Title: POP!

Size: 8.3 x 11.7 in

Date of Completion: Oct. 20th, 2024

Inquiry Question: How can I express/depict my experience and lessons learned from being burnt out in my life in diverse ways?

Ideas: Hand-popping a popcorn bag reps. the sudden outburst of stress, burnt out (Characters: 94)

Materials: Collaged paper cutouts, with glue, and scissors (Characters: 46)

Process: Bright colors emphasize burst of strong emotion; burnout setsin.Grip creates stress & inevitable POP (Characters: 100)

Citations: My artist inspiration was Patrick Bremer, who is a collage artist that depicts human expression. (Characters: 96)

Patrick Bremer

My inspiration was Patrick Bremer, who is a collage artist that depicts human expression. By taking inspiration from the way they depict value and depth from hands, I wanted to create representational art. The emphasis is on the bag due to the visual weight of paper pieces, mainly at the center. (Characters: 296)

Citations: Patrick Bremer, www.patrickbremer.co.uk/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2024.

Experimented with how textures affects form and how to combine both textured paper & solid color paper, testing out how I could express contrast. Found how solid color paper are easier on the eye than too much textured paper. Experimented if could create conceptual art of popcorns and kernels (Characters: 293)

Light contour sketch to know where depth is. Saturated hues of blue/red with no textures to emphasize the bag from the light blue hue and textured paper of free-formed shapes for the background. Bright colors = burst of strong emotions. Pink hues to contrast → still let the focal point be on the bag (Characters: 300)

I'm proud of how this piece came out due to the circumstances of events and the lack of collage skill I had before this. 

My idea was to express the sudden burst of emotions one may feel when they become burned out. Like all of your suppressed emotions spill out. 

This is expressed by the amount of stress and pressure the hand is feeling clutching the bag, having the popcorn pop out of the bag. 

The reason I chose popcorn was because kernels become popcorn when you heat them up, so I expressed how the popcorn (emotions) was heated and now bursting out of the bag (myself) due to the hands (my stress in life). 

The part I struggled with was envisioning how each part would look if I were to use a specific colored paper, as I can't easily revert back the change once I keep layering them. 

One thing I still regret is how vibrant the blue became for the background. But I think I was able to adjust to using deeper colors of blue to still make the bag the main focus. Also, I regret not having enough time to make popcorn with my own hands and had to print out popcorn images to stick onto the background. 

But I think this was a good chance to go outside my comfort skills of materials and art form, which was collage and abstract. 

However, I think I'll choose a material that I'm already familiar with for my next project.