First!! Some images of inspiration!
... Why these images, you may ask? Well, I misunderstood the idea of the required "inspirational" images and featured them based on the reading provided by my fellow artists in class... So Lauren gave us all the pleasure of reading Johnathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal". An enjoyable piece that starts off a bit too humanitarian for my taste...so thank heavens it goes left field on anyone reading it when the prosperity of a new age can be obtained by eating children! Boy oh boy, everyone's favorite treat! Toddler feet! Before the prospects of cannibalism I was dead inside while reading it up until that point. My eyes wide with anticipation of how ridiculously ingenious the proposal was...it's all clear to me now. Eat the children! But, turns out it was just sarcasm and he wasn't really proposing that people should revert to the good old potato famine days and devour the youth....or was he? No. No he wasn't, and that made me feel slightly sad...because it was funny.
Now for the art work for the week. I'll be honest here, I didn't really have an idea of what to make for it and since I'm saving my paint for figure painting and I'm a cheap chump who stretches that stuff as far as it will take me ( the wallet! It holds nothing!) I just decided to pick something kind of environmentally sound since that seems "artsy" and I don't do enough contemporary practice. I just really don't care much for giving deep meaning for what I create. I tend to create art that I can enjoy. So if it isn't "fun" for me, why bother sort of mentality. Political statements, commentary of the human condition and all of that just aren't interesting for me personally. But I went ahead and decided to go and collect water bottles from here and there, what I would do with them, I'll never know but I collected nonetheless. I collected a decent amount in a trash bag and stuffed a few into a bulk ramen corrugated cardboard package I got from a friends house and sat there looking at it thinking "yeah I guess I could say it is a "representation" of the standard college students diet. water and ramen noodles. I didn't think hard about it because I just wasn't invested in it. So I shoved the idea to the side and went to do something I could enjoy instead.
So I went and asked some friends of mine to help me come up with ideas for new creatures to design since I like doing that kind of thing and have fun with it. Asking them about their favorite animals and theme ideas for a demographic based on an area... we went with Ireland, and so with a list of animals, ireland specific mythological creatures, cryptids, lore and stuff I went and drew about 100 new critters to add to my beast batch outbreak personal project. I only drew them in pencil inside a sketchbook and didn't actually create an art piece with them. I had my research and processbook on the side with it but I didn't go any farther than that since these things take time to develop. I'm still going to fine tune these designs on my own time regardless of what I do next week... I'll add images for both projects soon but I am going to probably go in a different direction for next week and maybe revisit the water bottles, but instead of worrying over trivial meaning and reason with it I'll make something first and then add purpose to it afterwards because time isn't your friend and never will be.
An awkward beginning but, next week will be better