Friday's TileIt's more of an art journal piece, I think. I wanted to tell my story in the shape of my fingerprint. I wanted to do it pictorially, but this was an awfully small support for something like that. I started in the center, with the magenta color, and moved out from there. I was thinking all about what is and isn't in a fingerprint. What's in our physical selves? Where are the things we are completely attached to, that we cannot live without? What is so ingrained that it cannot be ignored?
I plan on showing my month of work at the Artists Among Us show. I think this piece will be the one I feel most insecure about. I guess because it's in words, it's something "the scientists" can understand. It's not something where they can appreciate the skill that went into it, as in a finely detailed painting or sketch. It's writing that anyone can do. How is that art? I think it's art that explores an issue (rather than making a pretty picture) that is less accepted by non-artists.
Saturday's Tile
This tile is one of the pieces I folded and soaked in water, then painted with watercolor on the back. That's where the colored lines come from. For this self portrait, I went into a semi-dark room, and put a candle very close to one side of my face to make a strong shadow. I sketched it from life for a while (in a mirror), but at a certain point I was pretty sure I was going to bump the candle and set my head on fire, so I took a picture and worked from the picture. As usual with my self portraits, I got the eyes right, the lips are mostly right and the nose isn't quite right. All the old high school insecurities come out in self portraiture- I'm totally fine with my nose now. I think it fits my face, and I'm rather fond of it for allowing me to breathe. But once I start drawing myself, I have such a hard time getting it right; I either make it too slender and small (as I wanted it when I was 16) or I over-compensate in trying to avoid that problem and make it too large.
And that, my friends, is my September art project. I'll wrap up tomorrow, including showing that card that my camera wouldn't work on the other day.
4 comments:
I would have called it art before I considered myself an artist. Art doesn't have such a strict definition, what you did was creative and artistic, so.... it's art. I don't know that I could tell it was you if I hadn't known =) Maybe I could have, but I'm not sure - either way, it is a neat idea - I've always liked fingerprints - mine are spirals instead of loops. hmmmm.... I wonder if there's a fingerprint personality profiler? lol
noses are hard to draw because you are drawing the essence of the shadow instead of the actual thing
I really like your word art. It looks great and the words match the image. Your self portrait is very good. It seems more relaxed than others I've seen. Great job!
Great picture!
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