@rt = £reedom!

Wake up, New York, we’re not ready for a hurricane. If the 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Virginia yesterday was any indication, we’ve got our work cut out for us in preparing for any future natural disasters.

And by “future,” I mean possibly as early as this weekend.

Though we hardly felt any movement here in the city of New York as a result of the earthquake, panic seemed to overtake a lot of people, as indicated by various news programs and social networking sites.

A single tremor was enough to cause mass confusion, building evacuations and cell phone service outages across the city.

So, imagine with me, what will happen if we get blindsided this weekend by Hurricane Irene, which appears to have the potential of becoming a major storm? Currently, the hurricane is a category 3 and located in the Bahamas, but weather forecasters predict it will strengthen over the next couple day as it travels up the east coast of the United States.

Not only that, but its path may be directly in line with New York City.

So, I ask, are we ready for this possibility, New York?

Consider: This region, more than any other, relies on electrical power. From high rise apartment buildings, to business computers, to the subway system, a massive power outage caused by a hurricane will have a significant impact on people’s lives.

Imagine if you were sick or paralyzed, and stuck on a building’s 35th floor without elevator service for days. Or, simply picture the isolation caused by television and cell phone outages. Ask yourself, where are your flashlights? Your radio? How will you keep up to date with important emergency information if the storm knocks out electrical services?

In order to prepare for this hurricane, ultimately we have to think not of the earthquake, which caused no lasting damage, but rather everything that went wrong during this past winter’s big snowstorm.

People were unable to leave their apartments, and emergency buildings were essentially unable to move around on the streets. We were woefully under-prepared, and most city workers had to play catch up to fix the significant problems that resulted from the storm.

In this case, we have had ample warning. Hurricane Irene has been brewing for quite some time now, and meteorologists across the country have made it clear that this storm is threatening to strike the United States.

While we here in the Northeast tend to think of hurricanes as more of a Southern problem (much like the East Coast as a whole considers earthquakes to be a West Coast problem), there have been reports that Irene could be in line with both Washington D.C. and New York.

Whether the storm ultimately hits us or not, I urge city officials, emergency workers and the public at large to read up on hurricane safety guidelines. Because, based on yesterday, I think we all need a refresher on how to handle natural disasters.

Via: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/08/24/earthquake-proves-nyc-is-not-prepared-for-natural-disasters

Image by Christina Rodriguez

Here is a prototype sketch I created for a mock spread I am working on for this article…

Creating as an Artists or a Designer? Do you follow paths or make your own ones?  Is either of the choices here better than the other? We will try to take a look into the designing process from different standpoints and ask various people about their opinions on the subject.

Our goal will be to find the pros and cons of these approaches and find their respective target audiences and finally, to find you in it all. 

Let’s begin with defining what the words “artist” and “designer” for the length of this article.

Artist – a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria.

Designer – a person who devises or executes designs,  especially one who creates forms, structures, and patterns, as for works of art or machines.

Those don’t put any clear difference in the meaning. So we will have to create one ourselves for now:

Designer – we will view designers as trained people with vast knowledge in rules of the design process, how to use different elements to ones benefit, meaning of colors etc.

Artist - artists will be those guys out there, who probably are self-taught, they have a basic understanding of the rules out there and saw their use in multiple occasions, but in their work they tend to go their own ways.

Finding your way 
People who are very good at something usually enjoy whatever it is they are doing. That gives them the drive to constantly improve their skills, learn new tricks and improve the old ones. That’s why it’s important that you make an aware decision when choosing your path.  

Try to remember what made you interested in becoming a Computer Graphic. The reasons can vary quite a lot. Maybe you were just looking at all those pretty pictures and designs and decided – hey, I want to have a go (that’s my story), maybe one of your friends got you hooked up with the idea, or you just thought it’s going to be an easy way to make money, why not?

We’re only looking for the reason to find out where to go from here really. For instance – if you got into design just to make a quick buck you probably want to stick with our “designers”, nothing absolutely wrong with that. On the other hand if you’re driven by the passion to create pretty and original things, then working for corporate, big companies will probably be the definition of torture for you.

We don’t really want to see you suffer (no, really). So think hard on where you came from and where you want to go to.

Don’t jump to conclusions that  designers do their job only for cash or other non-sense like that. Just trying to make a point here.

My own strength

So now that you know where your path lies, we’ve got to think on how to get there.

Know your own strength
 
Every person is different on many levels. No real discovery made there. But that means, that everyone will have a different approach on design. In a field where you are expected to create things by yourself, your personality makes a huge difference. It’s hard to compete with others in everything, so how about challenging them in what your best at instead?

Make your best assets the core of your design and build around them. You may exceed at creating colours and mixing them, or you a have keen eye for details, creating unique navigation methods. Whatever it is, try to use it to your advantage.

There will be times though where you just can’t, then what? Just do the best job you can. The fact that your skills in other fields may be inferior doesn’t mean they are useless. To some extend you’re a one man army out there, especially as a freelancer. Any knowledge is to your advantage.

So find out what are you most comfortable with and build around it. Here comes the difference though – our designers will probably want to get a lot of knowledge from every direction where our artists would mainly focus on their strong sides and figure out how other fields can improve them. Again, neither way is wrong, it’s just taking a path that suits better your personality.

Focus on your own area of expertise
 

While the above may sound at first familiar to the above section, the concept I will try to grasp here is a bit different.

With programs getting more simplified by the year there is a growing number of human-factories, folks that can create Graphics, Code, Music, Video, etc., all done by one person. Adobe with every presentation of it’s new Creative Suite makes us want to believe, that now you will be able to easily operate any of the programs with no problem nor knowledge. Truth to the matter is though, regardless of the improvements made, we’re still far from being able to do a perfect job in all fields.

If you’re looking to do work for small companies and not very demanding clients, then you probably can get away with multitasking across different programs, but at  some point you will want to evolve further at which point you’re going to find out, that you simply just won’t have the time to do so.

So at some point you’re going to have to narrow down your area of expertise, whether you want it or not. When you begin working with others, would you prefer that they’re very good at their thing or mediocre in many? That’s how others will view you as well.

Knowing standards will be to your benefit
 

For designers that’s a given. Artists may scream here about ripping the bounds, going into new worlds and so on.

The truth is though – you need to know how things are done. In school they will teach you that until you are so bored of it you’re ready to burn the place down. If you are self-taught though, you need not only to learn this stuff yourself, you have to find out it exists in the first place.

You may create the most original an ingenious projects known to humanity, but if there is no way to make them work, it’s just junk.

Where to start? The old-fashioned books are a great way to get you out the door, or a Video Course (not to mistake with a Video Tutorial). You are basically looking for something, that will give you all the essential knowledge, technique, issues etc. of the field. Otherwise you’re in danger of running into those problems by yourself and that may hurt. Nobody wants  to have the project done and ready to take payment, when suddenly you realize you’ve done it all wrong. It does happen more times than you think, so be sure it does not happen to you.

I’ve found my Path
 

So you are finally good to go. But are you sure? Let’s try to think about what you’re getting and what you’ve missed out on.

Impact of your choice

Your works style will differ dependent on your path choice. I’ve had companies tell me in the past, that they love my portfolio, but my style is different to theirs. You rarely will have the option of second impression, even if you could change your style to match theirs. Why would they revisit you though? If they can find someone else, who’s style is originally more compatible to them. Often advertisement agencies focus on a particular type of clients, hence develop a style, which will suite their clients.

Your path will have an impact on who you work for. Once you land a client which wants a flashy website, you are going to have a portfolio with a flashy website in it. With that you can advertise to another client, then you have two designs, which are the opposite of toned-down and clean and so the wheel starts turning.

To further dwell on the subject, I’ve went ahead and asked a few company owners the following question:

In designs for your company do you put more emphasis on the fact that they should be in compliance with various standards or do you prefer to see more originality, even if the usability may suffer because of it.

School vs. Self-Taught 

I’m not trying to make a statement here that you should not go to school. But is there some backside to beginning your education there, compared to trying to learn things by yourself? Let’s make a statement – “School kills creativity” and think about it. While you may enter the school with eagerness to learn and visions of a great, artistic future ahead of you. The story will probably be different by the time you finish.

It really depends on the school and their approach to teaching, we shall not discuss that vast topic here though. Let’s just say that there is a good possibility, that by the time you get your degree, your mind will be programmed to think more in design terms then the artistic ones. On the other hand, when you learn by yourself, you are probably doing so for a certain purpose, to gain necessary knowledge and skills. Only to be expected then, that after having learned those you will want to play around with them and by so, give an outlet to your artistic side.

Of course all depends on a person and the results will vary, but the above does in fact happen more often than not. I did ask around with some people I know and the majority of them have the opinion, that apart of getting a paper, design school was a waste of time. Then again, it’s your own responsibility and in your best interest to check the school you’re applying to and make sure you will be getting your times worth.

Learn from others, bring it to the next level 
 

You won’t come up with all the ideas by ourselves. If you are one of our “artists” then you probably really want to thought. Other people have good ideas, that’s an undeniable truth and it’s your choice if you want to fight it or make it work for you. There is nothing wrong with looking at how others tackled the same problems you’re facing. See what they came up with and think if it’s good for you and can you make it better, bring it up a notch. That helps as well unify the ideas out there. Remember that your clients may not necessarily want to learn a new navigation or others things, just to visit your website. There is a place for everything, don’t try to put everything, everywhere though.

Conclusion 
 

Everything I said may be my own opinion, but I tried to present it in such a way, where opinion does not really come into place. Whether I’ve succeed or not is really up to you. Either way I hope you’ve found this article helpful in some way. The choices you make today will make a difference tomorrow, so choose wisely.

 

You Know You’re A Graphic Designer When…

• You have bags under your eyes so big you’d have to check them in at Heathrow Airport
• You watch the superbowl just for the commercials
• You can spot bad typography from 100 yds away
• You are pro-facebook because 95% of the myspace accounts burn your retinas
• You can name more than 200 fonts in under five minutes
• You are completely immune to subliminal advertising”
• You look upon a well-designed project with either:
  sympathy OR extreme jealousy
• Your hand is permanently stuck in the shape of a mouse
• You tell stories of exacto-knife inflicted wounds with grizzled sort of pride
• You practically take caffeine intravenously
• You have an appreciation for everything unique
• You’ve been spending three days non-stop on a project and it still looks like shit. You find yourself overcome by Deathlust.
• “You find your pulse increase at the sight of a lovely ligature, glasses steam up when an unusually elegant arm, leg, or tail comes in view, and a well-kerned paragraph is apt to make you break into a sweat with excitement.”
• “You know you’re a Graphic Designer when… you buy a CD or DVD for the artwork, even if you have no idea what the actual music or film is like”.
  (even worse, you don’t actually watch or listen to it, just stare at it for hours and hug it in adoration)
• “You know you’re a Graphic Designer when… you look at the clock and see it’s about midnight and think ‘I’ll go to bed now’… and you actually go to bed about 2-3am”.
• “You know you’re a Graphic Designer when… you need someone else to point out that you’re sitting in a room in front of the computer with all the lights off, and haven’t noticed”
• “…when you know what “kerning” is and you really, really like it.”
• “… when you wear two [ke] [rn] pins on your bag, and only you know what the mean. To others its probably a band of sorts..”
• Forget the boy-wonder and the man of steel; your heroes have names like ‘Tibor Kalman’, ‘Stefan Sagmeister’, ‘Paul Rand’, and ‘Paula Scher’.
• You don’t wear black to look cool, you wear it to hide the gauche.
• You have a thing for chairs. You don’t know why.
• You giggle whenever you use the colors F0CCED, EFF0FF and 44DDDD
• You’re in the sun and you look around for a Drop Shadow to sit under.
• You give your relatives a lecture about color spaces and profiles when you email them your vacation photos.
• Seeing someone use Lens Flare or Comic Sans adversely affects your blood-pressure.
• You maintain a grid system for your refrigerator magnets.
• You organize your CD collection according to the Pantone chart.
• You sit at work for eight hours straight just looking at your monitor, waiting for a spark of inspiration that doesn’t come.
• You’re up ’til 5am because you came up with the best idea ever while brushing your teeth.
• The hottest dream you ever had was “Trace contour… Find Edges… Pinch… Extrude… Smudge Stick… Motion Blur…. Sprayed Strokes…”
• You know Lorem Ipsum by heart.
• Your kid knows Lorem Ipsum by heart.
• The preschool teacher complains your child won’t color inside or outside the lines – only indicate colors on a separate sheet.
• Activating your entire font collection makes your computer crash
• You deliberately butcher your perfectly cross browser compatible site in IE by placing a “Too Cool for IE” banner on it.
• You prefer a Layer Style of 50% Opacity (or less) on your wife’s Satin.
• You spend $200 on a font for your personal website because “it’s the only one where the lower-case g is just right…”
• Looking at a menu make you go “hmmm, ITC Baskerville italic” rather than “mmmm, lunch!”
• And when you finally order, you go for Layer Based Slices with Grain Texture…
• You use words about fonts you dislike that other normal people reserve for fascist dictators and serial killers.
• Apple+Z is the first thing that goes through your mind if you drop and break something.
• You refer to colleagues as Strict, Transitional, Loose and the Future Unemployed.
• You refer to your privates as “the Magic Wand”.
• You know that rivers are more than just water.
• Your best friends are all employees at the local print shop.
• The only people who seem to know what you do for a living are other Graphic Designers (ex: Graphic Design? What’s that? You’ll never be able to make a living being an
  artist!)
• Kerning and leading on your shopping list actually matters to you, and you don’t see a problem with that.
• Several South American economies suffer noticeably any time you try to give up coffee, or even cut your consumption of it by half.
• You know that “bleeding” doesn’t hurt.
• when your significant other/ friends have threatened to never speak to you again if you point out one more font to them.
• when you know the difference between fuchsia, magenta, and maroon.
• If you could go back in time you wouldn’t go back to see the rise and fall of civilizations, you’d go back in time to destroy comic sans and papyrus.
• You can understand everything on this list.

via: nheerdesign.wordpress.com/2007/05/31/you-know-youre-a-graphic-designer-when/

So alone I feel…
Lost within myself…
Only I know what I know…
With no one to share it with…
With no one to help me understand…

Forever stuck in the future…
Alone and lost in the present…
Fear is red, I am color blind…
Lost and trapped within…

Why am I lost alone…
Trapped within myself…
My lonely darkness…
Alone I shall suffer…

grina001

Day to day, life is challenging, and we all wear it on our face, to which we apply the makeup of Sterility to cover it up. Being a sufferer of social phobia, bipolar and anxiety disorder. This is something I feel every day.

This is the first in a new series of somewhat abstracted self-portraits exploring the full range of feminine emotion, capturing the essence and purity of a single moment.

Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 18″ × 24″
Image © AmandaGWright 2010

Safety First

• Working with pastels is dusty work.. Don’t blow the dust away as you will breath in a certain amount. Rather, take the work outside and tap to get rid of the dust.
• Don’t keep any food or drink near by otherwise you will be eating dust!
• Put down a sheet on the floor or wash the floor frequently.
• If this is the medium you work in most, consider an air filter in your studio.
• Try working with gloves.. the pigments can be absorbed through the skin and it’s much easier to clean off the gloves than your fingers when changing colors.
• Winsor & Newton have a helpful “Artguard Barrier Cream” you can use to protect your hands if gloves aren’t your thing.
• When spraying your work with any fixative, make sure you are in a well ventilated area or outside.
• Keep some “Wet Ones” or “Baby Wipes” handy to clean your hands or glove. Keep them in a bag to stop them drying out quickly.
• Keep your pastels in Rice! Put a layer of rice in your pastel box to keep them safe and clean.
• Create the habit of cleaning the pastel each time before putting them back. Use a towel or paper towel attached to your easel.
• Working on an easel allows the dust to fall down and out of the way rather than collecting on a flat piece of paper.
• A tube cut in half and attached to the bottom of the easel will catch the falling dust rather than ending up on the floor.
• Reuse Styrofoam trays from your groceries to keep like colors together when working

Mary Cassatt : At the Theater 1879 

Techniques:

• Edgar Degas would steam the pastel with boiling water to create interesting surface textures. The steam could make the pastel into a paste, which you can apply with a palette knife, or a wash that and be applied with a brush.
• Blending tools made out of old styrofoam are cheap and disposable.
• Be careful of over-blending your pastels. While you can use fingers or a stump both of these have their drawbacks. The process of layering your strokes can normally do this quite well.
• Scumbling is where you spread the pigment, smoothing or blending it into the paper. A stump (kind of a pencil made entirely out of paper) is used but can take off or dull the pigment. Try using a pointed stick, end of a brush or pencil with “Hold-It” or “Blue Tack” or a little kneaded eraser around it. You can shape it into a point and get into the little areas too!
• Getting a light “watercolor” like look from your pastels. On white paper, use the broad side of the pastel to make your strokes. Start with the darkest values first finishing with the lightest. Try to let the paper show through with some of the lightest values. Layer your colors, but the tooth of the paper will fill up quickly so you will only be able to have a few layers.
• In pastel you work from Dark to Light. This might be hard for those of us coming from Watercolor where you work Light to Dark. Try applying your light colors first leaving spaces for the darks to add later. You will have to be organized because once you have your light colors down you can’t go over them with darks without making your colors murky and loose their crispness.
• Mix a little red, blue or yellow with your black to give your shadows depth.
• Try blocking in color just like in oil or acrylic paintings. Squint your eyes and start with the basic shapes, no details. Then move onto refining the blocks adding smaller “blocks” of color until finally you are finishing off with the details.
• Use different types of strokes in your work to give it life. Using the same stroke for the entire painting can be repetitive.
• Avoiding Mud! Avoid layering cool over warm colors and vice-versa, unless you use a fixative to isolate the layers. Try not to overwork the pastel and if you want to correct some part of the work, remove the pastel right down to surface of the paper if possible rather than going over the existing color.
• Try using a harder pastel first (see chart) to block in your painting with loose free strokes so as not to fill in the tooth to quick. You can then move onto using softer pastels for the final layers giving you nice bold colors.

Edgar Degas : Dancer Adjusting Her Shoe   

Tips:

• Remember to plan your work. The funny thing about painting is to make it look spontaneous and effortless you actually need to plan. Make a thumbnail sketch, with composition, balance of values and the paintings “angle” in mind..
• Take a break every now and then. Having a fresh look at your painting after time away can help you evaluate the painting and know when it is time to stop!
• Hold your photo reference up to the light to see more details in the shadows than just a mass of black. There is always more to a shadow than you can see.
• Try making a black and white copy of your painting to check it’s balance of values. You need a balance of Darks, Medium and Lights to make your painting interesting and attractive. You will be able to see if your darks aren’t dark enough or to many mids and not enough lights.
• Fixative is a good way to extend the tooth of your paper so you can add more layers or to isolate one layer from another

• Fixative is not so good as the final “fix” to your work. It dulls the color you worked so hard to achieve and destroys the reflective qualities the manufactures worked so hard to impart in their product.

Edgar Degas, Le Tub

• Take lessons. There is always something you can learn from others and it is the fastest way to progress. They might not teach pastel work but are great at figures and would be happy for you to attend their classes but use the medium you prefer.
• Making your own pastels. If you dropped your favorite color or have lots of little bits of the same color, collect them and crush as much as possible in a small plastic cup. Add a drop or two of alcohol and roll into a stick. Let it dry for a few days and it is ready to use.
• When framing your work, keep it simple. You are showing the painting not the frame. A white matting works well, doesn’t deter from the work and doesn’t put off a potential buyer like a color can.. “that wont go in with our decor”. Make sure you have the all-important spacer between the mat and your work.

Papers:    

• The tooth of a paper refers to how much pastel pigment the paper can “hold”
• The texture of paper is the weave and look of the paper as well as the feel of it when you apply the pastel.
• Paper with limited tooth is best for light sketches while some of the papers with ample tooth can hold several layers.
• Everyone has their favorite paper they like to use.. but to preserve your work you need to make sure you use “acid-free” paper.
• Some of the different types you get effect the look of the pastel on the paper, e.g..
  • A lightly sanded paper like Art Spectrum is good for a painterly approach.
  • A velvet-like surface like La Carte, holds pigment well but you can’t use any sprays or liqud.
  • Canson and Strathmore papers can be used with a small amount of water.
  • Arches cold press 300lb can take a lot of stress, rubbing and Scumbling and still looks good. Because of its’ shallow tooth it can’t take to many layers of pastel.
• If you want to use liquid on your work you will want to make sure it is secured to a board etc like you would when doing Watercolor. You can tape all the edges down to a board. The paper will ripple a little but will flatten out upon drying.
• You will need to consider what you will be doing (a sketch or a “work of art”) and choose the paper that best suits. You might want to consider the papers tooth, textures, color and if it is a masterpiece you intend to create, the archival quality.

BRANDS: Hard and Soft Pastels

Hard-Medium-SoftExtra-soft

• Holbein
• Grumbacher
• Conte
• Alphacolor
• Sakura Nouvel Carre
• Prang Artist’s Chalk
• Nupastel
• Gallery

• Rembrandt
• Demco Chalk Pastels
• Winsor Newton
• Yarka
• Schwan’s Carb Othello pastel Pencils  

• Rowney’s
• Sennelier
• Townsend
• Wallis   

• Schmincke
• Unison
• Maimeri
• Artworks  

A suggested set of colors: For someone starting their “Pastel collection” for the first time.

• Colors:
  • Lights: A cool yellow and warm yellow, a cool red and warm red and ultramarine light.
  • Mids: Ultramarine, Cobalt blue, warm yellow, lemon yellow, a warm red and cool red, a warm yellow green and a grass green.
  • Darks: Deep Ultramarine blue, Dark Cobalt blue, a cool very dark green and warm v.dark green, dark reddish brown, a dark gold ochre and a deep yellow.
  Jean-Etienne Liotard : Maria Frederike van Reede-Athlone

  

This is a basic set.. you would need additional colors if you where going to concentrate on paintings topics like floral, or portraits and landscapes. Floral’s might need some more reds and yellows while landscapes need more earth colors and greens. Skin colors will be needed for portraits but that might not be as easy as it sounds to a beginner. There can be surprising colors that are used by expert pastel artists when doing highlights and shadows in the face. Some research into what colors they use might be easier. Go through some books in the library or book store.. Normally a list of the colors they like to use will be in the first few chapters.

Storing Pastel Paintings:

• You can layer your paintings flat on a shelf by using Glassine. Glassine is for the interleaving or storage of artwork. This translucent sheet will not smudge pastel, charcoal, or graphite drawings.
• A thin pH-balanced foam core board (or non-acid / archival board) between every few pieces along with the Glassine will help to evenly distribute the weight.
• Use pH-balanced pieces of paper over the gassline as tabs with details of the image so you can easily find any piece of work without disturbing your others to much.
• If you don’t have glassine paper you can use tracing paper to cover work .

Via: http://www.practicalpainting.com/Articles/Pastel_tips/tips_for_pastels.htm

This is straight from John Poon’s journal on redbubble.  Please view more of his work via his redbubble profile at: www.redbubble.com/people/johnpoon

I think he did a wonderful job on this…thank you John, you translated this well…

An interpretation of Fear & Anger by Christina Rodriguez for Sojie 13

WIP 1

Initial thoughts
I was intrigued by this image’s dark energy. But more so, the title “Self Portait 06 – Fear & Anger”, and the description “Silent nervousness of mine…Inspired by my fears, anxieties,and apprehensions…” made me want to try my hands at doing an interpretation of the image, and/or of the written words.

There are a few options to explore:

• Should I try to come up with something similar to the original image’s in colors and style, or never look back.

• Should I offer some hope, a dim light at the end of the tunnel, or even go darker, or a combination thereof

• It’s going to be a composites. Since I use only my own images/textures I am going to have to go through my files and see if I have the parts. Hoping one image would jump out and set the direction.

• I went to look up the words to find more synonyms and antonyms and then I remember this new tool on the net. Online Graphic Dictionary
  This is cool and worth further exploration, for this and other projects.

This is a quick test merging 2 layers from Online Graphic Dictionary

A potential layer

Wouldn’t you know it… An accidental image that would make a photographic translation of Fear and Anger. At least the mailman excused himself for getting in my way.

WIP #2

An introduction to Frank
Artist sued the City of Penticton and the Art Gallery of the South Okanagan after they refused to pay for the damage done to his piece, which was also known as Frank.

After the statue of the middle-aged man surrounded by several old suitcases was unveiled in 2005, members of Penticton council claimed they were unaware the sculpture was to be nude and a steel plate was placed over the figure’s genitals.

The controversy spawned international media attention which intensified after vandals lopped off the figure’s penis.

In addition to the vandalism involving Frank’s penis, the sculpture’s left ankle was fractured and the left calf cracked. A few weeks later, his groin area was spray-painted green. Art gallery employees tried to remove the paint, without consulting Hermesh, who claims they unintentionally did further damage. (source canoe.ca)

Frank, with his emotional baggages, speaks to me all the words in Christina’s description of Fear & Anger “Silent nervousness of mine…Inspired by my fears, anxieties,and apprehensions…”. He would serve as the focal point of my translation

What would I fear most if I were naked out in the open?

I think I have enough to work on with these three images plus the two from the previous WIP. I still like the Visual Dictionary idea and will try to work it in somehow. Now the fun begins :)

WIP #3

Here I added Frank and decided to go high contrast on him and positioned him very close to the left edge to add tension.

I chose this particular closeup graphic detail as the background to prep the way for my attempt to incorporate the Visual Dictionary idea. It already has some arrows, directional lines; and I like the crosses for their subtle negativity. You can see I am starting to add in typographic effects…

Once I have a working title, I will know how to finish it. So it’s off the search my music library for the words.

WIP #4

Keeping in mind that I want to work in the Visual Dictionary concept and knowing the texts would end up too small to be seen on RedBubble resolution, I made the decision to crop to portrait orientation to get more display real-estate. 

Then I added 2 more statues…

And a handful of birds. 

And now the Visual Dictionary

Detail 

A little more fine tuning and trying one of the crop options.

I like the above crop but I am submitting the following one as my final. 

The lunatic is in my head

Title and inspiration by Brain Damage – PinkFloyd

A self portrait, my daughters and I…

A very emotional piece for me depicting the stress I often feel as a struggling mom. Often feeling bounded, emotionless to all except my children…but despite it all my children are always with me, they are my inspiration for all I do… 

The pink fleshy part at the bottom, representing my cesarean I had with both my children…very traumatic experience for me, each operation took almost a year to heal from…

Media Used: plaster, wire mesh, gouache, oil-based clay