On a side note, it actually irritated me to find that publishers are just as bad- Every Murakami paperback that I look at has the same quote by David Mitchell on it...THE SAME QUOTE! As if all of Murakami’s books are indistinguishable! It’s awful and makes me incredibly angry! I’m talking “Hulk, maaaad!!!” angry! Now I have to buy new clothes...I’ve gone and ripped them to shreds again! Yeah...rant over).
So...I started looking at ways I could play around with the text on the cover... T H O M A S H A R R I S R E D D R A G O N.
I was amazed to discover that I could find the imperative; “DONT READ” in there! It actually made me excitable...I’m not even lying! Mark will vouch for me! Anyway...After that I was left with some random letters, I couldn’t quite get it to work. The most productive words I found in the remaining letters were HARMS and GO but I couldn’t fit them in. I took a picture with HARMS under Harris’s name but decided against it.
Here it is:
I then used some more corrector fluid to paint round the edges of the letters - I’m not quite sure what my reasoning for this was but at the time it felt like the right thing to do. This is usually the way I work, reasons can always be discovered later! I used to think they could be made up later, but actually, upon reflection I always find out something about my art...something that had I have known or realised whilst making it, might have caused my work to take on a different style. So, I tend to use this for next time. For example, the other day (6th May, I believe), I finally got round to painting on the kids annuals that I had glued together ages ago. Here’s the proof...I was so agitated because I had no idea what to do with them! (Apologies for the awful picture, it looked better on the view finder of my camera!
So anyway, I painted the front cover and the spines and nothing else, previously I had painted the whole sculpture. I liked how the colour showed through at different angles and the reason I use white acrylic is because it reminds me of corrector fluid...I had thought about using that but decided it would take at least 10 bottles and it’s not that cheap! Whilst I waited for it to dry I decided to think about what to do with this “blank canvas”, my readymade book sculpture base. Of course, as always I couldn’t decide...my mind went as blank as the thing itself!
It was at this point that I realised that some of the paint at the bottom was stuck to the desk (I had forgotten to put down newspaper! Fool!)
So, in my infinite wisdom...or because it was the nearest item to me at the time I picked up a screwdriver and began digging away (carefully, as the paint wasn’t fully dry yet!) at the bottom of the sculpture. Despite being really careful...I get impatient. This always happens – which is why most of my work appears as if it’s been rushed. It has. I’m not happy about it but I’m aware and working on it, okay! Well, I’m sure you can guess what happened next; Yep, my hand slipped and the screwdriver’s metal tip scratched a line of paint from the sculpture. Shit! That was my initial thought, but then I noticed that the colours underneath gave a mottled effect and actually looked quite good. In the Red Dragon book that I’ve been sketching in, I’ve been focusing on the female form – mainly because of the content of the book itself as Dr. Hannibal Lecter preys on female victims, sometimes with sexual intent, but also because I just really enjoy how it feels to draw curves and lines.
So, I decided to transfer some of my images from the book onto the sculpture. I really liked the end result. One thing I will comment on is that in hindsight, I would have preferred it if I’d have used one image instead of two. This is because I liked both images singularly but when brought together they don’t quite work. Perhaps it’s because one if a close-up of a sectioned off area and the other is the whole body. It might have worked better if I’d have etched out a close up on one part of the body maybe?
Still, I really loved the flashes of colour and the revealing of this. I suppose it comments on the idea of revealing the female form? Or highlights nakedness? It also amused me as the kids annuals were all Bratz annuals. If you don’t know what Bratz is then prepare to be shocked:
Yep, teaching young girls to look sexy and dress provocatively. Not to mention that the sensual parts of the characters such as the lips have been plumped up. They look like cheap prostitutes. In fact, they don’t even look human! I won’t bring up the whole Barbie dolls are evil thing...but c’mon this it’s outrageous! Do I sound like a rambling old woman? Well, I’m actually 23!
Anyway...enough digression, this is how the etching turned out:
No comments:
Post a Comment