Charm Quark • Lithograph • 2008

Inprimitude • Etching (Intaglio) • 2007

*postcard designed by fellow faculty member Assistant Professor of Art, Darlene Farris-LaBar

I’m looking forward to experimenting with different media (other than just graphite) for my next figure drawing sessions.

Moving beyond the whole ‘poop cloud’ concept, I decided to bring it back to being more representative of actual body parts embracing one another. This drawing is a mass conglomeration of those drawings. The final dimensions of this graphite drawing are approximately 4 1/2 feet x 3 feet (a work of art unto itself!):

An additional drawing to the one above:

And, since I cannot resist the idea of developing a good drawing — I proceeded to do some inks and markers over the graphite drawing to see what I would come up with. I really like how this came out (though I didn’t really use it for any of the final drafts of Embrace):

The next image is an example of what I like to call ‘dynamic linear mapping’ in which I use tracing paper (or a light box) to draw with a brush pen on top of my own graphite drawings to highlight the movement and forms in the drawing using only linear elements:

Then I decided to invert the ‘dynamic linear maps’ and use the negative spaces instead of the positive black lines to what it would look like — and I liked it!:

The purple color looked great in the concept stage, but, in reality, it would make the wall and that whole corner of the room too heavy. So, I decided to throw some white into the mix to make it lighter. Getting closer to the final piece, but still needs some tweaking:

The purple just wasn’t going to cut it, so I resorted to all white and decided to make the framed pieces glimpses into the original graphite drawings that were completed:

And, voila, the final piece! I hope to have some details of those graphite drawings soon (as they are barely discernable in this picture):

A view of the site before my meddling:

A few images (of the many) of the poses (of TJ & Jessica) I referenced while developing the imagery for the installation:

My first concept drawing based upon the figure drawings of TJ & Jessica:

A little Photoshop magic used to superimpose that first concept drawing over the actual space (I didn’t think it looked too good — so, back to the drawing board!):

I redrew the original drawing in a more fluid, cloud-like style. Unfortunately, some referred to it as the ‘poop cloud’:

Still liking this drawing, I plugged it into a scaled vector file (in Adobe Illustrator) to see how it would look. This is where the idea of using frames on top of the mural worked its way into the plans. But, what to do in those frames had not yet been decided. I also toyed around with the possibility of extending the imagery onto the windows via paint or vinyl, but that got scratched in succeeding sketches. Overall, though, I couldn’t help but see a ‘poop cloud’, so, back to the drawing board!:

End of Embrace Process Part 1.