Pithy Title

The art grows difficult.  It swings from feeling like I'm exposing myself too much, to not being personal, to being just a step away from pornography.

I mean, I'm dealing with a theme that justifies this, and as art these drawings are fine.  I worry about what other people will think when they see them, that they'll judge me badly and not want to have anything to do with me.

Example 1: How much room for interpretation is there?

And yet.

Still, I'm considering selling prints.  Get me an Etsy store set up, maybe?

I'm running out of images from my muse, and when I just use random images from the internet, it doesn't feel right.  Given I am not in contact with one person and the other is not comfortable with this, I'm not sure where to go next.

I have found a couple of online models who are aesthetically in the right ballpark but I don't have the money to actually work with them, and it feels wrong to use their likenesses for anything other than these sketches.  Even for them, if I'm honest, but needs must.

Meanwhile, moving back into photography...

It's pretty, but not sure where it goes.  Another path to follow, so I've bought another pinwheel to try and progress things.  

The Ace Of Pentacles and The Four Of Swords

This is gonna be a disjointed one.

Lets get the hands thoughts out of the way first.  A  potential problem occurs to me, in that on some of these, the hands don't seem to indicate a complete image. Example: 

This is one distinct image.  I know it is, I drew as such.  And yet, I'm still seeing it as two seperate drawings on one page.  If even my eye is fooled, then what of someone coming at this cold?  

The obvious solution of course, is to connect them somehow.  Maybe add more lines from the body?  

Quick sketch of a solution.

Does this make things too obvious?  The more elements I introduce the less room for interpretation there is.  Is that important?
 Is taking away visual freedom in order to guide the viewer down a path worth it? How far can you take it before it becomes too obvious?  Before the viewer has no paths but the prescribed one?  And yet....

I want to enforce a feeling. But a feeling isn't obvious, at least, not to me.  I don't want to be obvious.  I've never been able to be obvious, or is honest the right term? The risk of overthinking is strong.

Feelings are strange things.  As I may have mentioned previously, I was in London just prior to the Lockdown and looking through the national gallery.  Room after room of famous Important artworks.  And I felt nothing.  Nothing stirred me.  They were just... pictures. I used to feel things from art, and indeed, I remember doing so with a work at the Tate last year, but since then?  

So how do I present these physical feelings in a way that communicates best to a viewer?

So the other thing I need to try and work through.  Matters of consent.  I created art from images taken with a friend.  I had full consent for that, and for the creation of the work.  But she did not like the finished artworks, so I've pulled them.  No worries, no hassle.  That's what consent means.  I'm disappointed that I don't get to show the art, but I'm not disappointed that she wasn't comfortable with it.  

Models Addenum:

"I don’t think non-consent is an issue, photos were taken by him with my consent and therefore owned by him. It wasn’t a case of not liking the finished artworks but not liking the visual representation of myself within them. I’m disabled through chronic illness, a collagen defect means that my joints aren’t held in place properly and so I feel “broken”. The artwork took that further into visual representation, parts of my body not connected to others and very much reinforcing how I feel about myself…”broken”. Being confronted with your inner thoughts in visual form is difficult to content with and so when asked my opinion, the only words I could form were “I don’t like it”.

I don’t think this would be a problem for other models or photos being used as inspiration in this way. I think it’s a very personal issue that most wouldn’t be aware of or consider when creating art like this. I think continuing with this theme is a good idea as it raises awareness of issues like disability and visual representation, and how an individual’s perceptions can be wholly different to intent." 

The problem is, the work I'm creating is based on images I created with someone else.  Who was with me when the source images were taken (obviously) and who also said yes to my creating art from them.  But who doesn't now have the opportunity to give consent to the final outcomes.  Who might not be happy to have themselves exposed in this way.  There isn't any facial recognition involved yet, but the marks are there for those who know what they're looking for.  

I worry about the fallout from this.  Is non-consensual art a thing?  And how will affect things if we were to start talking again?  Part of my reasons for working from these sources is to try and deal with the overwhelming feelings of loss and rejection that I've been left with, but is this right?  To use the images of someones body without them able to give consent to the finalised image?

I don't know.

Further Thoughts

One of the interesting things about this is the use of negative space.  The absence of shapes and forms, the absence of the people.  All that remains is the memory of touch.

One of the things I have to bear in mind on a case by case basis is just how far do the arms extend?  In an ideal world, I'd only be drawing the fingertips, but then you lose visual language.  The story, the message is lost. So it's a compromise from the start, in a way.  

I like the fact that the actions are not obvious.  But there has to be enough shape there for the hint of a story to unfold.  To see that these are hands.  But is it just one person?  Two?  More?  How close are these people, is there intimacy or distance? What stories are being told in peoples heads?

The next week or so I am moving on from hands, to lips and mouths, possibly feet.  Feet I am less sure of, as that may be too unrelated.  I simply like drawing feet.  But they are still a part of some of my cherished physical memories, albeit as a passive actor so... lets see how that works going forwards.

The ultimate form of this, as my uncomplicated animal brain understands it, to make people understand the feeling of this would be to literally strip them down, blindfold them and then touch them in the ways that touch has been or is being deployed in these works, in my memories.  Then there would be an understanding, and the participants would  then have memories of their own to take home and live with.  Obviously and understandably there are issues of trust and consent here, that cannot be overcome, so in a way I am working from a place of initial compromise, to an ideal that can only ever be compromised.  It kind of fits.

In a way what I am thinking of is the opposite of artists such as Milo Moire or Marina Abramovic, whose works invite audience participation in the opposite direction.  Here is the artist, they said.  Here is your invitation.  What will you do with it? Abramovic's The Artist Is Present was the unquestionably braver and most groundbreaking of the two and involved the possibilty of actual harm, even death, to herself, while Moire's Mirror Box (NSFW) was less obviously dangerous, but more intimate and sexual.  Moire blurs a line between art and pornography, and yet still draws from from Abramovic, as I draw a line on a further tangent.

Thoughts for the future, anyway.  For now, until I can move again (currently under Governmental shielding orders and having a busted knee) I shall continue to draw the feeling of the touch of my memories.  

Update 07.06.2020

So, who wants to know what I think of whats going on right now?

#BlackLivesMatter (2020, Procreate, digital)

And if you disagree, get the fuck away from me and my art.

Moving onto personal stuff, I've found it increasingly hard to create these last few weeks or so.  The heat and lonliness that online only contact cannot compensate for have thrown me for a bit of six.  I have ideas that I want to work on, but I just cannot.  It's a pain.

The best I can do is make dumb little digital art pieces like this:

Abstract #1 (2020, F12019, Playstation4)

Which have been created on a Playstation in the photo mode of a racing game.  At some point I think I should get it into photohop and try and remove the game stamp, but is that honest? Which again makes me wonder: What the fuck is art anyway?  Crippled by doubt and my own lack of self esteem, I need validation and that is the one thing I do not seem to get.  Or at least keep.  My narcissistic ego is going to be the death of me.

The last thing I created.  A TF comic round robin affair.  A group of different comic creatives all take turns in continuing a story.  No-one knows where the story will go after they have finished their page.  My pencils, layouts, inks and script, and two friends letters and colours

.https://twitter.com/tfroundrobin

for the rest of it.  It's ongoing over the summer and for as long as we can maintain interest.

An Introduction, Of Sorts

Apparently, It's the start of the academic year. At least that's what the diary I bought told me.  So, lets start this off.

Hi, I'm Ben and I'm a mature fine art student.

Or at least I will be, once September rolls around and I'm enrolled and all that good stuff.  So, I'm starting a blog, using a name I've had kicking around forever.

Before September, however, there is the small matter of TFNation to attend, a convention in Birmingham that I'll be tabling at.  Third year this time.  Odd to think that.  If I'd started a degree then, I'd be done now...

But anyway. Some background.  I've been drawing Transformers for a while now.  It's the only real geeky/nerdy thing I'm into.  But I've been painting for most of my life.  Stopped for a while, after Real Life got in the way.  But now I'm back and ready to try again.  My second attempt at getting the BA Hons Fine Art.  It should be interesting to see how much better I cope this time around, if at all.  I already have worries and fears, as an older person than most of my soon-to-be-peers, and the fact I've been out of academia so long.  We shall see, I guess.  But like I said, in the meantime I have a Transforming Robot Convention to deal with.  So today, and most of the rest of this week, I'll be working on my last print.  No idea if I'm going to do a run on these, or just keep it for myself, but that's a bridge to be crossed at the printers.

Sneaky peak: here's the pencils:

So, If I come back here to blog before the convention, expect it to be mostly robots, and then we'll swing back into the fine art stuff afterwards, and start to ramp up to being an actual student again.  

Til next time.