Wednesday 4 November 2009

Slowly....


Heres pic of the piece ive been working on, slowly...

I think there needs to be more of a connect between them, so im thinking of doing more in the middle to tie the two works together better. Im not finished, (the squid and other parts need more detailed work) but i just wanted to let you guys know what was happening.




On another note, here is an updated version of the koi mural on my door. Im going to adjust his face a bit and finnish the water around him. Then i'll work on the body details more. Any suggestions on how to make the fish really pop? Ive really been struggling with ideas.

4 comments:

  1. The Black and White rawing is starting to look really cool. You should post a picture in which we can see the entire piece. I like the variety of sizes and I think the squid helps the composition although it's a little literal ad ground the abstraction in oceanic context. But the feathers make you think it might not be oceanic like a squid drying out of water. I would add more paper but if you are tired I guess you could leave it lol. The variety of shapes is great, if you could echo them in different sizes (dramatically different) we might have a winner. The door looks too pasty blue and it makes me feel like a baby. It might need more detail treatment like your black and white series. You should talk to liz since you guys are both working with coy. Maybe you'll come up with something interesting about coy or japanese patterns.

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  2. The variety of organic shapes and forms in your B&W oceanic scene are very detailed and decorative. I also like the dramatic contrast between the black and white.

    The fish mural looks really nice so far. It makes me want to paint my bedroom door! To make it pop,you could add some modeling or detail to the fins. The water has some modeling in it, which competes with the fish and draws attention away from it, so to make the fish the main focal point, the major white areas need some refining. Though, if you want to keep the fish relatively flat in color, add solid, thicker (closely aligned) black lines to the fins, but have them sway or twist in the direction the fins are going to give it a 3-dimensional effect without modeling. It would also be interesting if you made the fish's eye pop somehow. I feel the white part of the eye blends in too much with the skin even with the black outline. Maybe make it less stylized and rounder, with a tea greenish iris to contrast with the orange scales. Just a suggestion. You might want to try a lighter shade of blue for the background or a darker color. Nice work! :)

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  3. Thanks for the feedback! So, the BW piece first. I think echoing the shapes in different places and sizes is a great idea. This piece was done primarily on a whim, just drawing what ever came to mind, but sometimes I run out of ideas. I was concentrating on making everything different, so repetition completely slipped my mind.

    The mural...isn't done, but you suggestions do help. Originally I was going to leave it very cartoonish and sort of "plain," like a colouring book style might have. But with the water being like it is, I think the whole mural will suffer if I don't make it more intriguing to the eye. I think the suggestion of thinker lines in places could help, and I was thinking of add some shadows in various places too.

    It's funny you mention the eye Liz, I bought a green tea colour for the eye already, I was just waiting to finnish other thing before i painted it. :P***

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  4. I think your drawing is very interesting. It looks almost like you are telling an illustrative story about the adventures of this squid as he makes his way through an ocean of cells and other biomorphic organisms. This is now making me think of Pinocchio. Yeah, he could be traveling through a whale’s stomach and he’s able to see the different things the whale has eaten (the feathers could represent a seagull) and what the whale looks like on a deeper level based on cells. I know it doesn’t make much sense at all, but I feel like we’re going on some sort of an adventure. You should make a series out of this. The squid takes us through different surroundings, atmospheres, or different animal stomachs. I don’t know, you could have fun with this. I think because you have something representational like a squid, people may try to piece things together and try to analyze it instinctively. Had it all been completely cells, biomorphic shapes, or just abstract, people tend not to overanalyze and just accept it as a composition of shapes. I think it was clever to throw something in there to kind of throw people off. What was the intent of the squid? What about the other shapes?

    I also thought it was interesting that you used thicker applications of black space on the left side of the drawing in contrast to the right side. Even though the whole piece is based on outlines, you successfully created shadows and light space. The right side looks more like the shallow side of an ocean because it has thinner lines and a lot of exposed white spaces. The left side emphasizes the deeper end of the ocean because the large black spaces create what looks like shadows. If your intent was to make lights and shadows, great job and keep it up! If your intent was to just make a composition, then maybe you’ll need to balance out the two sides by adding more black space to the right side and more open white spaces on the left. However, I think it looks great. Having those shadows also makes it look like there’s a story going on because the entire piece represents its own world.

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