COVID 19 Response #3

This piece is my third submission for the Artsonia "Students Respond to COVID-19" online gallery. I took a break from the digital illustrations, and this time opted to black and white pen and ink drawings. My other two responses were very centered around a central textual message, which while effective and eye catching, is not particularly subtle. I've been working a lot more with ink in my own personal art lately, and I thought that it would be nice to bring into the art I do for this class. I based the illustrations on my own routine, and I wanted them all to seem very quiet and still, and communicate the more neutral day-to-day tones of social-distancing at home.

I kept the images black and white because I felt that like the scenes that I depicted, I wanted everything to be fairly simple and maybe even a little bit muted, so I worked monochromatically. I relied heavily on line in the piece to show the scenes. I put the person in a different location each time, but in each scene I put a window with clouds showing through to create a common thread throughout the boxes.

I stand by the artistic decision to only work with line and black ink, but I think that I could have done a better job pushing the values regardless. I think that it would look really nice with some more dark and mid-tones included, and could also be better at putting emphasis on different elements in each scenario. A slightly more nitpicky revision I would make is making the times consistent increments apart, because I think it would be a nice touch and add some balance. Altogether, I think this is a welcome change from the style I've been working with for the other COVID responses. Despite my liking the softer nature of these drawings, I can't help but feel privileged showing such a calm washed-out depiction of quarantine living, because I know that for many people they can't just stay home and do work on their computer. So while it may be more "chill" I think that as an artist I would feel much better and more useful aligning myself with far more influential and varied depiction of how actually horrible this pandemic has been for people.