#testpieces

The dreamscape was inspired by textiles and the idea consist of displaying various patterned textile as texture for surreal objects and figures combined. This dreamscape was prompted from a dream I had of visiting a textiles shop which I wanted to turn into an odd and surreal world of fabric and textiles. I recognised that the drawing lacked clear sense of narrative and has no deep meaning however I thought it was a development towards my drawing skills and technique as I am improving my observational skills and texture. The folds of the fabric are observed and drawn into objects that are undistinguished due to the surreal theme of my project. The lack of clear narrative is instead focused more on the visual aesthetic aspect. I recognised the weak communication but I did not want to put this drawing to waste as I had stated in my project proposal that my drawings would be surreal and influenced by abstract imagery.

The visual theme for the first piece is inspired by the last piece of using a neo-noir and cyberpunk aesthetic by using neon glow key-line to highlight the drawings and also make the black outline not blend with the black background. The choice of black contrasts nicely from the vibrant and loud colours I used which also contrasts very well with the subtle pastel colours. This creates a balanced level of saturation that is spread out to highlight certain areas to solve the issue of my drawings being too busy. I didn’t remove any imagery from the original hand drawn piece as I felt that it would lose it’s unique visual personality that I have been developing as mistakes has progressed my skill and understanding of visual communication. 

Furthermore, I wanted to develop my skill in drawing perspective and using foreground and background to add space and depth within my drawing. To further improve this also added shadows and highlight using the Photoshop tool in the 2nd and 3rd piece as it created an interesting way of using light compared to realistic lighting. The presence of mid tones and the gradient of mixing colours creates a psychedelic visual aesthetic which supports my project of conveying a surreal dreamscape. The 2nd piece consist mostly of light and pastel colours, even the outline is very light which contrast from the first piece as I wanted to go the other end of the spectrum in terms of dark and light. This created an interesting visual outcome however it was too light and hard to make out anything. Even though I really like the colour palette, I can see it being difficult for people to view and focus even though the content’s purpose is meant to make the viewer feel strange due to surreal content and visual personality. 

In this drawing I was inspired by my technique of recording dreams. I had a dream of band practice and a performance therefore I decided to illustrate a surreal musical performance. I captured the essence of music by portraying members playing instruments for example a I included piano, keyboard, vocals and drums to convey the theme of music. The stages and platforms are drawn in a surreal way by using outlines of wobbly figures joined with speakers to emphasise the dream like aesthetic. This link to my project proposal of using dreams as a way to express ideas and images of the subconscious onto paper. 

The first attempt at colouring digitally ended up being very chaotic and messy due to my wide range of colours that don’t harmonise. Some colours are way too bright and vibrant taking away from the detailed drawing. The colours don’t fall into colour theory and is too messy making it hard to see for the viewer.The red background takes away from the other colours therefore I need to consider using a different colour. This led me to the next one by simply changing the red to black to make the other colours more distinctive. It worked out very well but the lines were gone therefore I added a white glow around it to make the lines distinct as well. The drawing seems more easy on the eyes and less chaotic however I still wanted to try out a different colour palette that is limited to a select group of colours.

My project proposal states that I am creating a series of Surreal Dreamscapes. I am using the method of Surreal Automatism drawing to experiment with the creation of dream like imagery. In this case I have experimented with the theme of using figures and objects melded together to create a landscape. For example on the left there is a figure of the lower half of a woman with goopy like texture that I have captured through line drawing and use of shadow to create depth. The texture bring out the figure and creates an interesting visual aesthetic making it more detailed. I have implemented the idea of distorting objects making it seem like something else to emphasise on the theme of surreal dreams. Using automatism drawing it helped me construct these objects and figures together as it allowed me to fill up spaces to make the drawing seem chaotic. This was my intention as I want to express a busy and chaotic surreal dreamscape as it represents how my mind works when I construct a drawing. 

Next Project: Blackout