PROJECT TWO.
Drawing Challenge
Initial ideas
-shoes
-scissors
-fruit
-temporary things: fruits, bread
-flowers
-plants
Questions / Concerns
What is drawing?
How am I going to portray something?
How serious or not serious am I going to be?
How big?
What?
Where?
How???
Inspiration / Brainstorming
Alice in Wonderland
The weekend before starting the drawing challenge, I was able to watch Alice in Wonderland. This film has always been one of my favorite films as a child because of the art style, creativity, story, and uniqueness. And now as an adult looking back at this film there are so many inspirational moments that have influenced me and make me curious to this day.
I loved how the first Alice in Wonderland directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske has a completely different art style and vision to the movie. And I think that's when I decided that I wanted to be more child-like and try things and have fun with my art.
I decided that I wanted to do something pertaining to things being painted and something that is temporary. Flowers.
I wanted to do something to do with flowers, but I did not want to directly copy the same thing as Alice in Wonderland.
work in progress
piece one
I wasn't sure what to do, I knew that I wanted to paint the flowers, but I didn't really have a reason other than that I wanted too. It was simple, it was fun, and I enjoyed the process.
As I began painting more and more I realised that the flower was dying faster. And that's when it hit me, I was going to observe the slow death of this flower and showcase that everything in temporary, but the color is the only thing that will last. Although it is dead, and there is no color in its leaves, the paint will still remain.
This goes off my idea of things being temporary.
The flowers were beautiful,
but they were fleeting.
It did not last.
And soon they died.
Like everything else
And all that was left was the color that I put on them.
piece two
I made this second piece after mixing the blue with some yellow that I had left over.
It started off as trying to getting paint off my brushes, but then ended with me playing off the fact that we take everything seriously and I made a large palette.
piece three
This piece was purely experimentation.
It had been a long week. I had just finished 50 pieces for my senior seminar class and I was drained to the bone artistically.
To be honest, I feel like I still have no recovered from that. I love making artwork, but when I'm forced to do things, I realise that I get drained more quickly.
So Nathan gave me a sheet of plastic and a permanent marker and told me to "have at it". I can say that this is the first time ever I've ever done something this non-planned. But I noticed that I thrive in spontaneous environments I really enjoy just doing this for the heck of it.
I first started off jumping around and tracing my feet, but then realised the jumping was like hopscotch. So I made a hopscotch out of tape and painted my feet and wet nuts. And it was fun! I enjoyed making this type of art. And it reminded me to have some fun and to experiment a bit.
piece four
I'm not really sure.
While doing this piece I just painted whatever I felt inclined to paint. If this one area was black, I painted it green. There was no rhyme or reason. But I enjoyed that process because it allowed me to have fun in what I was doing and to just try new things and create.
I also wanted to see how little I needed to add to make something my own piece.
piece five
This piece was simple.
I knew I wanted to do something with drawing, and lines, but I didn't want to paint or use any traditional ways of drawing. So I found some string and decided that I wanted to have the string trace everywhere that I went in the room.
Reflection
This project was different for me.
I wasn't anxious trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to do. I more so let the process take over my time then I figured out what I wanted to do. And I appreciated that time to just let go and do something. This reminded me of 3D sculptural explorations when we had a 2 x 4 and just did one thing to it. I just let the process take over and I guess the outcome came about.
I just did artwork, I wasn't in control. I let myself get carried away in the process and it was fun for once. I didn't think too seriously, I wasn't caring about what other people thought, I just enjoyed myself and art. And isn't that what it is all about?
All in all, this project was fun. And I'm glad that I was able to try something new and feel like a kid again. With all the work that we have in college, I've always felt this pressure to perform and to be perfect. And it was nice to just let go and not be in control completely.