Drawing Project statement

Drawing Project Statement Joanna Webster

For this project, I wanted to think of a way to visually communicate the things we are missing while absorbed in a world of technology and looking at the world through a screen.

One of the best quotes I have seen on the internet that sums up what I believe is,

“We’re living in an era where capturing moments using our phones is more important than actually living these moments with whoever is beside us.” - Source Unknown

The whole idea for this project struck me while in a situation surrounded by people and nobody was talking. Every single person around me was looking at a mobile phone, messaging other people or browsing social networks rather than interacting with the people sitting right next to them.

I, myself have been a culprit of this but since this realisation I began picking up on other situations where this happened. Whether it was at a gig or out in a restaurant people are more focused on keeping up to date with social networking and taking photographs, looking through a lens than actually being consciously aware of the people around themselves.

One of the main things that I studied while working on this project is the philosophical study of phenomenology. To describe this basically, phenomenology is the study of the structures of consciousness and experiences.

I began by making observational sketches of people and things around us that I either knew or didn't know and just happened to be near on the train or at a station. Most of these people were alone or in small groups. During the time I was sketching the people I didn't know I found that I would consider who these people were and what their lives were like. In this day and age, unfortunately people would rather not interact and be left alone than socialise with a complete stranger.

The final outcome is a collection of snapshots of people in social situations and the things we don't really think about because we are too busy on our mobile phones to notice that we are surrounded by people. They are small line drawings created on the go but as a collection build up as a piece that shows all the peoples lives that we are apparently too busy engaged with a screen to interact with. When the screen is taken away we are forced back into consciousness and awareness and thats when we start to notice these things.

Artists I have looked at include David Hockney, I looked at his line drawings and decided to use a similar style as it was efficient to quickly draw things while I was standing or sitting in a fast paced environment,

Overall, i'd like to think that my project is a rebellion against the technological world and removed the screen to pick up a pen and paper and become consciously aware of my surroundings and appreciated what is around me. I have shown this through small sketches that make up a collection of unknown faces that make people wonder who they are. I think that given more time and travelling around frequently, this could grow into a larger piece of collected snapshots of life around us.

Drawing Project Contextual Research

One of the other huge things that influenced me on this project is this video i came across a while back.

I think that it shows a lot about todays society and relates a great deal to my project. 

It shows that people are too busy looking through a lens to appreciate life and take in the real experience. 

This basically depicts the idea of phenomenology and the way we experience things around us.

video from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OINa46HeWg8

Drawing project Notes

After Searching for a LONG time, i have finally found something that i've had in mind since thinking about the inital idea's for this project. 

http://www.tellyads.com/show_movie.php?filename=TA2216

image: http://www.pocketropolis.co.uk/blog/uploaded_images/vision.jpg

(the caption is a joke already placed on the image. Sometimes comedy is the best medicine right?)

This simple Vision Express TV advert made me think a lot a few years back. Everything we look at really is like taking a photograph that lasts for a second. Whether its something scenic or a glimpse of somebody you're passing on the street.

The advert always inspired me as it made me consider all of the things that we see that we don't really take in because we are too busy or not paying attention,

I think that this relates a lot to my project as the subjects in my sketches are similar to these snapshots that we see but might not think too much about. Instead i have captured them and taken note of the details in order to create the drawing itself.

Thinking about it, this tv advert made me think about the things i wanted to show in this project before i even started thinking about the project itself.

Drawing Project Development

For my final pieces in my drawing project i want to sketch as many observational 'snippets' of life as possible. Wherever we are, the people around us go ignored because of the way society has grown to communicate through technology and people have grown into a world where we speak more over social media than to the people we are next to on the bus or in a class. 

The entire object of the work is to show the things that we are ignorant to while we are looking at our phone or looking at a screen. 

I used the inspiration i got while exploring David Hockney's work by using the simple line drawings. Although still incomplete, i believe that in a collective piece it will look like the small moments captured by the conscious and subconscious mind all in one bulk piece but separate moments.

I also thought about when i read that an artists sketchbook is very personal and unique, i believe that this is true with this work as not one person sees the same as another. These pieces are things which i have personally experienced and noticed myself in my own life.

Drawing Project Thoughts

Continuing from my initial sketchbook of observational drawings, i want to move out of the book and produce a series of sketches for a bigger piece. I think that the best way to approach this is to create a large number of small drawings.

I want the audience for the work to look and see that the work is about things around us and maybe things we wouldn't usually pay attention to. To wonder who the people are and what their lives are like as well as other small details in life.

I want to create a number of drawings to display from my observational sketches and show them in a small collective piece together.

Observational sketches in A5 sketchbook

Drawing: Artist - David Hockney

David Hockney was born in 1937 and is an English painter, draughtsman and printmaker. Hockney has lived in Bridlington, Yorkshire and London but has also lived in California on and off for  over 30 years. Hockney is an important contributor to the pop art movement in the 1960s and has also been considered one of the most influential British artists in the 20th century. 

In the 1970's Hockney travelled a great deal and chose to work with line drawings. 

‘I never talk when I am drawing a person, especially if I’m making line drawings. I prefer there to be no noise at all so I can concentrate more. You can’t make a line too slowly, you have to go at a certain speed; so the concentration needed is quite strong. It’s very tiring as well. If you make two or three line drawings, it's very tiring in the head, because you have to do it all at one go, something you’ve no need to do with pencil drawings…Its exciting doing it, and I think it's harder than anything else; so when they succeed, they’re much better drawings, often.’ 

(Nikos Stangos, David Hockney by David Hockney, My Early Years, Thames and Hudson, London, 1976, p.158)

David Hockney was an acquaintance of Pablo Picasso who worked in the Cubist era and his work reflects the line drawings that he made. 

Portrait of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) 1920 (graphite on paper)  

The simplistic line drawings show the importance of line and how much of a subject you can draw using a little detail as possible. Using this method also benefits the artist as it means that you can sketch quickly in observational pieces and times where you need to create a larger number of drawings at a faster pace.

For my own practice, I intend to use the idea that using a single line makes observational sketches and drawing in public places faster and easier to create. 

In relation to my original intentions, i think that creating a collection of observational sketches will show people the things that we don't necessarily pay attention to, the small details we overlook and the people that we wouldn't normally associate with and wouldn't pay attention to. 

ref (http://www.waterman.co.uk/artists/225-David-Hockney/works/1857/)

Drawing Project: Artist - James Jean

Image: One of James Jeans complete art works, Enoki II Acrylic on 3 canvases, 72 x 90" 2013

James Jean is an artist from New York and now lives and works in Los Angeles. After 2007 he left illustration and began working on personal projects and exhibitions. 

He studied at the school of Visual Arts in New York and began working as a cover artist for DC / Vertigo comics. 

images: http://www.jamesjean.com/sketchbook/2008_1.htm

Drawn on A5 moleskine sketchbook

James Jeans sketchbook work is created to use the sketches as a resource for future reference and to document ideas. It also serves a purpose to enhance the skill to draw. The images are drawn in public situations and hold a lot of cultural context such as drawings from a train, a coffee house or the people in the pictures all suggest travel. 

The drawings themselves are a tangle of detailed sections which overlap each other suggesting movement. The content appears to show situations of everyday life, it is sometimes unclear whether the subject is an acquaintance of the artist or a complete stranger. 

An artists sketchbook is actually quite a personal thing, the sketches on each page is a snapshot that the artist as an individual has observed in a way which another might not. 

James jeans sketchbook serves as a collection for ideas and references for his more detailed and main projects, but this collection of drawing made in every day life can be considered a piece in themselves. Each image appears to be peaceful and thoughtful. The subjects are looking away and appear to be working on something or looking at a particular object. In particular, i find the overlapping of the sketches to be rather interesting, its as if the artist got so far with one piece of a face or an arm when the subject moved, so the artist would have to begin the line again to copy the new pose.  

Using this inspiration i would like to take away the idea of creating drawings which show the natural poses and the peacefulness that you can see from James Jeans drawings. In public places where people go about their every day lives, it is interesting to notice small things that we normally wouldn't even pay attention to. 

This also links to my initial idea of looking at the world in front of us rather than being absorbed into this world of technology and seeing life through a camera lens or the screen of a mobile phone. 

To draw the figures itself requires paying attention to the details and looking harder at what is around you. During the process of drawing, i think that you tend to think about what you are observing in more detail and think about the subject you are drawing.

Drawing Project - 2nd Term

For the self-directed drawing project, I wanted to look at the way in which people socialise and live in daily life, the way technology has taken over most aspects of life including socialisation. Personally, I believe that people have become too reliant on the use of mobile phones, cameras, tablets and computers. I wanted to explore this more by considering the opposite of these things. This led me to explore the concept and theory of phenomenology. Phenomenology is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. To put it shortly, phenomenology is the way in which we look at and consciously notice the things around us and our experience in daily life.   To use this information for my work, I considered ways in which to explore the concept of phenomenology by showing the things which people would normally not notice or be aware of while in a public place. Without looking at our mobile phones whether on the train, in the park or at a gig, we notice more about the smaller things that are around us and make us think about the things we wouldn't take a second glance at if we were so absorbed in our technology. To oppose these issues, I am going to take a visual diary of observational drawings of people and things which I notice throughout different situations to pick up in these things which tends to fade out as we become obsessed with our technological world.