Planning Sketches
My first thought was to create a super highly detailed piece using a very thin marker. I had envisioned that the more detail there would be the better. However, when finished I realized there was really no form or specific shape to the drawing and that your eyes kind of get lost in it. Therefore I decided to move on to a different method. My idea was to try something completely different and use color and a thicker line. I was hoping that it would be easier to look at this way. I experimented and used a red marker I liked how the red looked and I also was happy with the width of the line. To finish up my planning process I switched back to black and used a marker with a similar thickness as the previous sketch to see what it would look like in black. Out of the 3 I preferred the last one the most because the black made the lines more bold and defined.
Inspiration and Process
Process
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The materials I used for this project was a wide tipped permanent marker on a gessoed board. The first thing I did was apply and even layer of gesso to my canvas. When dry, I started by adding an organically shaped line in the center of the board. I then continued to add lines around it to create my piece. With every line, I began building more and more of a picture. While doing so I made sure to keep my lines as neat as possible as well as to follow the shape of the previous line so that there would be as much unity within the piece as possible. |
Experimentation
When using the marker there were times when the lines I had just drawn turned out to be streaky. This required me to go over the lines carefully a second time to make them look clean and opaque. I also had issues starting off with the drawing.When I first began to draw the lines I had realized about 10 lines in that I had not started off by drawing them curved enough and I knew if I continued building off of those lines the piece wouldn't look that interesting because there wasn't a lot of curvature. Therefore, I decided to gesso over the lines and start over. I then added a curved line in the center of the canvas so I would be able to know for sure that the lines would have form and shape.
Reflection
I was inspired by Carl Krull and Victor Vasarely to create this piece. I found inspiration in the techniques these artists used and how they created patterns and shapes simply out of lines and how the used these lines to tell stories with in their art. I struggled while creating this piece. This struggle was mainly from the unpredictability of how the final product would look. This is because I had to paint line by line and I couldn't envision what the final piece would look like. Therefore, after finishing a panel I would realize that the lines would either be too straight and not interesting enough for me to be satisfied. So I would then have to apply a few layers of gesso over the lines and wait for that to dry and then start over. This was very time consuming. A success I encountered was that I was able to create a very visually stimulating piece and this is a different style than my work in the past and I am proud that I branched out and tried something new. The struggles If I had to do this project again I would start off by using a thinner marker because I now know that designs like this look better with more detail.