Experimentation...

Ink pen, charcoal and graphite in VAPD

I have just been so lazy lately with drawing and art lately. I've had some really good things in terms of inspiration over the past few weeks, but as soon as I put pencil to paper I just lose it.
I'm lacking energy in everything: art, guitar, school, exercise. Especially school & exercise. I've been sick 3 weeks in May alone - from 2 or 3 different illnesses - and I feel so bored and lethargic and fat. I've only been to school 4 days over those 3 weeks, and I haven't been to the gym in a month or so. That's BAD. I had a viral cold and my monthlies for a week and a half, was on antibiotics and then just as I was starting to get better I got a tummy bug that started from my little cousin - and it's been attacking the whole family.

Basically, this afternoon I decided I was going to combat this artistic impairment. I told myself: just draw something. Muck around with mediums and texture and imagery. It doesn't matter what you freakin' do. JUST DO SOMETHING.

This isn't good by any standards. I just thought I'd post it to keep motivating myself. SO: I am soldiering on. Which is technically kind of a play on IMT's theme of "warrior" this week. I know. Tacky. But oh well.

Ruined!

Ink & pen on paper

The original photograph I took this from was from one of those ads by Dove for "anti-aging" cremes and stuff. Basically, they don't photoshop the models and etc.

As part of art at school we're doing the human body. I'm out of class for a week or so, this was left on the drying rack and some year 8 kid/idiot decides to draw something just LOVELY on the back of this.

I don't have any opposition to phalic elements in art, but it totally ruined my ink work and I was forced to abandon it. GRRR. I covered it up with a package of mix CDs my friend made me for my birthday :)

To be honest, I'm guessing it was a male. There just seems to be something with boys at that age where they draw dicks all over everything. It's never really girls. The guys just seem to do it, and whatever they draw isn't necessarily a glorifying depiction haha.

Long story short: I'm pissed off, and off school again for this second time this month with a tummy bug (before it was a viral cold). So who knows what else of my work is being destroyed by the little non-elective-art vandals.

Petals

For IMT this week we have been given the theme "Petals".

Burial

It is pure coincidence that I took photographs - not dissimilar to the one above - two days ago. I found that after the heavy, late-Autumn rains of the weekend, on Tuesday many of the developing flowers in our yard were virtually dead. I picked this one of the ground and decided to give it a "sea burial" in our pool.

Dead Bird of Paradise flower - willow & compressed charcoal, white pastel, graphite on paper

It is also with this theme that I have reflected on the subject, and just how petals - and, naturally, flowers - are used in my art. Flowers are great symbolically. They represent everything about women: how strong we are, how delicate we can be, how charming we are, how memorable we are.

The charcoal drawing above was done at the ArtCastle workshop I attended in April. It is of a decaying Bird of Paradise flower: a flower that has such unique petal structure - something which is even more fabulous when it's a bit on the dead side.

For more flower-inspired art, check out my deviantArt account.

Where Is My Motivation?

Today I've been feeling rather off: physically and creatively - although the latter's been more frequent as of late. I need some serious inspiration and I need it now, though Inspire Me Thursday is good for a weekly dose.

We've just started a new term at school 2 weeks ago, so it's been pretty draining getting back into the gist of things, especially after having an exceptional two week school holiday break. I'm finding it harder to concentrate, and then there's the whole assessment crap coming up yet again. And I've been a bit sick the past couple of days, but nothing to really complain about. Just your average change of seasons drama I suppose.

It's taken me a while, but I'm really starting to get into photography. I just take pictures of things that interest me, and things that I think are beautiful. Today while I was trying to take photos of broken flowers - killed by the recent late Autumn rains - floating on top of the water in my pool, I found I wasn't being met with much success. Instead, I came to find just how cool the light patterns were on the green-coloured water and the shapes they created.

So being under the influence of hands - as I have been lately - I stuck my hands out in random gestures over the water and photographed them. These images above haven't been edited at all. I was quite happy with how they turned out.

2B & 4B graphite in home vapd

Also, on the advice of my awesome fibre/visual artist friend Nadiah (who you most likely know as the creative mastermind and entrepreneur behind LeArmoire) I've decided to continue my venture into abstract figures, but like the half-drawn, work-in-progress lady above. I'm not sure where it will take me, but I would like to - for the moment - draw these figures in distorted, yet real-life situations. It'll be nice to start depicting different things to my usual subject matter as well.

Also, I'd like to get into more sites like Inspire Me Thursday. I tried doing something for Illustration Friday once, but I couldn't post my link on their site. That was a bit of a downer. If anyone knows of any similar sites or blogs that deal out prompts, I'd really appreciate the information :)

The Body

A new term, a new topic. In art we are now studying - of all things - the BODY. Now, being the sort of artist who frequently illustrates bodies, as you can imagine: I was enthralled. I found that I had to get a new VAPD (art journal / sketchbook) to use this term, as my old one only has maybe 5 pages left.

Today we were asked to begin drawing a particular gesture using our hands and fingers. Although being a senior class, our teacher still had to tell us not to use any *hem hem* "rude" gestures. I haven't finished my drawing yet, but I will do it over the weekend. I enjoy drawing the joints and nails and all the hand bits.

6B pencil in new school VAPD

Our teacher has also been setting us some still life work: statuettes and dolls. Appropriating a statuette of the woman in Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", I drew this:

Willow charcoal, "synthetic" compressed charcoal & white charcoal on art paper.

I just know that I am going to love this term in Visual Arts. We're also studying video in Photography now, which is going to be good. At the moment we're watching "The Seventh Seal". I can't wait till we begin making our own films. It should be interesting :)

Family

Graphite in VAPD. "Dishes". Sorry about the glare :)

IMT: Family
I think that one of my favourite things to express in my art is gender roles and issues, specifically those involving women. And of course women face the issue of having a family, and then there is the problem of her role in the family.

I think that this is an attack on the ancient views of what a women should be: a beauty queen who can cook, clean, and will make babies and silently raise them - all without protest. Nothing more and nothing less. No thoughts, no opinions, no discussion. This image depicts the strong woman as she sees herself, but with the added voids that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers would have seen.

I completed this drawing about a week ago, but I feel it is very much appropriate for the theme of "Family".

Just for the record:
Personally, I have nothing against stay-at-home wives and mothers, so long as it was HER decision and she knows that she is able to do whatever she wants - without being ruled over by a dictatoral husband.

I'm actually rather pleased today because I received my school VAPD diary mark - which is a form of assessment - during today's art lesson. I got 93/100 :)

Venus Figurine

B & 4B pencil in VAPD

This week's Inspire Me Thursday prompt is "Umbrella".

Now, being the person that I am, I instantly thought of "Umbrella Terms" for some reason. I thought about what I understood this particular phrase to mean, and after doing a little research I found that I was correct. An "umbrella term" is a word used to describe a collective of similar objects or phenomena.

Being a member of the iGeneration - or Gen Y - I was bound to use Wikipedia for my "research". That's when I stumbled across a link and an umbrella term for a range of miniature prehistoric statues that depicted obese or pregnant women - "The Venus Figurines".

This drawing is an image not disimilar to any of the Venus Figurines. It too depicts the primal beauty of a voluptuous or pregnant female. This is an 'umbrella image', if you will.