The first part of my project was a sculpture of a pencil coming out of a flower pot like a plant. During the critique, I realized that the message I wanted to transmit wasn’t directly understood by the viewers — the sculpture was too static. The aspect of growth I wanted to focus on was ambiguous. In addition, the pencil wasn’t very recognizable and wasn’t depicting very well art. I was told in the critique that I should focus on shadows and make this aspect of growth clearer.
Therefore, the first idea that came into my mind was to make an animation as I could clearly depict through it the motion in growth. And by reconsidering what was told to me during the critique, I decided to represent the shadow of a growing plant. Working with shadows made me also think of the mysterious person Ieva is. Furthermore, this switching of medium was quite challenging as it was hard to find a way of representing Ieva’s passion for art. I first thought of keeping my huge pencil made out of clay and place it in front of the shadow itself. However, I was advised not to do so, as it could confuse the viewers –this is what happened with my previous project (derive). Consequently, I thought of Ieva producing art, which lead me to represent her own hand holding a paintbrush. My purpose of projecting the animation from such a distance was to make the shadow look huge, as a reminder of Ieva being tall and the great size of her artworks.
Finally, if I had to make this animation even better, I would have as suggested added more colors to the paintbrush and make it invade the whole white background. I would have also made the roots grow a little more. Not to forget, I enjoyed the making of this project as I got the chance to know better my peer but also experiment a new medium: animation.
