Prior to this course, I had only taken a studio art class in
high school. I learned my teacher’s definition of the fundamentals of drawing
which consisted of various techniques mostly shading. However, I became so
focused on the technique that I lost the personality and emotions behind the
pieces. I looked over my drawings from high school and they seemed dull and
lifeless but precise. Conveying emotions in a creative way was one of the main
reason that I wanted to learn how to draw so I focused on developing this skill
over the course of the semester. I focused on not only conveying an object in
my drawing but also conveying life. I quickly learned that even inanimate
objects can express life through their arrangements. I also learned that
arrangements can tell stories.
For the first assignment, I gathered random objects and
assembled them on the trunk in my room.
After a few minutes of sketching, I
began to lose interest in my drawing. I noticed that as my interest decreased,
the quality of drawing decreased as well. I removed all of the objects from my
trunk and tried to start over. I reflected on how I could connect with the
viewer of my drawing. What emotions do I
want them to feel? How will someone experience this piece? How will someone
better understand me by seeing this drawing? Since there were no titles for
the line drawings, I was forced to challenge myself and think of how to convey
more than a title and more than a random assortment of objects. I tried to
brainstorm the type of experience that I wanted to capture but I immediately
started thinking of titles instead of emotions and creating personality. I realized that titles can often
distract people when they experience a drawing because they are constantly
trying to connect each decision that the artists made back to the title. I
looked around my room and began to notice objects that evoke a sense of pride.
I saw my djembe drum and thought about how it symbolizes pride in my heritage
and memories of playing it with my family. The shape of the drum added circular
shapes in contrast to the rigid edges of the trunk. Although the drum is
wrapped in a kente cloth that has rectangular shapes, I wanted to capture the curves
in the body of the drum so I chose to highlight the round elements. I thought
about how other objects could play off of the shape of the drum and which objects
evoked a sense of pride. I selected an elephant from my collection of elephants
because it connects with my heritage and being of African descent. I also
selected because it added movement by capturing the elephant while it is
walking. I continued to build up upon my original vision of pride and culture
and add more objects. I thought about how my arrangement could tell a story
about me.
These first few drawing helped to understand how to build a
drawing. It requires an intense intentionality that I had not been taught in my
previous courses. I had to start with the blue print and think about the
message that I wanted to convey but also be comfortable with leaving room for
interpretation. I stopped rushing into my drawing and always started with first
defining the personality of the piece. It became much easier to apply the
techniques that I learned in this course and my high school course when I knew
what direction I was heading in my drawings. It also became much more enjoyable
when I had a vision while drawing. In order to remind myself to capture personality
and life in a drawing, I began to think of drawing as a language and the different
techniques and elements are words so the drawing must always be legible and
understandable. The drawing must be so legible that the viewer can read your
experience and create their own interpretation possibly based on their own
life.
Although a blank page can be intimidating, one of the many
lessons that I learned from this drawing course is how to make my drawings come
off the page, come to live and tell stories. These stories can be from my own
life or evoke a feeling like pride. After developing these skills in the
earlier assignments, it became much easier to draw pieces that we had to title
or when we had to capture a particular scene. I was able to always keep the
viewer’s experience in mind and connect the drawing to my overall vision.
No comments:
Post a Comment