My Mum is coming to stay for the weekend as it is Mother's Day so I wanted to get something drawn before she arrives as we always seem to be so busy when she is here. I also had to wait in for a parcel to arrive (although it still isn't here and I have to go out in a minute). I thought I would do the next EDM (#323 - 'Draw Something Sad'). I'm also really taken with the Creative Every Day theme for March 'Black & White' as an excuse to do lots of dip pen illustrations.
Now, I had a bit of an issue with Draw Something Sad. Ever since I've been pregnant my mind has been too aware of things around me that are sad. I worry constantly about the evils of the world and have a lot of pregnancy induced nightmares about terrible things that might happen to me and the baby. I think I've already covered 'sad' as much as I want to in the 'Whisper' drawing I did a little while ago (previous post). So I decided to approach 'sad' in a different way. In one of my illustration classes a while back we did an exercise that involved choosing an inanimate object from a table of stuff and then 'lucky-dip' picking out an adjective written on a piece of paper from a bag of them that the tutor had. We then had to draw our object with that adjective in mind. I decided to sort of use this for my 'sad' drawing and just pick up any old random object from around my flat and draw it in a sad way. I chose an orange and I thought a Gorey style illustration might work for making him look sad. The black and white takes away all his spectacular orange-ness and the monotonous background makes him look quite lonely.
I have to say, I'm not 100% keen on result as, being Gorey-esque I started off using my dip pen, but I cleaned the pen the other day and it won't work now! Not sure pencil has quite the same effect. Also, he needs to be surrounded by more background to emphasise how lonely he is but as well as the dip pen not working, my beloved retractable pencil that I've had for ages finally ran out half way through so I picked up with another one but it made my my hand ache!!
Now, I had a bit of an issue with Draw Something Sad. Ever since I've been pregnant my mind has been too aware of things around me that are sad. I worry constantly about the evils of the world and have a lot of pregnancy induced nightmares about terrible things that might happen to me and the baby. I think I've already covered 'sad' as much as I want to in the 'Whisper' drawing I did a little while ago (previous post). So I decided to approach 'sad' in a different way. In one of my illustration classes a while back we did an exercise that involved choosing an inanimate object from a table of stuff and then 'lucky-dip' picking out an adjective written on a piece of paper from a bag of them that the tutor had. We then had to draw our object with that adjective in mind. I decided to sort of use this for my 'sad' drawing and just pick up any old random object from around my flat and draw it in a sad way. I chose an orange and I thought a Gorey style illustration might work for making him look sad. The black and white takes away all his spectacular orange-ness and the monotonous background makes him look quite lonely.
I have to say, I'm not 100% keen on result as, being Gorey-esque I started off using my dip pen, but I cleaned the pen the other day and it won't work now! Not sure pencil has quite the same effect. Also, he needs to be surrounded by more background to emphasise how lonely he is but as well as the dip pen not working, my beloved retractable pencil that I've had for ages finally ran out half way through so I picked up with another one but it made my my hand ache!!
What I do like about this drawing is that, while I had initially thought of the orange as a random object, as I drew him I felt more and more sorry for him that of all the fruit in the dish, he was the last piece left. A sad
little orange going to waste, all on his own in the big wide fruit dish.
Wasted food is something I find very sad and not something I am usually guilty of. I never overbuy food and I really don't ever need to throw much away. I'm always surprised by how little I have put into my food waste bin when it comes to bin day. So now, I feel super-guilty about this orange. He's practically solid now so has no chance of being eaten. I'm trying to think of a use for him.
No comments:
Post a Comment