Time Capsules

Artist's Statement: 

The idea was to create 3 observational drawings, one of a cropped self-portrait (focusing on only one part of my head), one a still life of objects I rely on a lot, and one a study of my hand. for the self-portrait, I really tried to leave a lot up to the imagination, only vaguely suggesting the hair, and completely leaving the mouth up to the imagination. For my still-life, I chose my phone, headphones, car keys, and a pen as objects and put them into an arrangement that I thought looked interesting. I tried to use shadows to add depth to the figures. I think that the hand was the hardest for me, because it is something that I have always had trouble with, because of the porportions.

I used pen, because I wanted the lines to be clean, and so that I really had to go for it, and there would be no second-guessing myself. I think that drawing for me using pen is a really good exercise because it forces me to not hesitate in the middle of a line: once I set my pen done, I need to complete the line or it will turn out looking like I hesitated. I used bristol paper because I think it really helped me with this fluidity.

I used that fluidity to make these observational drawings very quickly, within 20 minutes. I did this because I wanted to practice that skill, of observation and transferring it to paper. I think that while I was making these, I used a combination of what I thought the subject should look like and what the subject actually looked like to create a visually pleasing effect. I think that this really works for me because it forces me to think about what others will see in this piece, and how I can compose real life to follow artistic principles of composition.  I think that this really worked with the self-portrait study, because leaving things up to the imagination means that I can control where I think the eye should go.