The instruction from our lecturer was this – ‘Find/glean/imagine/gather/scavenge/ locate/borrow/steal/ download these images as you wish from ANY source’. The images had to number 30 and we were given a list 50 things/objects to choose from e.g. a dog. Then we had to assemble it into a book made from 6 large sheets of glasseine paper and make use of the transparent nature of the paper to create a whole image on each page, keeping in mind that what appears on other pages can also affect the whole. What you’re looking at above is my front cover done with collage, charcoal, pen and ink, sharpie and aquarelles.
For those that know me well, you’ll know that I’m organised and a little bit structured in my approach to most things, there’s a word for people like me. I’m not super fond of random except out of my iPod and so placing and changing seemingly unrelated items was quite a terrifying prospect that I dealt with by undertaking a serious amount of procrastination.
But once I started… oh my! This is such a wonderfully liberating thing to do and was designed to teach us the gestalt principle – that we approach the whole before seeing the details. So our task was to try and create some balance and unity for the unrelated. We were also encouraged to use different media and out of everything the pen and ink and my trusty Pilot G7 became my favoured tools.
My final work is by no means a thing of greatness but I suspect the idea was more about the process than the product and I’m glad I got over my procrastination to lesson learned.
Your turn, have you ever had to do something you thought would be a waste of time and turned into a wonderful experience? I would love to know.
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