My goal for the next couple weeks: finish up these 403 posts! I have been crazy busy between traveling, packing, storing, and driving all over everywhere. Add on a promotion at camp and a move-out date of July 7th and you have a recipe for a very stressed out Ms. Kanak.
Anyway... Part 3 of 4 begins now!
One of the first images I experimented with was a photograph of a hair follicle. As stated in the first post I wanted to choose products of the body. In the past few years I have realized that my stress manifests through periodic hair loss...it's an issue I have tried to prevent in various ways and that is starting to be resolved.. I went back to revisit one of the photos and started with a light purple ground. I wanted to make the purple and yellows more saturated than the original photo to create interest and highlights.
I was really pleased with my end results - the highlights and white spaces started to resemble electrical currents. If I had started with a grey background I may have been able to achieve the periwinkle/ light purple hues in the original photo. I did not want to lose any of the details so I chose to keep the hues mostly pure and not blend them.
This next set of images is one of my favorites. The photograph was from a slide of tears. I remember reading articles in the last few months about the appearance of tears from different emotions.
As I took photographs of the slides I did notice slight differences between images, structures, and lighting. I made the slide after a heated argument and took the images two days after during class. This was one of the first images where I really noticed how the pattern on the scope itself could interfere with the colors in the image.
Started with a complementary ground to pick up on highlights and contrast... I also did a very light outline/drawing in of the basic shapes in the composition.
This is kind of funny - like one of those cooking shows where the host creates an elaborate mix of ingredients and then magically has a finished product waiting for them in the oven ha! As I have stated before each of these drawings took several hours to complete. This drawing was particularly challenging in that there were so many subtle hue changes throughout. I started with the background colors - which were inadvertently created by the pattern printed on the scope - and blended those in to more closely match the photograph. After that I darkened the outlines of the shapes to create depth and the illusion of shadows. I took some artistic license when choosing the saturation of the different hues - I wanted the shapes to stand out and have dimension and texture. Highlights were next, followed by creating the outside halo of darkness (sounds like a metal band..). I wanted to preserve the sharpness of the lines and highlights so I blended those less - really just on the edges of where they touched darker hues.
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| the final result |
I really am pleased with how this drawing turned out. Critiques brought in responses like "it looks like space" "nebulas" "environment" "soft". I was able to create the illusion of depth and space in a fairly simple and undefined photograph. To be fair I spent a lot of time zooming in and out to examine the image more closely and see which areas I wanted to focus on. Some were much clearer than others, but my ultimate goal was to draw the appearance of liquid on a flat surface.
Okay.. we are getting into 'gross' things again. So prepare yourself. The next set of images may make some queasy.
Remember how I was talking about 'products' and 'being a woman'? Well there is no product associated more with womanhood than blood - in all its gory glory. I will spare you the details but the following images of slides were all menstrual blood from various times of day and days of the week in the same cycle. This is apparently becoming a thing! I read this article about Jen Lewis, an artist who has been using macrophotography to capture the movements and complexity of her own menstrual blood. My own exploration of the images was investigative and revealing in many ways as well.
Lewis and I had a similar mission but much different results. We each wanted to make people see something natural, but taboo and stigmatized, in a different and objective way. Reproductive health information is something women are either inundated with or completely isolated from. Over the past few years I have learned more than I probably ever wanted to about my own body and health issues - but it has been important for me to do so. I need to know what is going on so I know where to go next, right?
I photographed one slide with two different strength magnifications, from different angles, upside down, right-side up - you name it. What I found was complex structures and textures that ranged anywhere from crisp and ragged to fluid to something that resembled string. Taking into account the human element of pressure put on the slide while taking the photograph, the air bubbles which slipped into the slide between collection and completion, however my own body chemistry was that day... every single image was different and beautiful. I wish I had more time to draw more or even enlarge the images taken because most were really surprising and dynamic.
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| I chose this photograph to draw from - I loved the translucence and iridescent qualities |
This is right about when the boyfriend starting making faces haha!
"Look what I'm working on today!"
"Ohh, what is it?"
"Blood"
".... I only ask because I care about our relationship."
Too too funny. Needless to say he played video games while I drew. Another pink ground for this drawing, but I also included purple and greys. I started with color blocking and quickly moved into shading. I always struggle with taking the time to fill in details - I work quickly in short bursts of energy. But with this image I tried to slow down and work lots of shadows and hue changes into the structures.
Moved from color blocking to mapping out darkened areas and starting to suggest the dark outside edges. I wanted to increase the saturation of the reds and purples from the photograph to create emphasis and points of interest. The original photograph was much less saturated but provided a great deal of textural information and freedom.
Nearly completed... added some bright blues and blended purples for more contrast between the background and foreground shapes. I also made more highlights and texture lines to break up the hue structures in the foreground... they were looking too grey for me.
This drawing was the beginning of the process of framing and matting my work for display. SO exciting! My dad and I ordered custom mats that were cut and beveled in the round to mimic the display of the slides under the scopes :) Exactly the effect I was looking for! I wanted to maintain that feeling of dark uncertainty that surrounds the things we observe from our bodies. There is always that thought of "is this normal?" whenever our body produces something. I wanted to present products of the body as something that could be seen as beautiful, but still mysterious and a bit unnerving. Apparently that is my thing - freaking out the viewer and making them take a closer look. Artists are weird.
More to come! Last installment of my 403 reflections is next.. and then I will really be hitting the books HARD for student teaching and lesson planning.
Thanks for reading! Hope no one lost their lunch.
Ms. Kanak
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