everything from how the characters look - the shapes used and the "meanings" we associate with them - to the colors, to the backgrounds, and the props. Imagine it as the way we tell the story without words.

How does my character fit into my story?

Design Process

Think about how your character's design will come from your story. Plan it out in writing first and then create a sketch.

The Language of Shape

Great character design begins with simple shapes and the subconscious messages they send to us.

Circles - safe, friendly, kind
Squares - sturdy, strong, grounded
Triangles - sharp, dangerous, powerful

Let's practice! What shapes make up these characters? How can we tell who they are through these shapes?

Experiment Time!

Using simple, basic shapes that communicate your character's personality, create a minimum of 8 different sketches that explore a variety of shape combinations. At this point only draw shapes, no details.

rough sketch

Gather References

Create a google doc that contains numerous images that you will use to be inspired from when drawing your character.

finished character sketch

Skeleton Pose Sketch

Create a sketch of your character that is just simple shapes to illustrate their proportions and scale - like the Vitruvian Man - no details; just a basic, straightforward pose.

We will use this exact pose as the template to build our armature off of, so scale and proportion must be accurate.

IMPLEMENT

Creating the Armature

To begin, take one length of wire and start at the character's feet. Bend the wire at the heel and run the wire up one of the legs. Bend the wire at the hip and run the wire up the spine stopping at the top of the neck. Bend the wire and run it back down the spine. Bend the wire at the hip and run the wire down the opposite leg. Bend the wire at the heel. Cut off excess wire at the end of the foot.

Make two.

Make a second pair of leg wires. Start at the toe of one foot. Bend the wire at the heel and run the wire up one of the legs. Bend the wire at the hip and run the wire over to the other hip. Bend the wire at the hip and run the wire down the opposite leg. Bend the wire at the heel and run the wire to the toe of this foot. Bend the wire at the toe and repeat the process in reverse. Cut off the excess wire at the end of the first foot.

Twist the second pair of leg wires around the two leg with torso wires.

Do not twist too tightly as this will be how the character will be poseable.

Leave the top portion of the neck slightly open to insert the arms later.

To begin the arms, start the wire at the character's wrists. Run the wire up the length of one of the arms. Bend the wire at the shoulders. Run the wire over to the other shoulder. Bend the wire at the shoulder and run the wire down the opposite arm. Bend the wire at this wrist. Run the wire back up that arm. Bend the wire at the shoulders and run the wire over to the other shoulder. Bend the wire at the shoulder and run the wire down that arm. Cut off the excess wire at the wrist.

Open the character's neck slightly and insert the arm wires making sure to line them up at the shoulder line of your drawing. It is important that there is a wire loop at each wrist - left and right. Twist the neck back closed.

Twist the arm wires together around each other. Twist them as tightly as you did with the legs remember not to go too tightly as this will be how the character will be poseable.

Adding Bones to the Armature

Giving your character "bones."

After the wire armature is complete, you will use two-part epoxy putty to give your character "bones."

The putty dries firm. It is only meant to be used on sections of the armature that are not meant to bend.

Add the neck.

In order to make the heads interchangeable you will need to add a 9 mm metal tube to the neck that will fit inside of a 10 mm metal tube that you will build your head around.

Glue this tube onto your wire armature neck using e6000 and hot glue to permanently hold them together.

Adding Volume to the Character

Using scrap foam, add volume to your armature according to your sketch. Does your character need a bigger tummy, or shoulders, or arms or legs? Remember that your character is 3D - it must have volume all the way around.

The easiest way to add volume quickly is with foam, but fiber stuffing can be used as well. Begin by drawing out the shape that you need on the foam for that particular section of your character's body. Cut it out and glue it on to your armature using hot glue. Add additional pieces of foam - cut out and then hot glued on - to areas that need additional volume.

The foam can be easily cut with scissors to give it the right form needed for your character.

Remember - you should always be referring back to your sketch to ensure that the puppet is beginning to look like your drawing. At this early stage, things can be easily modified. If you wait until later in the process to make changes it becomes much more difficult.

Adding Volume and Wrapping the Armature

To keep our characters lightweight and flexible, we will be wrapping the armatures with self-adhesive bandage.

Begin with the torso. Slightly overlap the self-adhesive bandage over the previous time you wrapped around. You do not need tape or glue to keep it together. Wrap the self-adhesive bandage over the foam and/or fiber stuffing completely enclosing it.

You only need one layer - do not use too much!

For the arms and legs, begin by adding fiber stuffing around the armature to give it volume. The more volume you need; the more stuffing you'll use. You can also use foam if you'd like.

The tighter you wrap the self-adhesive bandage, the less volume your character will have. Wrap it loosely.

Remember, you only need one layer, but it should slightly over lap so that it sticks together.

Hands and Feet

Foam and/or fiber stuffing can be used to give volume to your characters feet. Add it in the same way you did for your torso.

Remember that you can cut the foam to shape it into what you need for your individual character.

Hands will be done a bit differently. Using thin gauge wire, sculpt a hand (like you did when you traced around your fingers when you were a kid). Then, using pliers, twist each finger together like the image shown.

Your design can be anything from "mitten" hands, to as many fingers as you'd like. Repeat this for both hands.

Next, add fiber stuffing in the gap that is the palm and wrap it with the self-adhesive bandage.

Add a thin amount of fiber stuffing to each of the fingers and wrap them individually with small pieces of the self-adhesive bandage.

Wrap both the feet and the hands with self-adhesive bandage using the same instructions as specified earlier.

Artistic Convention

Expressing Emotion

Great storytelling stems from an emotional, believable performance by the characters involved. As puppet makers, we need to know how to create complex emotions in our characters. This, for us, is done in the sculpt of the face. Learn some simple techniques to create emotion in your characters face.

Create a sketch of just your character's head in two different facial expressions that would happen in your story.

You can choose which emotions to portray. Make sure to pick emotions that your character will use a lot throughout your story.

Giving your Heads Volume

You will be building up the volume of your head with tin foil and then covering that in a layer of masking tape. This will add volume quickly, keep your forms lightweight, and can be baked in the oven.

Begin by wrapping a small ball of tin foil around a 10 mm metal tube. Add more and more tin foil to the form until you have fully built up the correct volume needed for your character's head. Use masking tape to hold the tin foil in place if need be. The clay we will be using is thin and not meant to add a great deal of volume. It is important that you add all of the volume that you need for your character at this stage. Refer back to your sketch frequently to make sure you are getting the shape right.

Note that the entire head is built around the 10 mm metal tube. This is how the heads are interchangeable.

Leave space at the bottom of the tube for your character's neck.

After adding the tin foil, put one layer of masking tape over the entire head, covering it completely. Use small, short strips. These work better when wrapping around small curves.

Repeat this process for your second head.

Sculpt Your Two Different Facial Expressions

Working with Oven Baked Clay

After you've given your heads volume with tin foil, and then completly covered them with a layer of tape, put a thin layer of oven baked Sculpey clay over the entire head and neck. Make sure you cover everything.

Sculpey is a soft clay that is easy to sculpt with. It can be smoothed with a little bit of water on your fingers. Don't spray the clay directly with water.

painting

element of art - value

principle of art - balance

clothing and detailing

ASSESS

critique

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