Drawing Three
Place Project
doors
Nathan Netterlund
April 25, 2011
For my Place Assignment I initially wanted to do a graveyard themed project. I wanted to do this because graveyards were always a special place to me. I had gone to graveyards often in high school and drawn from life. Graveyards were also visually interesting and they were plenty of conceptually possibilities to explore throughout graveyards. Graveyards were good examples of differences in class, religion, status, culture and other important differences in society. I was set to do a project that compared two different graveyards that were very geographically close to each other in terms of religion and social status. The project would have been quite interesting, but I postponed actual studio production on it, as I was incredibly busy working on an essential Art Education project. The project was a mock application to a High School; complete with a cover letter, resume, letter of recommendation, transcripts and DPI License application This project was the last large-scale project in the last education class. I could see the end of my time at Stout and it was quite intimidating. Did I have enough education to succeed in my future career? Had I taken advantage of my years in School as best I could? Questions like this consumed me and I was filled with doubt and insecurity. Rather than effectively combating the oncoming fear, I let it consume me. In a short time I was crippled by the sort of depression I had not experienced for some time. This got worse until I couldn’t work at all. I decided to seek advice from a Professor who I trusted. He listened to my problems, responded with relevant suggestions and I left His office feeling much better. I made a conscious decision to embrace confidence rather than fear. The first thing I did is begin to clean my room and house. I opened the door to my balcony and breathed fresh air. I decided to change my concept for the project.
I would make the place my room, which was one of the ideas on my original mind map. I would use the two doors of my room as an ubiquitous metaphor for positive and negative psychology, in particular my own. One door would be closed and exemplify the seclusion, loneliness and insecurity I was experiencing. The second door would be open to the world at large, letting in the sun and fresh air. Naturally the second door represented escape from the prison of depression and more positive attitudes towards the world at large.
The visual language I used wasn’t particularly complicated, so I was careful not to make the differences between the two compositions extreme. Instead they were stylistically consistent, with the largest difference being some brighter colors outside of my room, which made sense given light differences from interior and exterior environments.
My process was in part dictated by this emphasis on objectivity. I photographed and re-photographed the two views of my room, until I finally got pictures that I could use. I compiled a couple photos for each view to obtain the necessary visual information for the compositions. I then re-worked the lines using the pen tool in illustrator. With the lines complete I colored the piece in Photoshop, using gradients, paintbrushes and the magic wand tool. Finally I incorporated texture layers from photos of appropriate textural information. I fine-tuned the levels and the compositions were complete.
The first artist for this project is Edward Hopper. His stripped down style presented subjects with little extra stylization. This unassuming style had a natural feel to it. Hopper wasn’t trying to make the idyllic American settings something they weren’t. Rather than creating something extra-ordinary, Hopper simplified the elements a bit and let the subjects breathe. This naturalistic feel worked well for Hopper and though my piece is slightly exaggerated in terms of visual information, I feel it relates to Hoppers work by working naturally with representative forms.
Another artists I looked to was Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh was severely depressed through much of his life and this was reflected through his searingly over- saturated works that practically bled with bright colors off the canvas. This color theory, coupled with His painterly style worked together to reflect his perspective of the world around him. Although my use of color theory is more subtle, it is this technique that I tried to do to reflect my perspective on the subject matter.
My project is in a large part about process and craft, but it also reflects a deeper meaning that is personal important and relevant to others as well. The mind is a complex thing, but it can clearly go in different directions. The doors in my composition serve as a strong metaphor for negative and positive psychological options. My conceptual representation of this is both valid and understated.
