Drawing Challenges

In this assignment we were supposed to explore surfaces, action, and the location of each item we created or altered.

For my first project I decided to "draw" on my fan using acrylic paint. I thought to myself about the object, what is was supposed to do, and decided to paint something cold onto it. I may have been a bit hungry while reflecting, I have to admit. But all I could think about cold ice cream, and how when I was little I would beg my mom and grandma for popsicles, ice cream bars, and trips to Baskin Robins when the weather got unbearably hot. I figured, that maybe if I painted ice cream on my fan, not only the wind it produced would help me to cool off, but maybe the ice cream I painted on top of it would trick me into thinking it had extra cooling powers. I altered the surface with painting ice cream on it, therefore it added to its contextual value as an item that is supposed to cool people.

For my second project, I picked material, process and theme. Similar to the first project, except I didn't necessarily need to transform another object. For my material I chose chalk; I really wanted to do something childlike outside of my apartment building. I chose to use a stencil of my flip flop for the process: guiding the chalk around each shoe, and moving it a step forward on the walkway once i was done. My theme/concept for this piece was history. Before I begun stenciling, I thought about how many people had lived in my apartment before me, and then I though about how many people must have walked on the very sidewalk I pass everyday. Maybe someone important? Maybe a regular everyday person like myself? Who know, maybe even a little kid took sidewalk chalk just like me and drew a ton of cool doodles. If a slab of pavement could tell about the number of people that walked on it and drew on it, amongst other things, all I'm saying is that, I'd be interested in its history.

For my third project, I made a little cat. For my materials I chose tape (a media that until now has been very foreign to me). My process was sketching out a shape, laying the tape done around the shape, and then taking an exacto knife and cutting the extra tape away from the shape while the paper was over some sort of light source (so I could see my original outline). Then I outlined it with one of my copic liners. My theme was animals. I would love to go into more about how I came up with my theme, but honestly I've got nothing. I connected way more with the learning process of how to cut tape and actually make it into the shape I wanted.

For my fourth project, I created the human figure using a reference of one of my figure drawings drawn in charcoal. For my materials I chose ink and tracing paper. My process was basically me tracing my previous work over and over again three times, until I got a piece I liked. I particularly liked this once compositionally out of the few other mess ups that I experimented with. My theme for this project was body positivity. Over this summer I had really struggled with my body image, and after thinking of ideas to do for senior project, I had pulled out some of my old figure drawings. All of these drawings reminded me of a particular chubby model, who held herself like a greek goddess. She was the sweetest most dynamic woman I had ever met, and she was so comfortable with her curves. Just being able to go over and think about what I learned from this women made me so incredibly happy, and it made me confident in my own body again.

Lat but not least, we have here project number five, some earring leaves. My personal favorite of the pieces. For my materials I used thing wire. I had bent, twisted, and wound all the wire together to try and make aesthetic shapes of leaves. For this theme I chose nature. Although the material didn't connect at all with the concept of nature, I though more and more about the materials we take from our planet, and make them into something aesthetic for our homes; most time resembling plants and other things that are pleasing to our eyes. This isn't always a bad thing unless we do it extensively and without care. But I just thought it was really interesting that even in non-nature type items, nature still comes through and captures our attention, regardless of the media.