06. Pure Contour Hands

ARTIST STATEMENT:

The story or setting of this series of pieces is of two people, represented by two different hands going through a relationship from one needing help, to 'love', to a fight, to fixing each other. The materials I used for this project were pencil, regular drawing paper, sharpie and a piece of canvas paper as a backdrop for images. My idea for this piece is semi-inspired by some of my life experiences, while some of it is just ideas I had to further this narrative.

Within this piece, there are examples of Informal and Formal Balance. In pieces 3, 5 and 6, there is formal balance, as the hands on either side are almost exactly the same, while in the other pieces, there is something on both sides balancing the piece, but both objects are not the same. Originally, I was planning on having both hands on one sheet each, then painting the background with the white and black on paper. But when I went to test my hand drawing skills, I drew a couple hands on different pieces of paper that I was really proud of, and that I wanted to use as my final hands. So, I cut out all the hands I had drawn and when I went to put them down on paper, I found that I didn't have enough paper to glue them all down. As our town had just been hit by a massive storm, I was stuck at home, due to downed trees and no power, so I improvised with the time and tools I had. I took pictures of each hand placement, edited them on my computer, then used my drawing tablet and photoshop and did the background art in photoshop. In my opinion, I think the background art came out better in photoshop than it would have if I would tried to do it by hand.

The story behind this art series outlines the evolution of a friendship from one person needing help, to being helped, to both people coming together, to the people fighting, to both people being injured, to both people coming back together to heal each other. This story is at least a little based off of some of my personal experiences, while the rest of it is just something I came up with to further the narrative. If I were to do this project again, I would probably go back in, and put some more work into the last two hands, as I don't think those are my best work, and they aren't as good as the others.