The Process of Reflection

While moving a bunch of old files to my new laptop the other night, I stumbled upon the pages from my college process book. In Senior year in my Illustration Portfolio class, all Art-Illustration majors needed to create a process book to go along with their portfolio. The process book contains the brainstorming and sketches that led up to the final pieces of art in the portfolio. These pages from the process book relate to an assignment on reflection. I had to paint a watercolor piece built around a reflective object. For this assignment, I started by making a list of reflective surfaces (you can see it below, I apologize if you can’t read my handwriting). From there, I drew a series of thumbnail sketches incorporating the reflective items. The ones that are starred were the ideas I decided to expand on (you can click on the process book page, to view a larger version of the image).

Process Book: Page 1

Below you can see the next round of sketches, these were a bit more refined. It became clear fairly quickly that the image with the knife was the strongest. In the first sketch, the victim is a woman, but I thought a man getting stabbed offered more narrative appeal. Plus if I had a woman getting stabbed by a guy, when I could do the reverse, I felt like I’d be disappointing Joss Whedon. I then started sketching various possible poses for the victim.

Process Book: Page 2

Below on the third page of sketches, I’ve decided on the position of the victim and refined the image of the knife. Apparently, I was feeling extra ‘sketchy’ while working on this project, because I even drew a floor plan for how I would shoot the reference photos.

Process Book: Page 3

Normally, I don’t do a final sketch that is this detailed. On this occasion, because there were multiple elements in multiple reference photos and erasing on watercolor paper doesn’t go well, I decided to draw what amounts to a fully-realized pen-and-ink piece first. I then took the pen-and-ink piece and projected that image onto the watercolor paper. If you’re wondering why the victim in the piece went from a young man in the sketches to an old man in this final sketch, I was basing the original sketches around using my best friend for reference and he totally flaked on me when I needed to shoot the photos. My grandfather, thankfully, was awesome enough to step in and pose for me. I actually think using an older man as the victim adds more to the story. It creates more possible scenarios for who stabbed him and why.

Process Book: Page 4

And now here’s the final watercolor painting:

Final watercolor painting

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 25

Bin Laden and stuff…

So I had totally planned to write up an entry about DOCTOR WHO today and then last night happened. I can’t write an entry about Doctor Who within hours of Osama Bin Laden finally being found and killed. I won’t bore you with my feelings on the issue beyond “Yay! Woooo!”, I figure everyone’s got their own thoughts and most are offering them (some of mine are probably still in the Twitter feed on the right of this blog). Instead I thought I’d post two pieces of artwork. The first is the painting I was working on the morning of September 11th 2001. So when anyone asks where I was on September 11th, my answer is down in the art department at Sacred Heart University, working on my first watercolor painting.

My first watercolor painting: a portrait of Archie Bunker

Either later that same semester or early the next, 9/11 became part of the curriculum. In my Graphic Design class, we were given an assignment to create a 9/11 memorial stamp. A lot of students were focusing on the Towers, I wanted to do something different.

9/11 memorial stamp created in Photoshop

9/11 Stampsheet

Self-Portraits

I wonder sometimes if the reason many artists get so full of themselves is because they’re forced to do so many self-portraits in school. If you have to stare at yourself in the mirror and on paper and on canvas enough, I’ve got to think it’s going to inflate your opinion of your own self-worth. I had to do a lot of self portraits in college. It seemed like in every drawing or painting course one of the projects was a self portrait. Below are the ones I could find in an attic full of high school and college art.

This was a gift for my sister, look how adorable I was!

I did this piece for sister for her birthday one year. I used watercolor and watercolor pencils. I was such a cute kid and then puberty hit and everything went wrong.

Self-portrait in graphite

I don’t think this one actually looks that much like me, but the overall technique is pretty strong. I drew this either Freshman or Sophomore year of college.

Self-portrait in charcoal (Spooooooooooooooooky....)

I remember this piece was for a figure drawing class in my Sophomore year. I was supposed to use a single light source, but, in addition to the lamp I set up, I was watching the latest episode of the X-Files. I apparently didn’t think the light from the television would effect the light for the piece, it totally did. And I also think it effected the mood of the piece because that is one totally spooky version of myself.

Idealized self-portrait (oil paints and crayon -- yes, the crayola variety)

This was an idealized self-portrait I painted in oil and drew with actual crayons. The idea being my ideal self is that little kid drawing and having his imagination come to life around him. Everyone seemed to love this piece… except for my instructor. We got into a huge argument during the critique. He thought the kid’s drawings looked like fake kid drawings and not real kid drawings, and that the child was too photo-referenced. I thought he was a jackass. I was not so great with constructive criticism back then. While we butted heads a lot that semester, he definitely made me a better painter. Before his class, I would basically draw with a brush, rather than paint.

Obstructed self-portrait in oil paints

This one I did at the end of Junior year or the beginning of Senior year, I can tell because my hair is insanely long. This assignment was to paint an obstructed self-portrait. I had a bunch of ideas for this one, so I shot reference for my three favorite ideas. I ended up using this one where I’m obstructed by the canvas for the assignment, but later used one of the other photos in my Senior year portfolio class. And that one is just below.

Obstructed self-portrait, graphite and white charcoal pencil on gray canson paper

So, like I said, this was one of my other ideas for the obstructed self-portrait. I thought it was a strong image, so I definitely wanted to use it at some point. So I drew it Senior year when I was filling gaps in my portfolio. When I took the photos for this piece, digital cameras were not readily available. They may have been on the market, but they were too expensive for me to buy one. So I had to get these pictures developed at CVS, and that was the most nervous I had ever been to pick up photos. I was just waiting for the lady at the counter to say, “Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?” And now we’ll end with one I’m working on now.

Work in progress... graphite under-drawing with acrylic paint

I hadn’t done a self-portrait in a long time and I wanted to immortalize this beard I was positive I wasn’t going to keep for more than a week or two (it’s been four months now), so I decided to paint this one. I’m happy with the under-drawing.

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 13