Blind Contour Drawings

Artist's Statement:

Jillian Wight

Andreson

Foundations of Art

September 25, 2019

To create my final piece, I put together three blind contour drawings— my right hand, left hand, and face— and then added detail. Blind contour is a method in which the artist studies an object and produces a drawing of it without looking at the paper or lifting their pen. I used a sharpie to create these three original drawings on watercolor paper. After this, I was tasked with weaving balance and unity into my artwork to try and turn the three drawings into one. To do this, I used sharpie again to create two more hands and a second face, also in blind contour. I placed and sized these according to my idea for the final piece. After creating balance with these extra drawings, I used watercolors to create brightly colored highlights around the drawings. I tried to make it appear almost like an echo— in color— or a drop-down shadow of the original drawings. After this step, I found that there was quite a bit of white space. I added splotches of color around these drawings, putting a little bit of a contrasting color in the center of each. After my watercolors dried, I used white watercolor and white-out to create the illusion of paint drips along the top of these splotches. I chose white so that the paint drips would match the background color, tying it into the piece. This didn’t quite fit with the mood and style of the rest of my artwork, so I added a black outline around the splotches and paint drips, creating a more “pop art” effect. Switching back to sharpie, I created tiny swirls along the page to create the effect of something sticky splattering down from the top. To link the faces in, I colored them black with a sharpie and made it look as if they were dripping from the hands. The pop-art style white paint drips were a little out of place, so I added similar drips to the black shapes I’d created. Finally, to eliminate white space in the background, I created tiny patterns and lines with a black pen in the style of pointillism, filling in the resulting shapes with faint colored pencils. At last, my artwork was finished. It evolved greatly, starting as three unrelated drawings, and I managed to turn them into one cohesive piece. The style matches and is continuous, and overall I’m very proud.

I used a variety of elements of art while I was working on my artwork. Of course, line and shape were used, sort of like the original seed for the piece. The blind contour drawings were quite abstract and simple, so the focus was on the outline and the shape of the hand or face. These elements stayed relevant as I worked, and I made sure to incorporate line into the background, and the detail I added to the slime. The shape also continued to be part of the piece, and I used it in my background to create an interesting but not overpowering look. I also made sure to outline certain shapes in the slime so they stood out. The color was part of the foreground, but not the topic. It was more used to underline the real subject of the drawing, the hands and faces made from blind contour. I watercolored these areas to make them stand out and add another element that I could tie into every part of the piece to ensure unity. The color was also a huge part of the background. It was subtle but kept the piece engaging so that there was more to look at then simply my subject. Space, I found, had a lasting effect on all of the people that critiqued my piece. In my background, negative space is used to create a pattern that was of great interest to them, as was the way that I used space in the foreground. I chose to leave certain areas blank inside the hands and add more detail in others to make the space between more visually pleasing. Balance and unity, the idea of spreading ideas out and yet ensuring that they come together, was the theme for this piece. We were told to focus on these elements in class, and I’m proud of how I used them. Balance was created in the earlier stages of my piece when I added more hands and faces to the paper. I made sure that these were arranged so that they covered the space provided, not bunching up I one place to leave a lot of unengaging, blank space. The black, sticky river that flows through my artwork is largely in the center so that it adds to the balance. Unity is achieved largely through the colors I used, and how I tied the ones I put in the foreground into the background. I was also careful to maintain my style, and ensure that there weren’t any distracting elements. I accomplished this by adding a pattern to my background so that it didn’t look empty.

In my work, the ideas present are very abstract, and so the “theme” of the piece is left mostly up to the observer. The title, melting pot, can also provide insight into the ideas I had while working. In my piece, the substance that drips from the top of the page is composed of facial features. This presents the idea of “mind,” causing the observer to explore what the symbolism behind my decision is. The hands are brightly colored and seem “innocent” in comparison to the black liquid. This presents another idea that can lead the observer to find a meaning that relates to their life. But what about me? How does my artwork relate to my life? Although I love the finished product, it was more the process that tells my story. The drawing started out very simple, very basic. Then, I added color, which is very bright and explosive. While I was adding this color, I was in a very low stress, pleasant mood. However, the drawing wasn't quite finished. Later, when I chose to incorporate the black detailed slime, I had a lot of thoughts going through my head and I felt a little stressed and unorganized. Originally, I didn’t like this extreme contrast between lightness and heaviness. However, I tied the two themes together in the background, finding balance. The art represents not only how I felt while drawing, but also how I feel on a daily basis and how I deal with it. When I begin to feel frustrated and I can tell that it will negatively affect my day, I find it helpful to balance myself out, think about my tasks, and get organized. This was the goal of the pattern that filled the background of my piece. I’m very proud of the way my art came out. Probably the biggest struggle I faced was after I created the black slime. I liked it when I looked up close, but when I stood back the effect was overpowering and didn't match the mood of the rest of the piece. It seemed out of place and forced. Still, I didn’t know what to do with the face and the slime seemed like the best way to incorporate it into my drawing. I overcame this struggle by adding a background to eliminate the white space. This tied in the line type and style of the slime and drew a little of the attention away from it, but not too much. My background is actually what I’m most proud of. Though it was complex to make and is very detailed, it came together very nicely and added to the balance and unity of my drawing. I found that the subtle colors I used made the pattern appear simpler than it was so that it wouldn't take away from the foreground. It definitely made a lasting impact on my viewers.

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