My Body Through Line

 Title: Mine 

25.5 x 33 in (individual pieces of printer paper all together), pencil, marker, ink and white gel pen.

I really enjoyed doing this piece and it was somewhat therapeutic for me as a few of these other projects have been. There was a lot of emotion and frustration put into this piece, but also coming from a place of growth and happiness - as I said in class there was a lot for me to unpack with this piece as it is coming from a mixture of ideas and feelings all in regards to my body. I wanted to depict the concept of trust and growth in relation to my body in the context of other people and my body but also between myself and my body. The title “mine” is meant to reference times when others have felt that my body is theirs, that they have a right to it, as well as times when I have felt like my own body is not mine in terms of what I want it to look like, to be. The overlapping lines of varying colours demonstrate sort of a tree ring aspect, which show how much a tree has grown, in this case it should show how much my “body” as grown through the lens of my mind. It is about growth from insecurity and distorted self view and learning to appreciate my body for all that it is able to do and how much a blessing that is. The black spots show somewhat of an inner turmoil regarding violation and safety, about how I have had the trust broken from people who I have known for year to complete strangers who have shown the lack of respect for my body and being as a women that they have. The white scribbles inside are that conflict of should I care, is it really that big of a deal, etc as well as the ability to forgive. The butterfly’s are quite literally those little butterflies that you get in your stomach when your nervous or excited. The darkened distorted ones are negative butterflies of discomfort, disgust and insecurity whereas the colourful butterflies show the growth and growing comfort with my body and touch and looks, etc, these are the butterflies I get hugging a loved one, getting a kiss from my boyfriend, dancing with my little sister, looking in the mirror at my body in a cute outfit and being happy with what I see, and knowing that how others have chosen to disrespect my body is not my fault nor does it need to reflect or influence how see my body, a source of beauty and blessing.

Process:

To begin I gathered 9 pieces of printer paper to create a separated but singular canvas, then taped them all down to be able to work with them without them shifting.


I then layed down different body parts, at one point even my whole body on the paper to the trace with pencil the outlines of my body. Most outlines I traced myself but I had my boyfriend help me trace the biggest one where I couldn’t reach around my whole body, this was also an act of trust relating back to the concept of my piece discussed above.

I then began to trace these lines with markers over and over again eventually getting to 4 different layers of coloured line work.
I then added in details such as the different levels of butterflies in the stomach, which are a combination of all the materials used, and then slight ink outline along the major figure, then big patches of black ink with white gel pen to contrast the black and create an internal image.

Final Piece:


In the separated form:

As discussed in the critique I agree that I don’t like the way that the art looks separated and split up like this as much as I do when it is all fit together and unified. It has a disconnect but not in the metaphorical way that I was intending to have. I considered taking this image down so that it is only the single final image above left, but I think it is important to show both sides of process, failure and success, hopefully I can work with this piece in the future to create a combination of disconnect that does work.


Detail Pictures:




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