Ian, this was a really ambitious piece, and I'm glad you saw it through to the end. While I appreciate the experimentation here -- and the exploratory attitude on the whole -- I think the placement of the colored drips might have been better planned. Obviously, there's only so much you can do to control drips, but it seems you did manage to guide the ink in certain areas better than others (for example, what you did at the top with the yellow looks great). My favorite part of this piece is the background; the collaged newspaper pieces embedded in that brown does much to evoke the passage of time -- AND, not least, it creates a rich visual ground against which the action takes place. I do like the colors you chose for the various characters, but I agree with the comments suggesting you might have mixed more complex and unpredictable ones. Unlike most of the class, I don't mind the blue area at the bottom -- this would have worked even better, I think, with different colored drips. But my main issue with this is the composition as a whole. With projects like this that are concept-heavy (i.e., where you're trying to tell a story or convey a message), it's important to keep in mind that above all else, visual art needs to work on a visual level. It needs to pull the viewer in visually so they'll feel compelled to stay with it and think about the meaning. A more considered composition would have helped with this. All that said, I'm glad you learned something here about the nature of ink and what can happen when you use it on various surfaces, as well as something about evoking narrative with abstract form. It was an experiment worth the undertaking!
Ian, this was a really ambitious piece, and I'm glad you saw it through to the end. While I appreciate the experimentation here -- and the exploratory attitude on the whole -- I think the placement of the colored drips might have been better planned. Obviously, there's only so much you can do to control drips, but it seems you did manage to guide the ink in certain areas better than others (for example, what you did at the top with the yellow looks great). My favorite part of this piece is the background; the collaged newspaper pieces embedded in that brown does much to evoke the passage of time -- AND, not least, it creates a rich visual ground against which the action takes place. I do like the colors you chose for the various characters, but I agree with the comments suggesting you might have mixed more complex and unpredictable ones. Unlike most of the class, I don't mind the blue area at the bottom -- this would have worked even better, I think, with different colored drips. But my main issue with this is the composition as a whole. With projects like this that are concept-heavy (i.e., where you're trying to tell a story or convey a message), it's important to keep in mind that above all else, visual art needs to work on a visual level. It needs to pull the viewer in visually so they'll feel compelled to stay with it and think about the meaning. A more considered composition would have helped with this. All that said, I'm glad you learned something here about the nature of ink and what can happen when you use it on various surfaces, as well as something about evoking narrative with abstract form. It was an experiment worth the undertaking!
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