Illustration is storytelling Responses

In Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli’s fantastic artwork not only reflected his extraordinary illustration skills but also his storytelling skills. The story is very interesting to read, with layers of set ups, going back and forth into Asterios memories and real life, showing his conflicts in life in a very unique way. However, what makes this book more than just a story was the breathtaking illustration that helps to tell the story. For example the part when Asterios found a Blister on his foot, the whole page is empty except him looking at his feet, but when he look up, it brings the reader into different worlds. From when things goes wrong with his wife, to his current situation, then to his memory when everything was ok. A simple action and brings us into different part of the story timeline. And the way he use the font for each characters sentences, even the shapes of the speech bubble are character based. Along with the progression of the story, the color of each character gradual changes. The main character Asterios changes from blue to purple, because it mixed with the pink of his wife. The color is also telling the story, which his life is influenced by his wife. Illustration are a very unique way of telling a story, nothing else can compare to it, unlike film or books, artist tell story through composition, color, shape, and style etc.

Storytelling always have been a huge part of my art career. As a computer animation student, we are trained to be storytellers. We tell story through characters’ behavior, action and emotions. Skills wises we learn to make storyboards for animated film, learn about how to transfer a written story on paper into animated images and films. For storyboarding, we have to learn about directing, camera langrage, editing, composition, drawings and most importantly we have to coming up with creative original ideas. It is the most interesting part of the animation production progress, however it is also the hardest. I am still learning to be a better storyteller, and I wish one day I can come up with my own memorable story.

Woman Waiting to Take a Photograph response

In the short essay by David Eggers, the author’s perspective on the woman photographer is very poignant. The vignette take place when the woman just got off work from her book publishing company, she is sitting in a car at a poor neighborhood, trying to catch some trenchant pictures about underclass people. The text distinctively implied that, photographers sometime take very little time to get to know the subject they choose to take the photograph with. The author uses “for hypocrisy and the exploitation of the underclass”, to show that the woman instead of getting to know what is really happening in the underclass people’s life, she comes to the place far across the street, and shoot picture from a distance. Pretending she have a good eye for the injustice of life. The word “Go-Gatters” show up a few times in this short text, first it introduced us the place where she choose to take pictures. The author told us how she feels about the name, “ finds it interesting, “because it is clear that the customers of the market are anything but”.  In the last time “Go-Getters” appears is when the author sarcastically tells us how people will see her artworks. The final sentence to me feels like the most interesting sentence of the whole essay. The final sentence put the whole essay into one whole piece,  it indicates how the author feels about the hypocritical behavior of the woman photographer.  The new idea on the last sentence surprise me, of how the author sees the artwork from his point of view. I think what the author trying to say was that, artist should really get to know their art subject, not from a distance, but from close up. Knowing and feeling the subject is the only way to not be hypocritical about the work you make.