Final Blog

I have thoroughly experimented through the second half of the semester. I had to make do with what I had available in my home, which was very limited. I am pleasantly surprised to say that I have enjoyed this process, including the uncertainty that was present. This piece is purely composed of ashes and burnt wood chips from my fireplace on 18 x 24 drawing paper.

In the first half of the semester, I was focused on portraying vulnerability. I believe my current work has shifted more so onto highlighting the feeling of disorientation. Disorientation: the condition of having lost one's sense of direction; a state of mental confusion. There were weeks of the semester that I was anxious, hesitant, and quite frankly hopeless.

I tried to embrace these feelings. Beautiful things can be created in the darkest times. The process of making these ash artworks is physical. I control how fast or slow my hand moves, how hard or soft I press, etc, but the piece sort of composes itself. I have made quite a few of these in the past few weeks and each piece is unique although the technique has remained the same.

The act of breaking the wood chips down and aggressively smearing them is almost a release of emotion for me. I appreciate the fact that these are organic materials as well because expressing emotions is real, raw, and unpredictable.

With this piece, I tried to combine the dripping technique I was using prior to Spring Break with the ash. It was one last experimentation that I wanted to try.

These are some of the early ash/wood pieces that I made. They are on computer paper, a much smaller scale than my final projects on the 18 x 24 paper. I appreciate these beginner works because they ignited a spark again. I actually enjoyed what I was making, and I was proud of them.

I also tried experimenting with eye shadow. These are a few of the pieces I was able to make. I am fond of the colors but I don't believe they capture the same depth/emotion that the ash works provide. I learned that the pigment was more vibrant when I sprayed the paper with water.

This was the first work I made after Spring Break. I used eyeshadow on computer paper. I thought it slightly resembled a water color piece. I had a small piece of un-stretched canvas from class so I applied different color eyeshadow to this. I wanted to experiment with how the eyeshadow would interact on the different mediums.

I moved on to trying acrylic paints. The colors were not ideal, but I wanted to experiment with the technique. I took the tubes of acrylic paint and splattered them onto the canvas. I think it has a more aggressive feeling than the other two. The piece in the middle was made by propping the canvas upright and letting the paint drip down. I particularly like this piece. Lastly, I tried using charcoal on drawing paper.

I began working on these more abstract pieces with different material. The one of the left is composed of melted paint and honey on a small canvas. The work on the right is melted crayons. They were able to capture the authentic melting/dripping process that I just wasn't able to produce through my sketches.

After completing many of these sketches, my concept and the work just wasn't aligning the way I had hoped. During midterm critique, my classmates and Professor Hagan suggested doing more abstract work to capture these vulnerable emotions I was trying to portray.

My beginning sketches. This project began with an idea of doing a self portrait with melting eyes. It has transformed into something that I am proud of. I believe I was able to portray my psychological state much more efficiently through the more abstract dripping and ash pieces.