Blog Prompt #19

1. How do you ensure that your work is relevant to you. If I want to do it, then it's relevant to me. I usually tend to prefer happier types of work, but if I feel compelled to create something dark, I won't stop myself.
2. How do you ensure that your work is relevant to the contemporary world? I really don't ensure it is, but I do think my work is very relevant because I create on Photoshop, which is a new medium compared to the history of art.
3. How do you brainstorm? Do you sketch? Do you use the camera as a brainstorming tool so that you “look” at the world through the frame of the camera and capture bits and pieces of your environment? I sketch in my sketchbook. My sketchbook is filled with so storyboards and boxes and notes about projects. I plan what I'm going to need, torn paper, photography, illustrator vectors, from my sketchbook.
4. Do you combine elements of various media? How do you do this? Do you do it physically with printed images or objects? Do you combine elements virtually in the computer? I usually combine media: digital photography, scans, vectors, usually combined within Photoshop or, in the case of my current project, After Effects.
5. How does your process relate to your ideas/concept? How does your process relate to your outcome/final pieces? Why are you using digital technology (if you are)? Why are you using analog technology (if you are)? I'm using digital technology because it best suits what I want out of the project. Part of my project I am able to do analog, like tearing paper, and I do that because creating torn paper digitally is ridiculous. Digitial technology is what I've learned in my classes, so you could argue it's not completely by choice, but I've used digital technology to create art even before being formally taught it.
6. How do you judge your work? When do you think it “works”? When do you think it is “not working yet”? What criteria do you use to make these decisions? It works when I like it, which may or may not be the original plan. Usually I try to get the original plan, but when it goes in another direction, I don't fight it if I'm really enjoying it. I base this off of if it looks pleasing and it's expressing what I want it to express. If it looks great, but you can't tell what the heck is going on and that is important to the concept, then it doesn't "work".
7. How do ensure that your work is new, unique, ground-breaking, and/or you are breaking the mold/thinking outside the box/pushing the limits? I start this from the sketches. I try to come up with ideas that are new where I can learn something and hopefully that something is an original idea. Often I'll come up with something I think is unique and discover it isn't. Usually if I find it exciting, then I don't really mind if someone else did something similar. Or I'll use the idea as a jumping off point.