Winter break: 3 weeks’ worth of work. Integrated Project:

In the winter break I had to complete this check list:

1. Think about where this project is going.

2. How the audience will pick up on how personal the project is.

3. Take a step back and look at the origins of this project.

4. Settle down on the style of the picture.

5. Create a blog post with all the research on it.

6. Be more thoughtful on how I write my blog posts.

Think of where this is going.

I had a lot of to think about in this project, and I believe I was able to find where I am actually going with this: Colour is something extremely personal, as it is noted somewhere in the research I am conducting in my dissertation that colour’s meanings variates from person to person as there are a lot of factors implicated, such as colour preferences and cultural backgrounds, for example in Chinese culture white is the colour of death, while for Europeans for sure is black, for someone blue might be the colour of sadness and red colour of love, for someone else blue means being calm and red being angry. I wanted to focus on my own person for each detail and I begun to reflect more and more on how to make the page to feel like me.

The first change was on materials: Watercolours and inks are now my favourite medium in my possession. I also have the tendency to do these drawings when I am stressed out, see below.

I usually do these with fine liners, but I started doing them with stylus and ink a while back. This is something that anyone who knows me enough will immediately recognize as a quirk I have.

It is important to point out that I do these to calm down and reflect, which happened a lot during my thinking process, so including them is something that I am currently doing.

At first, I wanted the whole page to be just twirls but the colours where not mixing well with each other.

 I begun to think hard on what I was actually doing again, and then it hit me the fact that I am using watercolours more and more each day, so I decided to do the base of colour with the medium and then, once dry, incorporate the ink on top. The result was appealing to say the least, my mum and sister agreed with me.

The next step was to make the picture a bit more colourful and something that I would be proud of, so I created this picture:

I am honestly a lot intrigued with the result. I decided to use this particular look from now on.

Take a step back and look at the origins of this project, and settle down with a style for the picture.

I took a deep look at where I was going, and I felt uneasy on the fact that I was using only music to achieve emotional response, which is problematic as the whole project is supposed to be linked to my dissertation which focused on animation, storytelling and how colour can enhance them, so I decided to take things back to that track and watch Inside Out by Disney and Pixar to return to the roots of the project. I choose Inside Out specifically because is the first movie I am using to analyse my point in the dissertation, also because the plot revolves around emotions.

Watching the movie and creating little snippets was hard as I do tend to get carried away and I have a short attention span. I created these using WHSmith coloured pencils as they were laying around and they would have given me the ability to quickly scribble down what I was feeling.

There are the results:

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I kept getting distracted at the end, as it is clear from the awful way colours were applied. I did not concern myself because I wanted to make them a bit more presentable on Kryta, because I could then choose the layering of each colours in a simple and controlled way. I used the brush: C)_Pencil-6_Quick_Shade as it was similar to the lines I already achieved in my sketchbook.

One thing I noticed is that the drawings had more strong colours and more black and grey were added in the mix that the one I made for the Inside Out Sound Track, I believe this is the result of two factors: one, now the music had contest, and two my mood might have been different than when I completed the sound track experiment.

In a similar fashion as the soundtrack drawings I wanted to create a mashup, this is because I realize that I do not have enough time to create lots of them with the watercolour and ink drying time restrictions. I created 3 different layouts in pencil in my sketchbook, and a 4th layout that is a mash up of the other 3, see below.

I proceed to create these in Krita, creating the 4 below.

I am unsure about them, I did prefer the other one but I think that is because I have been drawing the same pattern for months now. They are not bad, but definitely need work.

Following my decision of using Ink and Watercolours as a medium, I did these quick sketches in my sketchbook.

These are in no way good nor professional, the paper is just cartridge and not suited for these types of experimentations, but I needed a quick and unexpensive way to see if the colours will go together or not as the Krita version did not help. Following the experimentation, I looked at them and my favourite was this one.

Using this and the digital version I created the one below.

I believe I have to paint it more than once for it to look like a professional has done it, but I am on the right track. The next step is to make the watercolour suit the painting better and be more comfortable with it and place ink on top, so probably tone down the watercolour pigmentations.

How the audience will pick up on how personal the project is.

I believe that the easiest way to make clear on how personal the project is, it is to make a clear explanation beside the picture, just like any type of exhibited work is treated in museums. I am thinking of something along the lines:

Marylin Chiaverina

(2021)

Watercolour and ink on Cass Art London 300 gsm 140 LBS A4 Watercolour Paper – Smooth

About:

This is an expression on how Inside Out from Disney and Pixar made me feel.

Watercolour and Ink is a statement on how I grew out of simply relying on already existing shades in a colouring medium and not exploring further than that. My mind likes to explore, and the mediums reflects just that. As for the style of colouring, that is about my personality, I’ve always been attracted by circles motions since childhood, which evolved in a swirling motion that helps calm my anxiety driven thought. As it is such deep-rooted thing I do, I wanted it to be represented in this piece as movies make me feel better, just like the swirls do.

I think this will be good enough for people who read the label to understand my work better. I will probably make some adjustments later on though, just to make it shorter or more to the point.

Create a blog post with all the research on it.

This blog post is in the works as I am writing this. The only problem is that I am late in doing it as I miscalculated my timing again.