For my third project, I will be looking at methods I can use to show the passing of time within one frame, and using different techniques to create perspectives. Below are some photos of my experimentation with one point perspective, two point perspective, and an experimentation of how objects change in texture, edge quality, saturation, and tone, with distance:
My final piece will be based on the short story below, which I wrote using inspiration from old Chinese myths and legends about a dragon that carved out the mountains from the land, how the Great Wall of China is actually a dragon protecting the land and the workers who built that wall died in labour and were buried under its bricks.
“A mighty power and a mighty protector, he digs his scales into the surface and drags his body across, thrusting upwards and downwards, carving out the contours of the mountainous land. His claws dig in to the surface – a statement of his relentless pursuit to fight and protect his land and his people, including the bodies of those who rest under him after laborious lives of helping him fasten himself into their land. Bearing his teeth, he lets out a formidable roar, a challenge. Enemy warriors run towards him. Arrows are fired at him, but none are strong enough to penetrate his maroon armour. Each warrior is quickly torn down. Nothing and no one can match his strength. With patriotic dedication, he continues to fight and protect. The plains in front of him are scattered with the bodies of enemy warriors, while his own land is left safe and untouched. Beaming with warmth in the cold, misty air, the dragon waits, ready to protect the land he built from scratch.”
After writing the story, I made a few thumbnails to experiment with compositions that could suggest the movement through time, and once I chose the composition I liked, I drew out a few more drafts trying to improve the shape of the dragon.
Below is an image of my final piece in which time is moving from the background to the foreground, showing the events coming towards the viewer in a chronological order. I gave the dragon and architectural quality by adding watch towers and bricks for scales to emphasise the allusion to the Great Wall, and also incorporated aspects of Chinese art such as the fading mountains and the swirly clouds. The white frame adds emphasis to the idea of the dragon moving through time as it appears to be escaping from the frame.
