I've noticed bloggers posting "Illustration Friday" art, but I didn't know who generated the themes. I never looked into it until I enjoyed having an assignment of sorts from Art Sparker (yesterday's "Books").
The prompts come from Illustration Friday dot com, "a weekly creative outlet/participatory art exhibit for illustrators and artists of all skill levels." (Doesn't seem to include writing or film.)
This week's theme was "Wilderness."
So, back to the lake I went, to try again to film those evocative cross-country ski tracks.
I keep thinking I'll create some beautiful abstract film.
But meaning and story will keep insinuating themselves.
Ansel Adams says there are always at least two people in every photograph:
the photographer and the viewer.
I'd add a third:
that person who wanders into the scene or comes up and asks, "What are you doing?"
Usually The Third Person gets cut out, but here I left him in. (Oh, it may not be clear--I am lying flat out, face down to film this.)
Wilderness; Or Not (48 sec.)
II. The Only Purity Is Death
And, because we've been discussing Romanticism, I poked a bit of fun at Mahler's Symphony no. 5. (I know it from the opening of Visconti's film of Death in Venice.)
Romanticism is great stuff, but it always cuts out that third person who ruins the Purity. Artistically this is OK, if a little limited; politically, the search for purity becomes deadly.
I'm not a Romantic.
Much as I may love some of it--and I do love this Mahler symphony--I always see the Monty Python side of things running alongside.
III. Paint By NumbersEditing this flick this morning, I was influenced by A Single Man, which I saw last night. Colin Firth was terrific; but director Tom Ford, the fashion designer, was a little heavy handed. At first the movie is beautiful, but it becomes a pastiche of Calvin Klein ads and Fellini films.
One of Ford's tricks is to shift the hues to signal emotional connection. Effective the first couple times, but after that it became schmaltzy.
So, for fun I gave my opening scene a little rosy tone too.
