"WORDS"

My word for this piece was “abstinence” and after talking with one of my friends about how they had just pulled an all nighter I decided I wanted to do a piece about someone abstaining from sleep. The background is a starry sky to show that it’s nighttime. I blended in bright colors that you don’t see naturally in the night sky since my perception of the world always changes when I’m sleep deprived. The character is looking down, either still on their computer or dozing off for a second. The light from their laptop is streaky and plastic because looking at a screen while exhausted is rarely pleasant and I wanted to contrast the rest of the piece. In general I wanted the night behind the character to be more beautiful and tempting than the light keeping the character up since they are abstaining from something they fundamentally need.

My word for this prompt was “quagmire,” which is “a boggy area of land that gives way underfoot.” I immediately knew that I wanted to incorporate a human element into the piece, and decided to take the route of a Mother Nature-type figure. In the painting, she is green and holding piles of soil in each hand, inspecting it. I purposefully neglected to make a lot of the lines clean, because I wanted a kind of earthy feel to both the dirt and the woman herself. Overall, I am happy with the piece as a painting on its own, but I think I could have done something more creative for this prompt. I feel like I didn’t really stretch my imagination or ability, but in the end, I am happy with how the painting turned out. I used acrylic paint on paper.

When I received the word “orthodox”, my mind went directly to the traditional definition of following a religion directly according to how it is supposed to be followed. I decided to use the image of nuns in reference to Catholicism, as in my life the subject of orthodoxy and Catholics had been a frequent subject. I wanted to embody not only the positives of being an orthodox follower of religion but also the negatives. So I decided the best course of action would be to paint in grayscale as a reference not only to both the good and bad of orthodox religion but also as a reference to how strictly people follow the religion without accepting any outside jurisdiction. The fingerprints and the hands of the center nun pointed towards the top of the page symbolize reaching up towards God as if asking for salvation and an answer. However, the center nun is looking towards the viewer with white eyes and a black, scornful look on her face, representing how she is still tied to the mortal plain but perceives herself to have become something holier than the viewer of the painting. The nuns on either side of the center nun have their faces hidden by the large gothic crosses they are depicted holding, showing that people who strictly follow a religion such as Catholicism see nothing outside of the rules of their religion. I chose to paint gothic crosses as many churches, including the Notre Dame, are built in the gothic architecture style. Their right hands are holding up two fingers towards the center nun. I wanted to do this to symbolize the center nun seemingly having a holier presence than the side nuns, but also as a reference to how many paintings and depictions of Jesus Christ and other holy beings show them holding up two fingers. Lastly, I smudged incense ash around the nuns as a reference to how Catholic Churches use incense to symbolize a prayer successfully reaching heaven. This is a style of art that I am not used to doing on a regular basis color-wise. In fact, I had never drawn a nun until this painting, let alone three. But I enjoyed it immensely and will probably be attempting more paintings like this in the near future.

For this piece, I was assigned the word “apparition”. The word apparition is defined as a supernatural appearance, such as a ghost or phantom. In this piece, I chose to portray the literal definition of an apparition, as is shown lurk lurking outside the window. To me, the word apparition invokes a sense of gloom and dread, which I tried to convey throughout this piece through the use of monochromatic scales of dark grays and browns. The girl sitting on the bed is meant to symbolize a feeling of unexplainable dread, as she is sitting on the bed facing away from the apparition in the window and may not know that it is actually there, but is still sitting with her face buried in her hands: perhaps experiencing the sensation of feeling watched. To evoke the feeling of apprehension that I wanted this piece to convey, I focused the majority of the details in the piece on the girl and her bed, and the apparition and the window; I did this in attempts to convey the sensation that one might experience when in a moment of fear, where everything else seems to fall away and become unimportant and the only things that matter are yourself and whatever is causing the fear. I used size for this same purpose; through the disproportion between the small size of the girl and the bed to the magnitude of the apparition and the window, signifying the feeling of being small and insignificant when faced with something threatening.

Perdition: A state of eternal punishment and damnation into which a sinful and impenitent person passes after death; hell. An idea that has been planted into the minds of many people, whose lives were lived under the fear of this idea. I pondered my interpretation, and considered the religious perspective of the word. A stereotypical image of hell on flames, demons with pitchforks, horns, and tails, and thousands of sinners drowning in their agony. However, because I personally do not believe in this traditional form of hell, I took a unique approach with the underlying idea being on how hell can exist during the course of one’s life on earth. Alike C.S. Lewis’s interpretation of hell, in his novel The Great Divorce, I believe that those who are stuck in a state of eternal punishment are kept there by their own attachments, addictions, obsessions, resentments, and principles. In this piece, the hands extended towards the subject represent these haunting memories, habits, fears, or regrets that follow a person around during their lifetime, leading them to their personalized state of hell. The subject, a woman, appears to be in intense pain and misery reaching out with her arm in despair. The hands behind her are grabbing for her in any way possible: pulling her hair, choking her, and holding her back from a feeling and place of heaven epitomized by the white. The piece was drawn using pencils in the shades 2H, HB, 2B, to create a smudgy, blurry yet alarming feeling to the piece. The achromatic color scheme also adds to the serious tone of the piece. The process was challenging because I restrained myself from using any reference photos, and stuck to drawing from observation of my own hands and face (using a mirror). Nevertheless, this project has familiarized me with the human anatomy of a face and how to portray distinct facial expressions in portraits, has taught me how to draw a variety of angles and models of the human hand with correct proportions, and has given me a new understanding of how to accurately delineate highlights and shades of the human figure under light using pencil.

I created this piece to symbolize an aspect of Monopoly that I was recently introduced to and that I think is a very realistic take on Monopoly. Charlie Johnson brought to my attention the idea of how Monopoly symbolizes one group of people having everything, while another group has nothing. When thinking of the word Monopoly I always think of the game, and someone having full control of something. Usually relating to a Monopoly of some type of business or market. Yet I have never thought of the fact that when there is a group of people who have so much more than they need, by default they are taking away from others creating those with less. For this piece I wanted to pay tribute to one of my favorite board games Monopoly. So I decided to make Rich Uncle Penny Bags holding skyscrapers in one hand, while large suburban houses rest on his shoulder and knee. While the background is a carefree sky blue. Yet on his other side he is holding a noose and a cage is tied around his wrist. With crumbling buildings on his shoulder. While the background is a disgusting mix for gray and browns, with a slight undertone of green. I chose to make Rich Uncle Penny Bags, black and white, with a sharpie, to make sure he is recognizable, maintaining his classic looks. Yet I wanted the buildings and Items to stand out and have significance, so I did them with water colors. I wanted to show a clear divide between the symbols shown, so I did a background with two different colors, the change occurring down the middle. I also did a background to make an effort to conceal the mistakes I made with coloring in the houses and items. I made the side that symbolizes poverty slightly bigger, to show and imbalance. Where some have a great deal of material wealth, more have less than they need to get by. This style of art is something I don’t tend to mess around with, but it was a lot of fun to mess around with, and is something I foresee doing more of in the future.

My word for this piece was “syzygy”, which is defined--according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary--as the near linear arrangement of three or more celestial bodies, such as during an eclipse. My first thought with this definition was to do a simple abstract piece involving circles and lines. I decided that was too easy, not my style. So then I moved on to the idea of creating a little sculpture of three planets in a line. This didn’t happen, as I knew I’d never have enough time to make it how I’d like it to be. For some reason, the word syzygy feels rich and velvety to me, something with the way the letters sit in your mouth, and a small, unstable, and ultimately unsatisfying sculpture wasn’t going to live up to that idea. But I still really loved the idea of making a model of the stars. And then I stumbled into the idea of painting someone making the universe, and lining up those celestial bodies. What would that person look like? Would they be old? Fashionable? Quiet? Insane? Where would they be working? So, the word syzygy ended up leading me down a rabbit hole of research into traditional goldsmithing and carpentry workshops to find the correct feeling for this deity’s home. It’s not quite as scattered and complex as I’d like it to be, but that’s something I’m working on in my art in general. Fine detail, but spread more evenly throughout the piece. Next time, maybe! I still like this, don’t get me wrong.

As my word for this project was unorthodox, I figured it would be best to use methods of the sort; unique and not following rules. Using pastel crayons and various shades to emphasize the individuality of each hand, I used collage to try and bring ‘the book’ off the page and to life. I originally wanted to have the collage of paper being torn from the book to have biblical connotations or actual passages from the Bible, but I determined that to be offensive and used John Adams’s biography instead. The reason for using John Adams was mostly for the complicated words and the look of the paper, I also didn’t want to destroy a book that I cherished, so there is that as well. I also used watercolor to create the vignette feel surrounding the scene. So here is my unconventional, burned, messy piece; I think the work conveyed the word even without the hands holding it up.

My word assignment for this project was ‘void’. Mirriam-Webster’s dictionary describes void as meaning an opening, gap, empty space, or vacuum. To me, the word ‘void’ connotes depression and an empty feeling, which I tried to evoke in this piece. I got the idea to paint playing cards like tarot cards because, in my opinion, it shows how no one has control of getting depression, having bad experiences, or even just having bad luck; it’s just the hand you are dealt in life. However, though I don’t pretend to know very much about tarot, I do know that no void card exists in the deck, so my piece requires a bit of suspension of belief on behalf of the viewer. I chose to make the piece triptych because a tarot hand has three cards; in this case, all three of them are The Void, meaning you have been dealt an emptiness, a loss, or a great sadness. The pictures on the three cards are meant to represent being taken by the void; the two outside pieces showing being drowned in the void, and the center one shows becoming it.

My piece is called Ourobos, and is a completely different style than I am used to.

Ouroboros is a serpent or dragon eating its tail, a symbol of infinity. This symbol is believed to have originated in Egypt. Most show it devouring itself in a circular motion. I show it tangled.

I chose to do this style as if it was a record of a knight of old who has come across it's dragon, but not as expected. In these dark old ruins, a large white snake is devouring itself. The serpent is eating its tail, blood dripping into the mysterious black liquids below. I originally imagined a scroll, but the paper is tattered and fragile enough to seem more like someone rushed to rip it off the book or scroll it was a part of. Maybe this beast can be found again. Although it seems the knight will spare the Ouroboros, will the beast save itself? And what happens if infinity breaks? Who knows.

The word omnipresent means commonly encountered or seemably in multiple places at once. It is often used in a religious sense but for this piece I was inspired by the idea of something being omnipresent only to you. For example, when you can’t stop thinking about something or someone. So much of our lives take place in our heads that it sometimes seems as if each person exists in their own separate world. We interact on a daily basis, constantly coming into contact but never being able to truly understand. Some events stick more with one person than others making your thoughts omnipresent only to you which can be both a blessing and a curse. In this ink illustration I tried to express the underlying resentment for one's own thoughts and the ubiquity of them. Working with calligraphy pens and ink was a challenging but enjoyable experience. It forced me to focus on each individual line and be accepting when something did not turn out exactly as I hoped it would. I also had to be very careful with the planning and sketching of the piece since once I started with the ink there would be no take backs. Unfortunately, I’m a bit of a heavy handed sketcher meaning that many of the lines I did in colored pencil were visible at the end which I half expected so I chose a purposeful color scheme. This resulted in the central character outlined in orange and the boxed scenes in blue suggesting a difference in nature between the two. It was my goal to express the main character as isolated by their own omnipresent thoughts and unable to escape them. In this case, captivated by someone they can’t have and resentful of that fact.

The prompt for this piece was “Lineage” and I immediately thought of a family tree. I considered using acrylic paints to create a large, ominous, twisting tree to represent all the mysterious branches of history and ancestry. Thinking about this idea further, I decided I needed a human aspect to bring the idea of this tree back to the present. I made a portrait out of acrylic, marker, pen, and colored pencil then drew branches and vines covering and almost strangling the figure. This tangled “family tree” represents pain that can be passed down through time, affecting people today. I was mostly happy with the portrait but the mixed media presented some challenges. Normally I stick to one medium or another-- but in the end, I was able to represent an aspect of the family tree I first imagined.

Meaning comprised of oak wood, my approach to my prompt, “Oaken”, was to create something simple yet deeply intricate. When first brainstorming, I considered depicting lush groves of oak trees or creating figures that loosely mimicked the shape and texture of oak trees. But due to factors such as time and what was truly realistic, I instead settled on a simpler approach, which was simply to draw an oak leaf. I was cognizant of the fact though that having my piece centered around such a simple object would require me to either play around with style or make that simple aspect deeply intricate. So in order to challenge myself, I used pointillism to create both a hyper realistic and perhaps exaggerated drawing of an oak leaf. Pointillism, which is using many (emphasis on many) small dots of varying concentration and tone to shade, is something that requires high levels of patience and perseverance, as it's an extremely time consuming and laborious process. In my mind, this allowed me to push myself as an artist and my ability to persevere, while still setting an attainable goal. My piece isn’t laden with underlying messages, but is more a raw presentation of me pushing myself as an artist. For mediums I relied solely on Pigma Microns, specifically the 0.25mm tip, which I found produced a dot that was favorable.