Society's Doll

For this project, I was making pure contour hands. From the beginning of the project I had the idea of the hands holding a ballerina. I drew three hands in pure contour in different positions that i thought would look like they were holding something. The first hand is open so that the ballerina can have one foot there, the next hand is holding her hands up and the last hand is holding her other leg up. After drawing them, I filled each hand with zentangles. I painted the background this pink-purple color, to look like the color of a ballerinas dress. I wanted to have this color somewhere because I chose to color the entire ballerina in black as a silhouette.

My project has definitely evolved since I started. My original idea was only two hands, one coming from the top and one coming from the bottom, holding the ballerina. After creating a starting sketch, I realized it would look better to have a third hand coming in to hold out the leg. This gives the ballerina a more lifeless/incapable look which is what I wanted. I also added some more shades of pink in purple in the background, instead of having a solid “block”. After getting to that point the background still seemed boring. I decided to use black ink and create little black feathers around the background.

This idea/meaning behind this project is the idea that society is forcing people to act in certain ways. The symbolism behind the stick-thin ballerina and each hand holding her so precisely is meant to show the way young girls, in particular, are brought up to think is right and necessary to look and act a certain way. I also added the feathers to the background to both represent the feathery texture of a ballerina’s dress, but also as a symbol of freedom.