October 6, 2020
When I'm pent up, fed up with life, and needing some stress relief, I always look towards art. The act of creating something is so inherently satisfying to me that even when I'm just brainstorming ideas for art projects I am happy. When I am unable to create art for days or weeks at a time, I feel stress in my life, and I have an uncontrollable desire to create something with my hands. That is why for me, the idea of being nourished and sustained is directly correlated to the act of creation.
To show the process of creating art in a more abstract manner, I was directly inspired by The Matrix. In the one scene where Morpheus offers Neo the red pill or the blue pill, it is a subtly included detail that the reflection in Morpheus' glasses show the two pills differently. I wanted to create a similar effect with my piece, where the focus of the attention is not on the glasses, but instead on what is seen through the lenses themselves. While I had originally planned for the viewer's perspective to be from the outside of the glasses, it was not well conveyed that this was my own personal life perspective. Instead I chose to use almost a first-person perspective with the background around the glasses being a hypnotic spiral to show my focus and being "in the zone" when I'm working.
I want the subject of the art I am creating within my piece to remain ambiguous. This is why I had the idea of the left lens showing a completely blank and colorless circle, with my hands working, starting to mold and shape it. With the right lens, I wanted to show the finished product in all its glory, drawing the most attention to it within the piece itself. However, I am not sure what that finished product will be; I know that I want it to be a representation of technical art skills as well as conceptual. I was inspired by one of M.C.Escher's drawings, titled Hand with Reflecting Sphere. Although this would be difficult to accomplish, the technical mastery of the reflection of the sphere is quite impressive. I would like to create something similar to this, although I am still unsure about what that will be.
October 13, 2020
Although I was unable to work on the physical art piece more, I spent my time brainstorming what I wanted to depict through the lenses of my glasses. The theme of "Sustenance" is a very personal prompt, and because of that, I knew that I had to portray something that was deeply personal. My goal was to portray the feeling of satisfaction I receive when I complete an art piece, so I decided to actually use my art projects as the focal point of this piece.
On the left is a previous project I completed. That project took months and months of work, and it had even broken when I first completed it, causing me to spend much more time re-vamping the design. After almost six months working on this project, it was finally complete, and I was absolutely elated. This remains my favorite project to this day.
On the right, is the inspiration for a future project I will be creating. I love the idea of this ship flying through a wormhole that gives just the slightest glimpse of the deep space on the other end of the portal. This project shares many similar themes with my previous project, including the portals, color scheme, motion, and depth. This future project is my next evolution from my previous project, which is why I think it was the most appropriate choice to present.
October 19, 2020
To show what sustains me as an artist, the piece that I created lets the audience see how I am satisfied in my life. The hypnotic swirl in the background is representative of my concentration on my art, being "in the zone" when I am working on a new project. In the left lens of my glasses, my past achievements are expressed through my greatest work to date. The right depicts my futuristic outlook, thinking about ways that I can take similar concepts from the last project and applying them to a completely new piece.
Although it is not translated well in the picture below, this piece is comprised of three distinct layers. In the background lies the hypnotic swirl that focuses the viewer's attention onto my glasses. The glasses themselves are the topmost layer, with the lenses being just underneath. The resultant affect, due to the nature of paper that has been exposed to watercolors, is that the glasses rest at a higher level than the rest of the page, creating an actual shadow underneath each of the lenses. Once again, this helps draw the viewer's focus to the center of attention, the main focus of this piece, what sustains me in life: the moment when I finally finish an art project, and I can finally see the complete result of all my hard work and effort.
