Working Towards the Show

As my show is fast approaching, I’m working really hard on balancing keeping my grades up in my other classes, my internship, my job at Subway (which I might be quitting soon), and illustrating In the Garden. My uncertainty about my work is definitely showing, and I really don’t think any of the pieces I’ve been working on are fit to be in my thesis. My body of work is due on April 12th, and it needs to be finished to be framed/mounted/prepared for the show in some way.

Helen had suggested using my diaries as a jumping point for some larger, more “fine arts” pieces for my show. I really like that idea, but I just don’t know how to translate what I doodle in 40 minutes about my day into a larger format. Liz had suggested I plan my compositions out a little more than I have been (which has previously been not at all), and that by planning out my space, my pieces will be more successful. Audrey had mentioned really liking areas where I had put more detail. The moral of all this is that I’m going to do some brainstorming tomorrow as to what I can do about this show.

I was really motivated after critique so I went out and bought a bunch of parchment to draw on. Then, I went on a nature excursion and lost my motivation in the gorgeous weather! Here’s a gem for you all:

I’m an effin’ buttafly!

Good Lord, it was gorgeous that day! Saw a fawn, some deer, some bears, walked around an entire forest preserve. Visited with a good friend and vented/reconnected, and took a few photographs while I was at it. Oh, and there was an insanely tall/fast slide in the nature. Yes, I went down it.

Besides that, here’s some pictures of the things I have been working on the past week or so:

I tried to draw from life, but his eyes look crossed and it’s a generally bad composition and a somewhat failed attempt at a narrative. I think I am also trying too hard at applying the ideas they throw at me during critique. By the way, his shoulder is dislocated. It wasn’t like that in real life. This is one of those pieces that thumbnails would have helped me out exponentially!

Here is another one of my narrative-type pieces. I ended up adding a field/farm background to it. I really like the girl in the foreground, the colored one, but not much else in the composition.

Following, the cloud factory. The cumulus variety are currently being produced! Love love what I have right here and in the next few pictures, but then I added a face in the corner.. and I don’t know why. It was like I was telling myself to stop the whole time I was drawing it. It looks really forced and bad; it is completely out of place and ugh, I’m just so angry I put it in just to have the possibility of fitting it within a theme of my show. So, so angry!

Liz offered a really helpful piece of advice: when you draw, you are creating a world, and in that world, it may defy regular, worldly rules, but in turn it creates it’s own set of rules. And I just have to make sure to stay true to the rules that I create. Using that little tidbit to evaluate what I am doing during my creative process might help.

This is before it was annihalated. Maybe that was a little over dramatic, but I’m not hitting that backspace button.

Oh yes! Bird book (strap bound) before I added the cover to it! I wat to reprint it on different paper and give it a second shot. I really loved it, but the paper was so soft it kept ripping while I sewed it. Talk about depressing!

Though I’m not entirely satisfied with my critique, they always offer me a lot of insight, and it’s always so so helpful. I feel like I m just one step away from making my artistic and conceptual break-through, and once I do, it will be MAGICAL!

Until then, I’m finishing my Crittenton illustrations for Monday, and I have some poster design campaigns to post in a separate  blog to show what’s been up concerning my design! What do you all think about the direction I’m heading in? Have you guys ever been real confused/art-blocked, and what’d you do to escape that feeling?! I just need to bust down my barriers, I don’t know what it’s blocking me from, but it’s something great!

Hope everyone has a great Sunday!

-Alyssa Lee