Introduction

The multi-layered art project required creating a scenery that depicted a part of the world from our World Building project. Once the scenery was finalized, we had to create 10 layers using Illustrator, layers from closest to the furthest in depth, that would create fantasy into the world.

Multi-layered Light Box

Layering forced me to think differently to create an aesthetic world. I put in a little garden in the front, a bridge, then a castle, and some mountains in the background, framed by some tree branches in the foreground. Some portions of the scenery can be chunked out, such as the castle, but even a castle can be sectioned into the top layer, middle layer, back layer. Using a laser cutting, each of the layers were cut on separate thick sheets of paper which I assembled using glue and spacers. The best part of the project was turning on the LED strip lights at the end and admiring what was created.

After Effects 3D video

I used Adobe Illustrator to color the digital layers of my light box. Then I took the Illustrator layers and put them into an After Effects file. In After Effects I worked in 3D space to create a video demonstrating the depth and perspective of my digital layer art and how all the layers work together to create one image.

Artist Statement & Reflection

Initially my fictional story was imagined to be within a dystopian world where buildings are crumbling and no vegetation exists. But as I started brainstorming the Multi-Layered project, I could not help creating a beautiful castle where a prince and a princess live. My childhood fantasies almost always included princesses. I thought, and negotiated that the futuristic world, though not initially conceptualized as such, can still be a peaceful, fantasy world. My world is where all the prisoners are brainwashed, or rather, memories erased, so that they can now live peaceful lives outside prisons. So it does make sense to create a fantasy world for the ex-cons who are now completely reformed. I used pastel colors in the After Effects 3D video to continue the idea of a fantasy.