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bodhi-isabelledubik · 8 years ago

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Final project check list // Train of thought // project development.

I am the type of researcher that makes A LOT of notes. I find a lot of my inspiration through quiet deliberation almost always stemming from something I have read. I think reading is a brilliant way of enhancing your imagination, which in turn aids in creativity, and creative problem solving. Allowing myself to be free of over-visually stimulating media when I’m developing an existing idea really helps me to see the direction of my project and the key areas I should be researching. At this point in my research I have rapid thought processes so I have to scribble it down in note books, on loose sheets of paper or queue cards.

My basic train of thoughts for this project ( page scans on blog).

Decided I wanted to do a project on a topic I find interesting that I didn’t know too much about already. Choose human consciousness and our projections of this, ie, Religion.

Researched religion briefly as a whole (literature: A little History of Religion by Richard Holloway)

Went to the British Museum before going back to Sheffield for a month due to personal reasons.

From British Museum Research (specifically The Ancient Greek and Roman mythologies) I decided to look into Religion and Mythology as two of the same.

Watched all Mythology related episodes by CrashCourse

Bought MYTHOLOGY An Illustrated Journey Into Our Imagined Worlds by Christopher Dell because it was one of the few recent extensive books about mythology and religion as the same.

Spoke to my Grandmother about the similarities in the stories of different religious texts such as the Quran and the Bible following a conversation with her Muslim friend.

Started researching similarities in visuals from different religions/ religious buildings. Noticed the Pinecone, the Eye and the Caduceus staff are frequently shown via different religions.

Found imagery in the Mythology book and through online research of religious architecture, statues/idols that supported various different shared symbolisms - the pine cone in ancient asian architecture, pinecone statues in religious grounds adorning acorns and twin animals (Vatican) and in religious relics such as the Papal Staff (adorned with an acorn)

Discovered why the Pineal gland is called that because it resembles a pinecone.

Read more about the Pineal gland (one pineal gland- one thought at a time, our perception of light and dark, sight (outward physical, inward mental) and referred to as the third eye and seat of the soul.

Investigated the ‘Eye’ as a symbol and the variations of its symbolic nature in different religions/myths. Found it was extensively used across different religious/myth/ imagery including Hinduism, Norse mythology and Alchemical drawing (Alchemy is a philosophical and protoscientific tradition practiced throughout Europe, Egypt and Asia.)

Researched more into Alchemy and the imagery (almost like mathematical, scientific and religious imagery all combined).

From researching each of these symbols in religion it lead to different stories or beliefs in other similar religions and belief systems. This is where I read about the Kundalini and The Chakras. I knew about the chakras but had no idea what they meant or represented at this point.

Looked further into Asian religions and beliefs and the link between the Caduceus staff (That I knew predominately from Greek myth) and the chakras - Kundalini - Yoga.

Began researching each individual chakra and what they represented, physically, mentally and emotionally.

Researched about hand gestures as that was something continually present in the visual research, and their use in yoga and the link to the chakras as well as representing/ symbolising other meanings also.

Gathered my research of the chakras and the imagery style I thought I would run with due to the fine line detail (Goya, Durer…) - when I’m not print making my other leading medium is fine line drawing.

Began sketching from anatomical drawings (fleshed and skeleton) because I 1. like the realistic style and 2. because its human anatomy, the figures portrayed are displayed in many various positions which is helpful in reference images.

Started to toy around with mixing the anatomical drawings that at this point would work towards one large busy image (inspired by Bosch) or seven (because of the energy chakras amounting to 7) detailed individual ones that may or may not have gold inked elements ( Due to my research from the British Museum and then in the Mythology book about minerals and gold symbolising the divine, conscious, enlightened, all-knowing).

Researched more into symbolism and found the lotus, particularly in asian belief, has very profound meanings - also depending on how open or closed and the colour of the lotus.

Created 7 small sketches of the images I wanted to use to symbolise the explanations of the chakras, noting small symbols ( the actual chakra symbol, element symbol-alchemy and hand mudras/gestures that explained elements of the chakras such as specific emotions.

Looked more into meditation/yoga poses, hand gestures, indian mudras and body poses in the dance and also in Hindu gods ( Nataraja - avatar of Shiva) to help make the sketches (particularly the hand mudra meanings - and also noted the use of additional limbs in some gods/goddesses.

Got a friend to model the poses I had sketched including the hand mudras specific to each of the seven image concepts.

Created more detailed ‘mock ups’ of the seven images I wanted to draw using the photographs of my friend.

Edited the photos and printed them off as references.

Decided to line trace the outline of the photographs to play around with placement and decided to experiment with layering the images into one with many arms (inspired by Nataraja and other Gods with several arms - Durga, Kali, Ganesha, Lakshmi…)

Decided to put all seven sets of arms with different hand mudras on the same body.

Chose a ‘key’ posture image using the 7th pose showing the lotus mudra (the pose that represents full enlightenment)

Scanned all of the outlines drawings and began to edit them in photoshop beginning with the main 7th body pose.

Began to arrange the edited outlines of arms/hands around the main body edited trace, trying to create a balanced image - the arranging process took quite some time because of size, scale, need of negative space, overlapping and depth.

Once I had finalised the outline of the main image I referred back to the symbolism icons I wanted to use and due to the line work being simplistic but compact I wanted to add colour of some form to complement and add to the overall symbolism of the piece (7 images rolled into 1).

I took symbols from my seven image ideas that I thought would suit the main image that had more significant meaning, such as the skull - representing mortality.

Revisited the snake symbolism (researched as a digress from the Caduceus Staff) and the negative and positive connotations it has within religion and myth.

Began sketching over the line work in photoshop using my wacom tablet for more freedom and created a winding snake which was mostly inspired by the winding snakes from the chakra-esque imagery I had found.

At this point there was only one image and it represented the journey of self awareness, consciousness and full enlightenment (positive image) but after stepping back I realised that the meaning behind the image would be a lot more impactful if there was an opposite; bad to good, yin and yang, dark and light. Especially as Tricksters, Demons and the like are extensively used in religious/mythological texts and images, and are in fact the focal point of hero stories (there is always a good guy fighting a bad guy).

I decided to mirror the image and add a second snake that was more constricting (negative). During this process I had inverted the colours of the main body image as I found it easier working on a darker background - I’m dyslexic so sometimes having a white background and parts of other images having large areas of white literally hurts my head and I can’t see what I’m doing as much.

When I inverted the image I didn’t really pay attention to the use of blacked out colour until i deleted the background later, leaving the inverted main image and a white background and it reminded me and some of the people who saw it at this stage of greek pottery design - coincidence & subconsciously influenced ? probably from my early research at the British Museum. At this point I thought I was going to have one body as the black reverse and the other white with black background.

I drew both snakes onto the same image I realised I could make a third but knew I needed to finish the two other images before contemplating that as a third outcome due to time restraints (which I was right to adhere to as the two images ended up taking a lot longer than I had first imagined they would.

With the snakes on one image I quickly sketched postures of the snakes neck and head and came to the decision to have both snakes mouthes open as if they would be about to attack one another. I consciously chose to have the ‘negative’ snake that I ended titling Foe slightly below the ‘positive’ snake that I titled Friend. They were working titles from the main project title that I ended up just running with.

I divided the sketched snakes onto the two mirrored images and began to neaten them up, using the hand and arm positions as guide for the snakes body to flow through.

Once I was happy with the snakes placement on the main image I experimented with transparency - I didn’t want the image to be too boldly broken up by the snake. I really liked the transparency of the snake across the main image as it created depth and also added a continuing deeper symbolism in representing entities that you cannot necessarily see. However, the images were definitely lacking in something. All the working colours were flat and despite the now transparent element, still flat colour, and so, I referred back to the elements of the chakras and decided to paint textures for the snakes bodies in the colours of significance (not only for the chakras but also in general positive and negative connotation. I chose blue for the positive snake as it is calming, sky, water, flowing, positive… , and red for the negative as it is symbolic of blood, life’s water, fire, hell, death…

The textures I painted were also created in different ways to be more in tune with the meanings. For example, I created more fluid paint combinations for the blue snake and much more stippled and chaotic for the red snake.

In scanned the textures in and narrowed down my favourite textures and began to Lasso tool them to roughly cover the sections of the snake (naturally broken up in sections by the main body). When the painted layers were over the snakes body layers I changed the transparencies again to a desirable finish and began to warp tool the painted layer sections so that the ‘gain direction’ of the paint fit with the movement of the snakes body rather than just dropping it as it was.

Once I had created the main base of both snakes I drew a snakes head from photo reference, scanned it, edited it on photoshop adding extra texture and colour for the mouth and tongue.

Once I had altered the head to fit both the negative and positive snake I realised the boldness of the head (being bold black) needed to flow better into the snakes form, and so I spent time editing and layering more textures and elongating the black section onto the ‘neck’ of the snake and textured the area with an array of different brush tools until I was happy with the finish. Some of texture brushes were of my own making.

When the main body with a scanned in fine line drawing of a skull placed over as a face mask, and the snakes were complete, my attention went back to the more obvious symbols I had noted down from the individual sketches and I made the decision to have both images as the black inverted image with white background because they looked much more balanced and coherent.

I created vectors of each of the chakra symbols to use on the image - bar the 7th lotus as I had already demonstrated that with the lotus pose of the hands.

I rescaled the chakra symbols to suit the main image and experimented with placement, but I soon realised (having spent ages making and editing the vectors) that they just didn’t suit the style of the image despite making a circular grid and other attempts of placement, and so, i scrapped them. At first I was a little disappointed but I realised that the symbols for the most part would have just been a different way to symbolise the same things that the hand gestures were already doing. Less is more.

Having taken the symbols away (that were more in tune with the alchemical style drawing), I still wanted to include other symbols to be shared across both images. On the original line drawings of the arms, one of the arms was already drawn holding flowers - life, mortality & earth. I realised that with the fine line drawing detail of the skull and wanting to add a 3rd fine liner detailed symbol, I needed to edit the flowers which were originally very simplified (drawn from photographic references) into much more detailed ones, much like my usual fine-liner art work. Due to one of my previous projects this year being about the language and symbolism of flowers I chose carnation flowers as they represent love (on many different levels) and are also representative of the January birth month flower and 1st wedding anniversary which I liked - to represent a beginning, a journey.

The image I drew from was one that I had pencil outlined for the previous project but didn’t end up doing anything with, so I finished the drawing which was a line of carnations together and when I scanned it in I edited it on the photoshop file to be positioned in the same way as the original simplified flowers.

For my last symbol I wanted to make a final organic representation of good and bad to emphasis the characters of the snakes and so I chose a piece of fruit. On my gallery visits whilst I was at Home in the North I ended up in a small gallery that had rooms dedicated to specific symbolism in classical art, one of the rooms was about how gardens have been seen as a symbol of human transience, and still life’s of fruit, vegetables and flowers can remind us of our mortality. In ‘Time Death and Judgement by George Frederic Watts (1817-1904) shows 3 women representing each of the three, with Death holding flowers in her shirt. I chose to draw an apple for the the positive ‘Friend’ image and place it in one of the hands that I had directed to be cupped as if it was holding or presenting something. For the negative ‘Foe’ image I distorted the apple and edited it to look like it was rotting - shrunken and placed it in the same hand as the reverse.

After I had finished the main elements of each image I spend some time cleaning up the edges due to the invert - still keeping a slight shadow over the white lined edge for extra definition of the image and after I finished the clean up I decided the images were done. Despite completing the images, which I am extremely happy with in result, there are of course things I would of perhaps done differently if I had more time on the project. For instance I would have and likely will in the near future create the third image with both snakes intertwined on one body - almost like a triptych centre for the other two. I would have spent longer on additional details to potentially add if I were to make a much bigger scaled version of the images such as flowers growing up from the foot of the body added as a patterned texture to add over the ‘skin’, much like how I put the paint textures over the snakes body. I would have also liked to have actually have painted/ etched out the image designs on actual thrown pottery that resembled the vessels used in Ancient Greece and Rome.

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