For this semester, students were asked to focus on a specific theme. I chose to study dreams and the different types of dreams and how one feels waking up from them. For each piece, I incorporated clouds as a sort of visual tie together. The idea behind this collection is that the feeling you get from looking at each piece is the feeling that you would get from waking up having experienced this dream.
This piece was created to represent a memory dream. This is the type of dream that is had that represents an actual memory or past thought that was significant to the person having the dream. The example I had for a memory dream was of the Pismo Beach monarch migration. I have never been there, but the idea was that the person having the dream had and was remembering it. I also tried to make the colors seem more dream like, so that when you look at this you feel like you are immersed in the butterflies.
An anxiety dream is a type of dream that is commonly confused with a nightmare. An anxiety dream is not a nightmare, but is something that the person having the dream would experience anxiety from seeing, but which is unique to them. For this, I chose something more personal as it it something that gives me anxiety, but not many others: a lightning storm. Lightning gives me a lot of anxiety, but people find it very beautiful, that is why it is an anxiety dream because it causes only the dreamer anxiety.
For this piece, I had a hard time thinking a good way to depict a nightmare using the sky, then realized maybe I could make it subtle and just scary enough. If you look closely there are may faces hidden in the clouds, some more obvious than others. This is mean to symbolize being watched when you didn't even realize something was there. I tried to use colors to set a spooky or somber mood and made it night time over a calm ocean to set the scene of loneliness. as all of these things are nightmare material.
A fever dream is a type of dream you have when you are sick, or unwell, mentally or physically, but some people may have them at random times. They are extremely vivid with themes and symbols that make little to no sense for the dreamer. These types of dreams are usually remembered, as they are so vibrant and random. I chose to represent this with a sort of psychedelic image, as this is similar to the types of things you would see when having a fever dream.