My Response...to my response

This post becomes a little ramble-ish, I feel that that’s ok because it is not accessed and its essentially my personal reflection on my work…I feel if I edit it heavily when I look back later it won't be worth it. For a summary of my thoughts please see the dot points at the end (SEARCH FOR ##@@## AS A MARKER).

Firstly I have a little bit of disclaimer or sorts. I understand the aim of our project was to research then respond to our specific artist but I could not help but be influenced by other artists and life in general. If there is any particular outside source which I was influenced by it would have been the music and other media produced by Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria. Like Murakami Coheed and Cambria operates over different media/mediums for expression. For Coheed and Cambria this expression is a story of a sci-fi-fantasy world depicted in their music, graphic novels or comics and in a novel. That’s just a little back ground information as I feel it affected me if only because there latest album came out at the same time and was playing constantly while I was thinking about this work and producing my response.
My point is that my response is more a self portrait of myself or my mind at the time of creation, with offcourse a focus on Murakaimi’s work and what I understood of it.

Although short, from 1:30 in the video clip embedded above, Murakami provides a small justification to what I have done when talking about “Tan Tan Bo” 2001.

TAN TAN BO 2001
(AGAIN RAMBLE WARNING…dot points at the end of this post)
My character design came about from my own messing around with a drawing I would always do in lectures on the side of my note pad. It is basically the upper position of his spine, just an ‘S’ bend. But if you look through my old note books there is a theme…almost everything I draw/doodle begins with a line like that. It’s a nice smooth motion I can’t help but do reflexively with a pen.

I did chop and change this little character without much thought of using it as a part of my response until I drew this final image.

I just love how it is a mess of lines, and how the two colours work to give it a little life. The messy scribble of lines just looks right and I think is much easier to produce as everything I do with smooth lines looks false. Unfortunately I did not fully appreciate how those two colours bring the little guy to life until I attempted my own in one colour. For some reason this little sketch just looks really human to me.

For the sake of safety, due to my skill level and the need to produce something, I choose to use paint and canvas as my medium.
I painted the back ground a bright red, and my intent was for my character not to take up much more than a third of the canvas in the same sort of way Murakami did in ‘Stew’ of various colours (1995). I wanted my character to seem to be small in a vast area, I don’t believe I have achieved this as well as I would like.
I choose to use the colour red because it is both a warm and inviting colour but when bright it is rather ‘epileptic’. The idea was for a feeling of chaos and comfort at the same time…I get that when I look at the colour although I understand that is probably very subjective.
A major pitfall was that I did not appreciate the extreme difference between painting an image and drawing one. It does make sense that painting would be harder as I have never focused on controlling a brush before (this thought only came to mind as I painted over the first attempt). I use a pen every day, and I use a paint brush…once in the last ten years…it really is a completely different tool to master.

After I produced my work I felt rather discontent. It was all a little too bland and it was easy to see why when I compared my sketch to the paint on canvas. I had not used the scribble lines or the two colours, and this just left my character lifeless in comparison. I did try to add more black to make the lines a little more uneven, which did work to improve my work to a large degree. It also highlighted an issue…I had used an oil based paint. While not a huge drama drying and transporting then became an issue.
Unintentionally I did find a way in which I really do enjoy my work. While trying to clean up the mess I placed the canvas against my window to make room, this lit up the back ground of the image and really lifted the character out of the canvas. This did dull the intent of a chaotic red colour but overall it is more pleasing to look at with the texture given by the differing layers of paint.
This is my first real attempt to participate in art in any way since primary school so I did feel a little anxious and hence took baby steps of sorts. I would have loved to attempt something grand like creating a product/artwork like Murakami does so well but grading and fear got the best of that.
(It is a little sad that grading pushes the safe but bland approach over trying something new…at least that’s how it feels to me at times)

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So to conclude with some brief notes:
HOW DID I RESPOND TO MURAKAMI?
• I used a large flat plane of colour to display my work on.
• I invented my own character which holds its own representation for me personally
• I attempted to draw the eye to notice the expanse and relative size of the character to express my own message. And to follow from top to tip of my character.
• I expressed myself/memories/feelings/thoughts in a self portrait of shorts much like Murakami’s Tan Tan Bo 2001

POSITIVES (ACCORDING TO ME)
• The red background worked well to show the chaotic and warm.
• The Colour and character placement to show the expanse and relative size.
• The character can be recognised from my sketch to the canvas and vice versa
• I found an interesting way to change my work with backing light.
• I appreciate the difficulty to use different tools/mediums
• I learnt that an eraser does not work well to remove grey led from paint.
• I like my work and am proud of it.
• I want to do it again but better.

NEGATIVES (ACCORDING TO ME)
• Did not pick up on the need to use 2 colours for my character to produce the same effect.
• Did not practice enough with a paintbrush before the due date.
• I simplified too much to attempt to make it less daunting which in the end made it more frustrating (above problems)
• I did not read that the paint was oil paint


Overall this was a good exercise. I want to do more and I am proud of what I have done, not to mention I experimented with art away from a controlled environment (not putting down EDAR, it’s just different when it’s your own time)