I went through a mind map of where my thoughts led me to for each of my observations in union square park.

Heres a picture of what that process looked like for me. Its kind of messy so I will explain it.

The first thing I noticed the chess players. I had a visual in my mind of the checkerboard when I think of chess, which reminded me of my old coach’s kitchen. I couldn’t really think of anything else from there so I decided to try to recreate it from memory.

I decided to use watercolors because I feel like it is a good representation of memory.

Here is my sketch:

Here is my final:

For the second one I did, my observation was the honeycomb flooring. The next day it was snowing and it was very slippery and it made me notice it more. When I see it, I think of honey and bees which reminded me of a random memory of someone with a purse I saw that was really cute and for some reason still remember. I painted that from memory.

I again used water colors because I thought it was a good representaion of memory

Here is my sketch:

Here is my final:

 

My third observation was the coverings of the subway station. It reminded me of a circus tent. My first memory of the circus was when I saw it in Vermont. I go to Vermont every summer for camp which is very green and who ever picks me up usually spend a couple of days in a near by town afterwards and we enjoy the green and nature. Usually the circus is in town so I connected that to the circus.

Again, I used water colors because I thought it was a good representation of memory.

My really quick and rough sketch:

My final:

My fourth observation was the trees. In my town we have an issue when it comes to the lack of native plants. My question was about weather or not these were native. I associated that with human, nature, manmade, alien and native. When I put all of these together I thought made my final process.

I used copic markers and pens.

My sketch:

My final:

My last observation was a statue of Gandhi. I thought the statue was pretty hidden in the park. I thought of the word hidden and thought of the methods that I have seen growing up in los angeles that celebirities use. They usually wear sunglasses. I decided to paint a pair of sunglasses I saw some model wear at a flea market.

I used a thick layer of water colors for this. I am not sure exactly why, I think I was just in a good groove of using watercolors.

My Sketch and brainstorming page:

My final: