Tumgik
#i was not confident with traditional media this is evident in original artwork as well going back to when i first started posting to DA in
wigglebox · 2 years
Photo
Tumblr media
“moleskine doodles” * 
Original: June 10, 2014 | Redrawn: January 26, 2022
Tumblr media
*Original drawn in moleskine notebook, redraw done on Procreate, iPad Air. 
Full original under the cut.
Tumblr media
#spn fanart#castiel#spnfanart#wiggleart#spnfanart redraw project#<-- tag for this#seeing the archive blog reblog all my old stuff im like wow i wanna see how my current style translates to what i used to draw#and yeah so like#obviously#these are my takeaways:#i was not confident with traditional media this is evident in original artwork as well going back to when i first started posting to DA in#2009 like i am not confident enough with my movements#i love the first drawing a lot i love the face and everything#however you can tell i wasn't confident in my movements#which is fine#this is literally LITERALLY my first SPN fanart posted to this blog that i could find#also i'm sure at the time of drawing this it was okay to have cas not smiling bc lbr he doesn't smile much in the show#but i wanted to give him a smile on the redraw#idk i'll probably draw frowns here and there with my current style i just don't like doing it#and this is after season 9 aired so naturally there was angst n shit in the show i was probably trying to capture but more importantly#this is just after i graduated college and was very lost like VERY. lost#and you'll notice if i can stick with this project that my style changes with my mood and my lost-y ness#and how i viewed myself etc etc etc#ANYWAY#i kinda miss how i used to draw hands#this will come  as the years go on but i was heavily inspired by medieval art and their weird hand poses n stuff#always with the peace sign lol#or just weirdly stiff and i really i truly liked drawing hands like that#now i don't have the room to even draw all 5 fingers which i kinda like#less to figure out hand wise lol
63 notes · View notes
ariel-dreemurr · 3 years
Text
Croix Meridies and Transgender Rage
Content Warning: Potentially Triggering Discussions of Gender Dysphoria, Imposter Syndrome, and Self-Hatred. This is also quite a controversial topic in regards to the primary character discussed.
I wrote a piece a while back on my interpretation of the subtext in Little Witch Academia, namely that the imagery, metaphors, and even some of the jokes suggest that Akko is a trans girl. There's a lot to talk about there, and there's a lot more I can say about the show's trans reading. The most popular trans character by far among LGBT+ fans is undoubtedly Diana, who has the most pieces of artwork and AO3 stories regarding her transness, and that's wonderful. Every other character, including shockingly Akko, pales in comparison.
Anyways, here's why the show's villain is a trans icon and needs to be showered with love.
Tumblr media
The show works in threes. Teams of three. Three pointed insignia. Thematically, the rule of three is used in instances such as Ursula's desire for punishment and redemption through her sacrifices to Croix's creatures; as well as how we respond to criticism, with three characters at three different points in the show receiving negative comments online and going down self-destructive paths. This is mostly tangential, but it's an interesting observation to make.
Three trans characters. The Protagonist. The Deuteragonist. And the Villain. How appropriate.
Let's talk about Croix.
Croix is a character of many contradictions. She's a witch obsessed with technology. A woman in love with the person she hates. A villain never able to truly abandon her humanity. A progressive and yet force of regression in her plan. She's human, and things don't make sense to her, either. She tried so hard to do everything right that she did everything wrong.
Before we go into the thematics, let's start with imagery and design:
This Seems Familiar
Unlike Akko, Chariot, and Diana, we are never shown a very young Croix - instead the show opts to show us a teenage Croix, hinted as far back as Episode 3, in which we receive a glimpse of a girl standing uncomfortably among others after winning the broom relay, the other girls very much uneasy to be around her.
When we recieve more insight into the teenage Croix, her design is deliberately androgynous, wearing men's prescription glasses, having wild shaggy hair, and heavily covering herself up as often as possible. On a personal note, she looked like me before puberty (and somewhat now, thanks to HRT), with her persumed access to medication allowing her body to develop and mostly avoid the effects of T.
(As a very minor note, several shots, especially from Episode 23, frame her neck very strangely, and imply a slight bump, but it is impossible to tell if it was intentional or just inconsistent animation and framing; and whilst it would be convenient to my argument, I cannot make it a primary point due to it likely just being an animation inconsistency)
Croix is shown to repeatedly wear hooded jackets, something that has become quite popular in the trans community for the "unbridled power" (her words) of feeling more anonymous and covering things that make us dysphoric. Teenage Croix during key moments is also consistently drawn with considerably squarer and harsher features than Chariot. This would prove very little, if not for that teenage Croix is also drawn with considerably squarer and harsher features than herself as an adult.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
In that decade, she may have had some degree of FFS (Facial Feminization Surgery, not For F*ck's Sake), which is something acknowledged to exist with magic enhancement by Ursula when she shows Akko the Alumni book (and we'll get to the Alumni book). As a side note, it's worth mentioning that Croix's VA, at least in Japanese and English, maintains a degree of consistency between young and adult Croix, as opposed to the gulf between Ursula's vocal development. Part of this is likely to be due to the express purpose of showing maturity in Croix over a young Chariot, but her deep voice is, to just gush for a moment, so cool, of which I'll especially give the dub credit for the fantastic Caitlyn Elizabeth (also famous for playing Mai in the Abridged Dub of Yugioh, and now I'm going to have nightmares!). Admittedly, it feels rather gross to go over the appearence of a character for "trans signs" - after all, the tomboy/butch argument can easily be used as a refutation, as well as the "you're looking for stereotypes" argument - but the huge differences between Croix's young and adult design, with the specific artistic choices made, are very evocative of a trans woman's journey, and were drawn in this way to be contrasted. A lot of things about Croix changed in that decade, evidently. As well as the face change, she is outwardly much more confident in her presentation (although she's still dying on the inside), dressing extravagantly, no longer awkwardly clawing at herself, cutting her hair, and being LOUD (Ursula remarks on Croix being extremely quiet as a student). Basically, she had what would be called a "glow-up", and gains the bombastic over-the-top swagger of a trans woman who adorably tries too hard to be cool and make up for what is seen as lost time. Oh girls, I've been there.
Tumblr media
I mean, I would.
It's embarassing and it's amazing. She's gorgeous. Most of us are just trying way too hard to mask the awkward nerds that we are, and everything about Croix screams "awkward nerd". She even shows signs of this and her true self returning in her final scene, allowing the woman she loves to see the real her again. After all, Chariot was the only one allowed to see the real Croix, and always wanted what was best for her.
The South Cross
And now we will over-analyse one of my favourite things and special interests: etymology and analysis of language. Firstly, the name "Croix Meridies" translates in French to "Southern Cross Constellation", or "du Sud". It's the exact opposite to "Chariot du Nord" and rather straightforwardly represents their diverging paths and connection to each-other. But getting to the crux of the argument, "Croix" is a French name that is easy to go past most viewers who do not speak the language - as it sure went past me on my first viewing. Croix is a rare name, and the fictional Meridies might well be the most famous Croix on earth. The name even had a very slight rise in popularity among girls in 2017. In 2017. The same year the anime came out. I'm not saying that Croix has influence in the real world, but I definitely am. Anyways, Croix is an almost exclusively masculine given-name. "Almost" due to the slight rise in 2017. Whether this was considered or not is unknown, but again, it's there. A masculine-looking child is given a boy's name, suggesting that she was assigned male at birth. It may be a stretch, but some trans women choose to keep their given names, which is a power-move that I could never pull, and make it their own; which is very in-character for a character defined by her vicious opposition to tradition and the norms of a regressive society. It's powerful. She already asserts herself as radically different and cares very little for the opinions of others (besides her girlfriend, probably). It's in-keeping. Croix as a girl's name is rare and mostly unheard of, but now it's cool due to the association with anime's gayest supervillain witch. Glorious.
For what it's worth, because French is a heavily gendered language, the Southern Constellation, or "du Sud" is considered to be masculine. I wish I didn't have to dive this deep, but I'm just documenting what I notice.
That Bloody Cat
Croix as a character is visually and linguistically trans-coded, but the most telling moment is also one of the most bizzare of the show. Studio Trigger love making references to western media. Sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it's awkward. However, the strangest of these references comes in Episode 15, when Diana is investigating the Luna Nova Alumni, and finds the page of the androgynous young Croix. It lists her achievements, and uses her awkward photograph, which has already been discussed. To the left of her picture are some strange writings, seemingly documenting another former student of Luna Nova. Their name? "Salem Saberhagen".
Who is Salem Saberhagen? Well, a cat. Specifically, the cat from Sabrina The Teenage Witch. Funny reference, right? Yes, it's funny. It's also... enlightening. Because Salem in the original show is referred to as a Witch in the non-gendered way: Salem is a man (turned into a cat as punishment for trying to take over the world, but that's of little relevance!).
There are some rather crude implications to this, as unfortunately ambiguous trans-coding often does, but the inclusion of Salem among Luna Nova's Alumni seems to imply that the school accepts AMAB students, which we already know if you read Akko and Diana as such, but the artistic choice of placing an implication like this right next to a picture of Croix suggests the obvious - that Croix is a trans girl. Of course, this could just be a funny easter-egg, as Trigger is wont to do, but the other numerous examples of trans coding between the three characters make the "coincidence" argument harder to justify. Maybe I should go through them all, but by this point, I hope I've been convincing enough. This is a two second frame, easy to miss - I did on my first viewing - but it is loaded with information, about Croix's past as well as the easter-egg. I may have read too far into this funny frame - after all, it's just a cat - but there is one final piece of information on the page, through ironically, the obscuring and placement of words. Forming a greater word, likely with the suffix of "generation" (perhaps due to Salem being centuries old), but hard to determine, is a singular prefix, in English, dashed at the end of the line and leading like an arrow into Croix's picture. The word?
"Trans-"
Tumblr media
Demon of Hatred
Ok, so there we go. So, what does this all mean? Well, it doesn't have to mean much. A character can be trans-coded visually and not have to make assumptions about their entire character. After-all, as I have said, Croix's transness doesn't have to have much to do with her central character - it can just be something cool, which is a step towards normalisation in media. Unfortunately, the show's habit of deliberately keeping ambiguous and only being able to hint towards LGBT+ subtext is a product of an unfortunate history of Hays-Code related bullshit that is still sadly felt in much anime as well as western media (but that's a different conversation) today. Croix gets to be the most overtly LGBT+ coded character in the show because Croix is the villain, and it's unfortunately always been like that, especially in animation with no specific age rage. It sucks. What I can applaud Studio Trigger for is being able to insert so many implications regarding the cast to take seriously and know what is really going on. It is known that half of the studio wanted Akko to be with Diana, to the point in which the plan to pair her with Andrew was scrapped in order to give the show a perfect ending with the future left up to the sizable LGBT+ fanbase, who all take their own different meanings from the show (I discussed this in my previous piece). And that brings us back to the writing of Croix. They could get away with more overt coding for her due to the circumstances, but Trigger was clever in two regards. The first being that Croix, nor any villainous character in the show, isn't truly evil, which is a recurring theme throughout. And the second is that not once is Croix as a lesbian nor as a trans woman used as a point of horror or villainy. On the contrary, she is kept anchored to her humanity mostly due to her love for Chariot.
As established for this reading, a trio is formed around Chariot of people deeply affected by her presence in their lives. Akko coming out as a witch is tied to Chariot. Diana is similary affected. The two of them have their dreams and identities intwined with inspiration to achieve something that also disadvantaged them. The thematic trans-coding of Akko and Diana has been discussed before and by more concise and convincing people than me, but in essence, Akko and Diana abstractly represent different ways of transitioning. Akko knows what she wants but is ill-equipped to achieve it through no fault of her own, and consistently desires to be someone else until realising that she possesses what she needs all along and can do it. Diana, through force of will and clarity of herself, reclaims her life at an early age, but also experiences immense pain in trying to fit in, and has to retreat into herself in order to "pass" within magic society, and internalises this against Akko before falling in love with her and realising that she can be the real her.
There is a third character who greatly admired Chariot. And for her, things are more blatant. Subtext becomes text. Because Croix represents one of the most painful and destructive feelings in the world for any trans person: Dysphoria. Intense, unyielding dysphoria.
Croix couldn't handle being with Chariot when she was young. Despite Croix's genius, Chariot represented something that she felt was beyond her: a raw, seemingly innate connection with magic that resulted in her being chosen by Woodward. And Croix became more and more inadequate around her to the point of damaging their relationship by becoming more distant. Eventually, Croix couldn't even look at her without clawing at herself in pain, a relatable gesture if you've ever felt like crawling out of your own skin. She wishes it was her. She wishes she was her. She frustrates over Chariot's seeming inability to grasp the gifts that she has been given, seeing her as the only one to save the magic world. After all, from Croix's perspective, why her? Because Chariot is "pure" and she is "tainted"? She did everything right. Why is she getting kicked in the teeth for it? The true reason, of course, was self-assurence and clarity, that Croix struggled with.
Tumblr media
Chariot had what she thought she didn't. Chariot was what she thought she couldn't be. And it gnawed at her all her life. One of the most disturbing moments of the entire show comes after adult Croix confronts Woodward, and cries and screams at her to leave her the hell alone, very much implying that Woodward has been in her head for over a decade, driving her to do more self-destructive things for the sake of her dream. But it wasn't Woodward. That cruel voice telling you that you'll never be the person you want to be is dysphoria. And it broke her. She externalised the spite and the bitterness and hatred, and did what she did not just in desperation due to her frustrations with Chariot and Akko, but simply to prove the point that she could after being denied. From her perspective, she doesn't need any "sacred essence" or "divine magic" - she'll do it HERSELF.
Croix is a dark mirror to both Akko and Diana. Diana is obvious, as Croix is a villainous image of who she could become if she let the self-hatred and bitterness over not being chosen to undertake her life's goal push her to evil. But her link to Akko is even more interesting. They both wanted to be someone else, and lost themselves in the dream. The same person, too. When Akko visits the Fountain of Polaris for the second time and pines over Chariot as an idol, she lives out a memory from someone else's perspective: Croix's. She sees the world that she saw, through her eyes, and it's the same as all those years ago for Akko. They wanted the same thing - to be like the same person.
Returning to the concept of magic as metaphor, Croix and Chariot are similar in regards to how their magic is viewed by the world. Chariot was looked down upon for being non-traditional in her desire to make people happy, and Croix is openly criticised by Finnelan (the terfiest character in the show) for attempting to advance and transform magic using her own creations, not operating as part of arbitrary traditions, and being undoubtedly successful in doing so. Sound familiar? She'll do it herself.
This makes it ever the more heartbreaking at the inception of Croix's villainy, where she crosses the line for the first time and attempts to channel her desire to become who she wants to be through Chariot, using Dream Fuel Spirit without her knowledge and ruining the early lives of Akko and Diana, two children just like her. And after reaching the point of unbridled jealousy and rage, and her previous outlook being shattered after internalizing the dysphoria and hatred, she breaks Chariot's heart and screams that she still doesn't understand or appreciate who she was meant to be, the “sacred” duty and privilege entrusted to her - she never had to painfully think about it and suffer like she did, at least from Croix��s perspective, who had cut herself off and deliberately shut off her empathy to cope with the pain. To re-iterate a point from the previous essay, it’s not fair. It’s just not fair. Again, does this sound familiar? Is it a coincidence that Croix is covered up in her dysphoria-associated garb whilst Chariot is depicted as hyper-feminine in the scene? Or that a shot briefly frames and references Croix and Chariot in the position of Shinji and Asuka in End of Evangelion in the moment before the Third Impact -  in which Shinji’s own crisis of gender results in them similarly shutting off their empathy to cope with their own pain, to the detriment of THE ENTIRE WORLD? It’s a sad, cruel moment that destroys them both. Croix loses patience. “How can you understand... you’re cis,” is a saddening thought that many of us have, and whilst it can be deserved when addressed to some people, to the people we love and love us, it’s horrible. To us. To them. Chariot blames herself, but it was not her fault. How could it be? She’s trying her best. The best she could ever do. Chariot did nothing wrong, but Croix distanced herself from her best friend due to inadequacy, jealousy, frustration, and yes, dysphoria. And Croix screwed up. Yes, I obviously love her to bits, but she screwed up. She went about it all wrong. She caused immense pain because she couldn't come to terms with herself. It’s what could have happened to Diana. The ultimate culmination of these feelings resulted in tragedy and four destroyed people, who all processed their trauma in different ways. The tragedy is that Chariot had absolute clarity of why she wanted to achieve her dream, and Croix was the one who was lost, but the former had her own issues, her own share of woes, that Croix shut herself off from.
Tumblr media
A decade passes. Croix changes in the obvious ways, but doesn't change her outlook, and as such her villainy unfolds, lashing out at the world that rejected her and treated her as an imposter, possessed by immeasurable fury and tragic spite - committing crimes that almost doom everyone.
Croix is a great villain, but a better hero. As such comes the final episode, in which she realises that she was wrong her entire life. To repeat, Chariot had what she thought she didn't, and Chariot was what she thought she couldn't be. She could. She could all along. Of course she could! The voices telling you that you'll never get there are just that, voices. She sees that it was inside her all along, that raw, innate connection with magic - and was inside EVERYONE - and the two are able to forgive and love each-other again. After all, Croix is implied to have coined the phrase "A believing heart is your magic," but was missing it from her own life, before finally embracing it, proud of the girls for saving the world like she never could (and almost destroying it in the process), and having her worth re-affirmed by the woman she loves, and realising it herself - setting off to fix her mistakes and make things right. I have issues with the phrase "you're valid" because it can be condescending to trans people under certain circumstances, but Chariot affirms and reminds her that she was, indeed, valid. And by this point I was emotionally exhausted watching. She's not an imposter. Never was. And part of what helps to save the world? Her particular approach to magic. It mattered. It always mattered.
To Conclude
A lot of thought went into this essay. I rewatched the show, of course, and put a proverbial magnifying glass to every frame. This is hardly the most concise, coherent, or even convincing thing I've ever written (university messed with my head), and that's ok, because I just needed somewhere to document the stream of thoughts and feelings that this character evoked for me. Is it projection? I don't know. I don't want to know. But I know why I felt the way I did watching it; because minus the incredible outfit, genius intellect, and obvious villainous tendencies, Croix resonated with me as a trans woman as an ultimately optimistic look at how I can pull myself back from the pain and become the better person I always wanted to be. She's a gay, cool supervillain, too. It felt like she was written for me, and reading her as a trans woman is very cathartic. I mean, the word and suggestion is literally there, labelled next to her in the book. It made me happy.
She's designed with the implication in mind, from appearence to imagery to even her name. And that's something I very much appreciate. And her story is a gutwrenching blatantly trans-coded metaphor for trans-anxiety, dysphoria, and the painful effects of feeling like an "unworthy imposter". With a bittersweet ending, and ultimately empowering analogies, of course. Magic is metaphor. And we have a lot of metaphors. But this still seems less allegorical and more so textual due to what's implied by the first half. I don't have answers. I'm a dumbass trans girl latching onto my favourite archetype of ambiguously trans ambiguously evil science villains, and maybe taking it too far, and over-analysing. But it was fun. She brings me a lot of joy specifically in my circumstances. Specifically because of who I am.
Yeah. I'd say she's one of us.
Tumblr media
64 notes · View notes
Text
Proposal - First draft
For my dissertation I wanted to look into one of my favourite artists Frida Kahlo. I find her paintings beautiful to look at with a lot of depth and emotion behind them. When you look through her collection of work, you can see her life story being told, and your able to walk through the events and moments she experienced. Not only is she an incredible artist who painted portraits and images inspired by her personal life, but she was also someone who suffered greatly yet continued to carry on an fight for what she believed in. From the age of 6 she was diagnosed with polio, resulting in one of her legs being noticeably smaller than the other. If this was not enough of an impact on her life, she later was involved in a tragic bus accident, which changed her life forever. After breaking many bones throughout her body, and having a metal pole impale her in the abdomen, she was left bed bound for nine months and would find herself to be in and out of hospitals for the rest of her life. When deciding on a subject with in the umbrella of Frida Kahlos life, I had the option to look into her life story and talk about the influences shes had on people, or to talk about the unusual relationship she had with her husband Diego Rivera, however I wanted to do something different as I feel this has been done many times before. Instead I wanted to look at the reasons why Frida Kahlo is so famous today, and recognised by people not even interested in art. When people see her face, they generally recognise her as Frida Kahlo, something other artists such as Pablo Picasso or Georgia O’Keeffe do not have the privilege of. However whilst undergoing research on these facts, I noticed that even though people recognised and could name the woman with the monobrow, they didn’t necessarily know who she was and why she was famous. You will find Kahlos image on anything from t shirts and bags, to bars of soap and shot glasses. She had the reputation of being a feminist icon that people should look up to, yet they know nothing of her or her life story. Since discovering this I would like to investigate why Frida Kahlo has become famous for reasons other than the artwork she produced, and whether she is known for the strong woman she was or just a face to make money out of. I think this would be an interest to others as it may unveil issues we have in society that aren’t being addressed, due to the ignorance of consumers. By reading my final essay you will learn more about Frida Kahlo as person rather than her simply being a monobrow on a t shirt sold in Primark.
I have began my research by reading Haydn Herrera’s 500 page biography on Frida Kahlos life. The book follows very detailed events that occur from her childhood, all the way through to her death at the age of 47. It contains many photographs and paintings done by the artist, as well as diery entries and letters she wrote through her lifetime. By reading this book, I hope to gain a greater knowledge of what her life was like, giving me more confidence to talk about her in my final essay knowing I have all the facts. Any key quotes or interesting events I find within the book, I log down on my Tumblr account, so that I have easy access back to them when writing out my final essay. As well as reading the book, I have watched the film ‘Frida’ staring Salma Hayek that is in fact based off Herrera’s book. By watching the film as well as reading the book, I hope to gain a new insight into what her life was like, having actual visuals of Mexico back in the 1900’s. By watching the character of Frida acted out by Salma Hayek, you can create a greater understanding for the pain and emotion she dealt with in her life, whether it was through the pain of the bus accident, or the pain of her husband constantly cheating on her with other woman.
When browsing through the internet, I came across a page called ‘Frida Kahlo is not your symbol’. I found this an intreging title, as it wasn’t simply a ‘fan page’ that I had so often come across when researching the artist. On the site I found a list of issues and arguments that have been raised due to people putting Fridas face on anytings and everything in a feat to make money. It talks about how this would not only go against everything Frida Kahlo stood for, but it often wasn’t even portraying her correct appearance. An example of this would be when social media platform snapchat, created a filter for the Mexican artist back in 2017. However when looking at the filter and the changes it made to a persons appearance, it was noticed that it would in fact create a paler complexion to that of the Mexican artist. People investigated further by placing the filter over the original Frida Kahlo self portraits, and the results confirmed that it did in fact lighten the skin tone of the original image. Discovering this sparked outrage to the public and those with different skin tones. But this was not the last time this would occur. A year later in march 2018, the popular doll company ‘Barbie’ released a Frida Kahlo doll as part of their inspiring women series. When reading an article written by ‘The Independent’ aside from the copywrite issues raised by the family, the doll itself has very few properties that made Frida Kahlo the woman she was. The doll once again has a very pale complexion, as well as being extremely skinny, something barbie has been pulled up on many times before. However the doll does not have a monobrow, one of Frida’s most noticeable features, nor does it show any evidence of the fact that she was disabled due to the bus accident, or the fact that she eventually lost one of her legs to gangrene later on in life. Leaving these features out and making it seem that she was a completely abled white woman, takes away all the things that made Frida Kahlo the woman she was. An ironic quote I found on the ‘Frida Kahlo is not your symbol’ website, was that she claimed she hated white people, the USA and capitalism, saying ‘ I don’t like the gringos at all. They’re very boring and they’ve all got faces like unbaked rolls’. Having been a woman that had these views, you would think she would be condemned, but rather she was embraced by white feminists, only reimagined as a ghostly version of herself, free of any radicality and hardship.
This ignorance to who Frida Kahlo was taken even further when British Prime Minister, Teresa May, wore a chunky Frida Kahlo bracelet during one of her speeches. Whilst May is a representative of the conservative party, it seems ridiculous that she would wear a bracelet representing a woman who was a fervent communist and actually had an affaire with Leon Trotsky, a soviet politician. People may argue that May simply wore the bracelet for aesthetic reasons, but that just proves how ignorant people have people on the views Kahlo had and fought for.
During a recent trip to London, I was able to document just how popular Frida Kahlo merchandise is. When travelling round gift shops, clothes shops or just walking down the road, you could find her face everywhere. You could buy Frida Kahlo mirrors, bags, soap, shot glasses, glasses cases, fairy lights… A factor I did pick up on however was the fact that they were all the same image of her.
You never see a painting of her ‘broken column’ or the ‘what I see in the water’, which I feel are beautiful pieces. The only reason I can think of for these pieces never being shown in the public eye or on items being sold in shops, is due to the fact that it shows deeper layers to her, not just the fact that she was a beautiful woman. The broken column does have partial nudity which I could understand some designers not wanting to feature if they target younger audiences, however this is not a factor in all of her artwork so why do people insist on using the same image of her.
So a key concepts that I will be looking at for the final essay is whether or not Frida Kahlo has simply become a face used to sell products and occasionally represent feminism. Has she become a hallow shell that the public eye no longer recognises for her artwork and life story. Do people no longer know her belief or what she stood for, and now simply see her as a pretty face with a monobrow on a tote bag. I feel like this has unfortunately become the case, as we are living in a society were we only care about making money. As well as this I want to see if there is a reason that in many products created around the Frida Kahlo brand, that some of her key features have been left out, such as in the snapchat filter or Barbie doll. I will be interested if this is a common factor that happens to other women and men of colour, or if it has simply happened to her, and if so why? To continue researching down this question I would need to understand some more background information on Mexico in this time period. What the Mexican revolution was all about and why Frida had the views she did. When alive she would always wear very traditional Mexican dresses, rather than anything influenced by European clothing. I need to fill in the gaps of her reasoning behind this. Her farther was originally from Germany, so what exactly was it about Europe and the USA that she so much hated. By filling in these gaps I would have a better insight of the history and beliefs she stood for, and then get greater understanding on the outrage some people have toward what so many companies are doing with the Frida Kahlo brand.
I would also be interested in researching and finding out more about the Frida Kahlo exhibition that recently took place in London. I was unfortunately unable to get tickets on the event, however I think I could find some interesting points from the exhibition, and to get feedback from anyone who went to the event. To find this out I would need to do some more research online and find articles written in review of the show. As well as this, I could possibly email people that went or were involved in production of the show, and get there opinion, not only on the exhibition, but on some other issues previously raised in my research. To carry this out I would need to create a consent form in order to prevent any issues possibly raised in the future, should the person I interviewed decided they no longer wanted to be a part of the research.
Over the summer I shall continue to read Frida’s biography by Herrera, as well as carrying out online research. As well as this I will be researching Mexican history in the 1900’s to gain greater knowledge on Frida’s beliefs and understand on a greater scale why the Frida Kahlo of today would outrage Frida if she were alive to see it today. I think I need to have a greater understanding on communism and the politics in general around this time, as some of the gaps in my knowledge on the subjects may become an issue when I am later writing my essay. Finally I will try and investigate further into the barbie doll of Frida Kahlo and the issues that revolved around it. I would like to see what exactly happened with the copywrite laws that resulted in the doll being removed from shop shelves, and why the doll didn’t have any of Frida’s attributes in the first place.
2 notes · View notes
jaygraphicarts · 6 years
Text
Final Evaluation
‘Cinematographer’ looked at the relationship between Art and Film. Throughout the process, this link between both media was always considered. From the workshops, to the final production of the frames, constantly linking back to how the original shot types were made, made it easier to composite my own frames in a similar way. During this project, my aims were:
Analyse 3 films from a list in detail
Pick one to work from and produce 6 frame reproductions, with the outcomes showing a range of processes and tools
To show exploration of audience perception, and how each element of visual language affects meaning
Upon analysing the brief and list of films, the three films I chose were: ‘Moonlight’, ‘Drive’ and ‘The Terminator’. I chose these because they were all relatively modern films, which allowed for me to explore how modern cinema has evolved and the influences from older traditional art to newer traditional art. I wanted to communicate this same modernism in my final frames, which meant that I wanted to focus on mainly digital processes. However, once I explored some analogue processes in some workshops, I learnt about how both could be crossed over, so this became more of a priority for me. In terms of abstraction, I wanted to explore how a subject could be altered whilst still being recognised as the same thing, and then transfer this exploration into some of my frames.
Out of the 3 films, I chose 'The Terminator' to base my final piece on. I did this due to the strong focus on the main antagonist and highlight of the story - The Terminator itself. From this, I then looked into how composition and visual language effected focus in a frame, to ensure that I portrayed each character with audience perception as a priority.
Research and Influence
The first artist I analysed was Edward Hopper, an American realist painter and printmaker from the 19th and 20th century. Although his work dates back before digital processes were as prominent, his etching work, and repeated lines to create tone, prompted me to do a similar thing but digitally. Because of this, the repeated lines are more concise, whereas Edward Hopper, using etching as his process, would have more sporadic line work, communicating a more destructed mood. In contrast, a more modern visual artist and designer I looked at was James White. His digital poster illustrations with a consistent restricted colour palette and retro theme provided a large influence for the way I carried out my digital work. Firstly, I gave myself a colour palette of only 5 colours to work with (including the black and white substitutes). Restricting this colour palette meant I could make my work more consistent, in a similar way James White’s works are. The colour scheme is influenced by 80s retro-like artwork. I chose to work from this reference because The Terminator was made in 1984, so I wanted to look into the popular culture at that time. I found that gaming was rapidly growing in these years, and video game graphics became something I wanted to tap into with my final piece. From my artist research, I learnt how even an old style of graphics could be revisited and remastered, so that I could do the same with the 80s retro video games style.
Visual Language
From the start of the project, I wanted to show a range of techniques and have the frames all contrast each other with the way they were made. Because of this, the main thing I focused on in my research was how each element of visual language affected the meaning of the overall piece. The first exploration I did in a digital workshop was how a lack of colour proved effective, which was mainly inspired again by Edward Hopper’s etching work. In this I produced one of the frames in a comic book style, but leaving behind the idea of any colour at all. Because of this, the frame was given a completely different meaning. It went from being dark and gloomy, due to the tones of blue it was covered in, to bold and threating, because of the monotone, bold, clean lines the frame was made up of. I then later produced two frames with this comic book style. The next style I did was the retro illustration style. In contrast to the comic style, this was much more brightly coloured, with more abstraction going into the frame. Then lastly, a rough brush style similar to that practiced in the 'Protagonist' workshop, was used in the most threatening frames (the two showing the antagonist pointing lasers towards the audience.) I didn't want to do a clean 2d illustration for this, because to an audience, this could be perceived as childish/comical, which is the opposite of what I wanted to portray.
Actions
Next term, I want to focus more on the process rather than the outcome of my project. I often prioritize how my final piece will look, over the how I make the process evident. As well as this, I want to explore more analogue processes. I realize I am more confident with digital work, but in this assignment I tried to mix the two, and in my opinion it gave the best outcomes out of my frames. This is why in future projects, I want to try going out of my comfort zone a bit more.
0 notes