Designing Abstraction

Faces

Black Pen, Watercolor, Brush Marker

9x12

Artist Statement

For this assignment, we began by making 49 thumbnail sketches each with a different combination of an element and principal of design. The elements included space, color shape, form, value, texture, line, and the principles of art included balance, unity, variety, emphasis, movement, pattern, and proportion. We then picked out one of our thumbnails to blow up into a larger piece (or two to combine). I chose to make a larger version of my line/unity thumbnail, incorporating elements of the color column as well. I hoped that the connected linework of the piece would express unity between the figures, and in a metaphorical sense represent unity between people. To add to this underlying message I filled in the spaces with all different skin tones. The ongoing-line style of the faces is one of my favorite things to draw, and I hope to continue doing more single-line drawings in the future.

For this project, I used graphite pencil for my thumbnail sketches. I used graphite pencil again to sketch out the lines for my faces, although I ended up doing more free-form linework with a thick black sharpie. After finishing the faces in sharpie I filled in some of the space with nude watercolor tones and other spaces with nude brush marker tones.

My process involved working from the core concept of my thumbnail sketches to create a larger image that highlighted the elements of line and color which created principles of unity. Originally the piece was going to be completely black and white, but after finishing the sharpie line work I thought it was too dull and decided to add color. My next step would be to try and figure out how to make the lines of the marker less visible. I actually wish I had done watercolor for the entire thing and not used marker at all.