Exploring and Formulating

What I Did:

This week I tried to break out of my comfort zone and explore a few other options that I have with my project along with formulating a plan for where I truly want to go with my project.  Here is the break down of my time spent on this:

4 hours exploring with manipulating pictures and putting faces on objects
3 hours formulating ideas with classmates and alone of what to do and where to take my ideas
1 hour researching different artists related to my artwork
2 hours drawing expressive eyes and mouths

What I Accomplished:

In order to expand my thinking, I tried to get away from drawing for a short time and explore other medium. I started out taking pictures of objects in my house and then manipulating the photos through Photoshop adding eyes and mouths and adding text that goes along with it. I realized after making these pictures, it was not really in the form that I liked and it was not as much fun as drawing the facial expressions. Afterward, I clipped facial features out of magazines and taped them onto objects in my house along with a written-out dialogue of what the object was saying. This was a lot more fun because the objects could then be seen by my other housemates and it made me really excited to see how they would react to them.

After bringing these photos along with my previous drawings into class to talk about our projects, my classmates and I agreed we liked the drawings more. I got a lot of good feedback and suggestions through this talk. One thing that was suggested that I think is a really good idea was to go public with my idea, such as going to Meijer and giving objects there facial expressions and dialogue. I wouldn't think that I would be one to create public art, but I think that this is the best idea for what I want to accomplish for my project. After getting the basics down for my idea, I sat down and took a lot more time to try and figure out why I wanted to do this and how I was going to go about doing this, which is what is explained in my proposal.

From here, I have started to draw eyes and mouths in a very expressive manor and think of objects that I can attach these things to, along with dialogue for what the object would be saying. Certain objects embody certain personalities and I have tried to illustrate these personalities through humor and surprise. 

There are artists that I have looked at who have similar artwork. I keep looking at work by Terry Border, who makes the Bent Objects. I love the way he conveys relationships between different inanimate objects through humor. He really sets up a great scene and photographs the objects in a way that shows a lot of emotion and personality through things like placement of the wire limbs and shadows. The funny thing is, he does not include faces on his objects or dialogue in his work, while my plan is to only use these things. I also looked at artists who make the faces that you can put on trees.

What I Think I Should Do Next:

This weekend, I plan to make more illustrations and then go to a very public place, such as Meijer, as suggested, and attach my facial features and dialogue onto certain objects that I know will be seen by a number of people. Then, I will wait for people to experience these objects and see what their reactions will be. With these results, I will figure out how to improve my project from there.