… and layering.
This week started with creating a story and turn it into a cartoon strip, using always our word / object.
Of course, having GLASS as a word I went for the easiest option story-wise since I knew that my main problem is the drawing. Hence, I tried to draw a glass being poured into and then drank.
I wasn’t 100% happy, especially when I started using the pen, after a very quick sketch in pencil. I tried to give it some kind of depth, but I was realizing I was going nowhere. I tried to follow the suggestion from the tutor, but I found that it became too full and too dark, and the story got lost. So, I did it again, adding the bottle on the sing, and that touch of red as the lipstick to emphasize that it is a woman, drinking. Also, I added some very fine shading with a light grey fine liner. The last attempt made me happier!
So, this was Monday, and the following day, at FINE ART 02, we worked with colours and learned how to add layers. I don’t know if you remember when I was writing in another post how I wasn’t happy when working with pastels, but this time it felt different, especially when using them on top of Sharpies, and in learning how colours change either when next to others, or on top of another.
So, I then went back to my glass, and tried some experiments with sharpies, colour ideas and finally the objects:
Still, even if I enjoyed thinking outside of the box, deconstruct the idea of the glass, and also playing with colours, I feel that I personally absolutely love when I was drawing very fine lines that turned out almost the skyline of a city. I feel that my hand and my heart are somewhat connected and have a life of their own in which I am barely invited.
Don’t get me wrong: I know I still have everything to learn. But for me, going from nothing to that, in two weeks, fills me with pride ♥
Also, I have noticed how when playing with colours within the squares, I connected to a memory of some clothes and bags my mother and grandmother used to wear when I was a little girl, by Roberta di Camerino, a designer from Venice. So, I have been thinking about using some of the patterns and the colours when I will do the textile pathway (maybe, because I am not so sure; but I like the idea that my brain automatically goes into creative-mode).
What we did after the experimenting, we took a strip our of our cartoon exercise of the previous day, really deconstructing the image and the object, and played with what came out. In the following series of pictures you can see how I have chosen the strip, replicated onto paper and then played with the spaces and the lines; adding shading, mediums, colours and just purely going to explore.
Again, the simple black and white one at the top is still my favourite. I like how it plays with space, how simple and neat it is and elegant at the same time. I like the one at the bottom, also, because once we turn it into vertical, it reminded me of a fish in the sea, with the waves and sky and the sun and I played with that. The tutor, wanted me to explore even further, to use more layers and more colours and somehow to really push my boundaries.
So, here is the final product: I went even further into deconstructing my strip of glasses, played with colour and then using watercolours to add some “ideas of poppies”. I wasn’t keen on it, but the more I look at it now, the more I understand what the tutor meant into adding layers, in the act of creation in itself:
SELF•REFL: I have asked the tutor if he notices any change. He said that he can see that my hand has changed from the previous session. The marks I leave are different and varied within the same page. I am happy but shattered. Emotionally drained and I feel I am holding on to something that I don’t know where it will take me. I don’t know if I am good, or good enough; if there is something that is worth working on, or nothing. I don’t feel in a good place.
Matilde Tomat 