My chosen theme for my Visual Thinking course final was my biggest fear. My biggest fear is one of failure and the resulting aftermath of my supposed failure. I have gotten better at managing this fear but when I was younger this fear felt very controlling and overbearing toward my well-being. My success and failure are always being watched, monitored, and criticized.
Some of the techniques I used were dry brushing in the background of the middle piece. I would flick paint/ink off my brush on the figures in the middle piece as well to represent blood splatter from my head exploding. I also dabbed my damped brush in the ink, diluting it with water to make a transparent texture on the figure’s eye and body on the left. I did solid, opaque strokes on the backgrounds of the left and right artworks to bring more focus to the objects presented. I wanted the middle piece to have a more chaotic background to go hand in hand with the built-up pressure on myself (resulting in the exploding head).
I mainly used ink and compressed charcoal for the materials but, I did add a little watercolor for the transparency of the colors. I sketched out the drawing with a pencil first. I made sure to block out anything I wanted to keep lighter, that way when I went in with the darker colors I don’t cover something up by accident.
I know in my other art assignments, I didn’t do anything with the backgrounds, I mainly did solid colors. So for this assignment, I wanted to try doing things with the backgrounds like adding the eyes, making dry-brushed marks, and even adding a building. I also wanted the pieces to connect so I drew them in a way that they stretched into one another while also being stand-alone pieces. I thought this was pretty symbolic of me still being stuck and affected by the circumstances of my past that led me to this fear of failure.
I did struggle to match up the pieces together. That is why in the photo, you see me adding details so the images fully connect with each other. I also struggled with drawing the house, I mainly do characters or people so it was a nice challenge to draw a building. The house is the house I lived in during my childhood so I did use a reference photo when drawing it but it was still very difficult.
I wish I definitely would’ve taken my time when doing these drawings. I should’ve savored the feelings I had when creating these pieces but I felt I could’ve added more and refined it a lot more as well. The first 2 drawings turned out surprisingly better than I thought they would. The last drawing, however, didn’t live up to my own standards and I felt like I probably should’ve redone it because I wasn’t as happy about it as the other 2. I believe this piece conveyed the emotions I wanted it to but it was a struggle to do because of everything I went through and experienced because of this fear.
