SHAPE AND COLOUR
reference pic and line drawing: Didn't do a blind line contour this time but might try again with a different image doing a blind line contour. I find that I, especially when drawing myself want to make it look "pretty", but by doing a blind line contour I'm less attached to the end result being pretty. I think it's a really good exercise for me when working through these explorations so I'm not as concerned with the outcome, more so the experience.
I worked in a monochrome colour scheme starting this off so I could really focus on the shadows rather than messing around with colour right off the bat. Want to try again with a different colour scheme though (with the blind line contour).
I changed the original line to a calligraphy brush and Idk if I like it better, I spent so long, in the beginning, trying to find the right brush to use and I'm still not satisfied with the way the lines look... (why????? that's like the least important part). Anyways tried to work in more of the shadows that are around the eyes. Overall not entirely content with this, ready to restart and try again.
Restarted, this time with blind line contour drawings. I wanted to have a bit more of a narrative going on so I took this picture kinda illustrating the anxiety I feel towards the state of the world right now and then drew it on illustrator on my Ipad. One drawing (right) used the pencil tool which I didn't realize till I finished it would smooth out the lines as I drew them so I got this very weird effect that kinda makes me think of a robot from Futurama. The other drawing was using the paintbrush tool. Both look interesting and achieve my goal of not drawing something that is pretty and I think they convey the energy of anxiety which is what I wanted.
(I was not very diligent with taking process photos this time) In the first drawing I did (the pink one) I started with a base of the darkest layer and found it kind of difficult to do because I like to add shadows and highlights, so this time my base was the mid-tones and then I added the shadows and highlights over it. For both of these drawings, I tried to once again focus my colours in tones that would portray a mood of discomfort which I think the second one achieves more so, but I'm happy with both.
Went for a walk and tried to take some photos of different harsh/ sharp textures and some more soft textures
Took some different pics of paint textures I did and found
Started doing research about anxiety, perfectionism and colour through the library and google scholarly and found two that were interesting:
SENSING NOT SEEING: A DISRUPTION OF PERFECTIONISM:
This journal recounts a teacher explaining their way of doing blind line contour drawings to get the students to escape from perfectionism. The students would be blindfolded while they drew and instead of drawing from a reference, the teacher would give them prompts so they couldn't prepare in their head they just had to start drawing. The teacher recounts seeing the students very expressive body language while drawing and changing from one prompt to another. They also recount that the students were unable to see the drawings in between and just had to keep drawing completely taking away the process of reflection in which students could begin to feel self-doubt until the end of the exercise.
One big take away I took away was that the students were supposed to draw what they felt not what they know. For example one of the prompts was a storm where they would draw the intensity of the storm the teacher was explaining rather than drawing an image of the storm itself.
Smith, R. T. (2018). SENSING NOT SEEING: A DISRUPTION OF PERFECTIONISM. International Journal of Arts & Sciences, 11(1), 405. http://ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/sensing-not-seeing-disruption-perfectionism/docview/2168814543/se-2?accountid=13631
Anxiety and Color Saturation Preference:
This article talked about a study of people's relation to colour saturation and how that changed from person to person based on their anxiety. People who scored above the average (more anxious people) were more likely to have preferred less saturated colours, which the article attributed to being a less disruptive of colour and associated this with people wanting to blend in, whereas people scoring below the average were more likely to choose more saturated colours.
Ireland, S. R., Warren, Y. M., & Herringer, L. G. (1992). Anxiety and color saturation preference. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 75(2), 545-546. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1992.75.2.545
I experimented with doing the blindfolded blind line contour drawings on one page while thinking about anxiety and what brings me anxiety and making that into a texture for my drawings (I did one in black then grabbed another colour and did more in red). I also want to juxtapose my blind line contour drawing with more saturated intrusive colours and my other drawing with less saturated calmer colours.
Took the images into photoshop and started editing the colours of them so they're more interesting textures. also invented them a bunch so it would start to corrupt the colours in some spots.
Drawings using the blind line contour drawings
Messed around in photoshop with the other textures to bring more colour and more contrast.
Working with the softer textures.
Mixing the textures from the photos and the blind line contour drawings.
I want to arrange the two images together in a way but I'll have to work on it a bit more and I want to either find or create a texture for the background that goes from on sharp side to a soft side or something of that nature.
Question: Can I make a background digitally? (I was thinking of using repeated lines like in the last exploration to make that effect like below)
I'm very lost with this background.
Worked with this image of paint swatches and the drawings to try and create something. Didn't work the way I wanted to.
trying a similar thing with different images
I tried with just one cause I couldn't get the background with the two.
Went back to working with both, I like the two on the right the best.
Still not happy with it the background so I went back and tried to make a pattern that went from sharp to smooth
Working with the background but not entirely happy with it.
Tried using it as a clipping mask
Simplified it without the clipping mask and the white lines.
This is supposed to be shape and colour but I feel like I'm using too much line.
I felt lost with the other image I wasn't entirely happy with the pieces and I really liked this blind line contour drawing especially cause it connected to the academic resource so I wanted to use it. I went back to just the one image to really lean into the anxiety aspect of the drawing. The image on the right will be the final.
