The focus of my project is representing water in the sense of its historic significance in some way.
I began by using a river that’s close to me the Huatoki River, and started thinking about ideas in what I feel strongly represents it the first ideas that came to mind was from an event that had recently happened in New Plymouth; The Get-Up festival an event in which a bunch of local graffiti artists come together and create artworks in the sense of street murals at the Hutatoki Plaza, Under the Huatoki bridge and some among other areas.
Many of those days were quite wet and windy, one of those days I happened to be filming the artists under the Huatoki Bridge where the river was flowing strong and the artists were battling against the wind and current, I found that to be very empowering and inspirational.
on the final day the Get-Up festival had band play, one of the members (a bit intoxicated) decided to hop into the stream and try and interact with the eel’s that live amongst the water it drew quite a crowd. I feel that the Eel is quite an importance to the Huatoki River as it’s something that draws quite a crowd and often many conversations.
To me It’s something that somewhat represents the flow of the river and the river itself.
The few concepts that I am about to show go into these details.
I began by thinking of an animation one that drew inspiration from under the Huatoki bridge; I created a quick mock-up test, the idea was to have a very painterly look that represented strong gusts with fast rapid moving waves. I would then go on to paint each wave.
it didn't take long before i decided to go against that, as I wanted to focus more on a narrative that has strong visual details rather than an animation which would be within motion.
Many of those days were quite wet and windy, one of those days I happened to be filming the artists under the Huatoki Bridge where the river was flowing strong and the artists were battling against the wind and current, I found that to be very empowering and inspirational.
on the final day the Get-Up festival had band play, one of the members (a bit intoxicated) decided to hop into the stream and try and interact with the eel’s that live amongst the water it drew quite a crowd. I feel that the Eel is quite an importance to the Huatoki River as it’s something that draws quite a crowd and often many conversations.
To me It’s something that somewhat represents the flow of the river and the river itself.
The few concepts that I am about to show go into these details.
I began by thinking of an animation one that drew inspiration from under the Huatoki bridge; I created a quick mock-up test, the idea was to have a very painterly look that represented strong gusts with fast rapid moving waves. I would then go on to paint each wave.
it didn't take long before i decided to go against that, as I wanted to focus more on a narrative that has strong visual details rather than an animation which would be within motion.
i began looking into more of the history of the Huatoki river and discovered an article talking about a large flood that happened in 1971, with water rises sometimes up to the height of parking meters it left quite an impact on New Plymouth and the sounding areas. from this i began to implement more elements, telling a story with the top panel being a flood, the 2nd panel being under the bridge and the third being below which would have a giant Eel within the Huatoki stream. after a few weeks working on this i lost my perspective of it, it became muddled within nonsensical elements. i certainly wasn't enjoying the direction so once more i left it and started something new.
the next experiment lead me to researching the word Huatoki... i was curious what does it mean? after a bit of searching i came across an article " The Maori word "Huatoki" can be translated in a number of ways. Some suggest that a literal translation of "many or plentiful adzes" could refer to the availability of suitable stones for adzes in the stream. Alternatively others suggest it is a corruption of Hua Ttoki referring to the many Titoki trees that are abundant in the valley."
the next experiment lead me to researching the word Huatoki... i was curious what does it mean? after a bit of searching i came across an article " The Maori word "Huatoki" can be translated in a number of ways. Some suggest that a literal translation of "many or plentiful adzes" could refer to the availability of suitable stones for adzes in the stream. Alternatively others suggest it is a corruption of Hua Ttoki referring to the many Titoki trees that are abundant in the valley."
i took this and began working on a new piece once more attempting to change the format i decided to record the process of creating the artwork, the artwork was to integrate an Eel, the Titoki Trees and the many stones that surround the stream to bring familiarity to the spectators, this is as far as i have come in the process. once more, i have decided to again begin a new piece abet more structured and thought out as far as the visuals go, a more structured streamlined piece in the sense that every element will have a reasoning for it's placement.
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