5 Works Reflection

I started this project with the hopes of expressing the many feelings present while being on camapus. I decided to work more in charcoal and oil pastel because I liked the abstraction I saw in the 20 works project. I liked depicting landscapes in that way. The abstraction creates a distortion that makes the scene seem disorientating. It is disorientating to start something new! To move back on to campus, start a new year, and navigate friendships, schoolwork, and the future. Adding to the disorientation are the collaged papers of differing texture and color. These create frames within the scene, as well as a sense of pushing and pulling the viewer in and out. The scenes of campus bring the viewer to associate these feelings of confusion with being in this environment, even if they cannot distinguish that it is campus. 

Something I noticed more in this project than the 20 works project is that the day I had impacted the mood of the drawing. Displayed below are the individual drawings in order of creation. I think you could tell that in Eye, I was feeling a bit lonely, but calm. Colors are muted, the sky is gray, and your focus is on a single chair. While drawing Guidance, I picked the photo of three statues starting along a path. That day, I felt like I needed to speak with my friends and get their advice and opinions. It seems to be the most roughly drawn, uncertain, and all over the place drawing. It is with this one that I incorperated large colored areas and etching patterns. Before drawing Impact, I had a really good day. I felt recharged and optimistic, like I was excited to enter into a new season. This is interesting to me, because like I said in my weekly reflection (under the general link for Studio Practice), I took the reference photo with the aim of it being more about the figure punching and the anger or frustration that caused it. Here, it is more about change because of the colors used, as well as the figure facing the brighter areas and turning their back to the darker. Company seems comforting, and as the name suggests is about being around others. The areas of light and dark, guided by the collaged paper, provide focus areas that feel "safer." Finally, with the last one, I was tired. Up is about next steps: with the elevator, diagonal placing of the collage, and a bright top right corner. The darker colors and blendedness of material show my tired feeling, almost like stopping halfway up a flight of stairs to catch a breath. 

I liked hanging these and displaying them together. I decided to put Eye in the middle because of the centered composition. It would not look right on the sides. In the middle, it is balanced. The others were placed around it so that Up continues its diagonal to the middle and up through Guidance, Company's zig zag composition keeps the top corner from being dull, and the statue in Impact is acting and facing towards the middle. 

Naming was a little hard. I tried to keep them all to one word, going through multiple names for a few pieces. Eye is interesting, as an eye of a hurricane, the eye of the person viewing the drawing, and "I." These refer to calm but also to solitude. Guidance brights the viewers attention to the path upward and to the idea of the statues as characters. Impact refers to both physical energy (punching the wall) but also the impact that a good day has on outlook. Company does the same thing as Guidance, where the chairs are personified to be people. This name also invokes the safe feeling you get when you are with good company. Up emphasizes the composition as well as the meaning, "Where do we go from here?"