For this project, my concept is focused on how people in the same work field should love and be compassionate to each other. In my work, there are two girls who are both ballet dancers. In the first panel, they stand behind each other’s back to suggest they are not in a good relationship because of rivalry. Slowly moving to the last panel, the girls’ relationship gets better reflected by their movements and eventually hug each other in peace. I chose to draw ballet dancers to convey that, regardless of any career we have, rivalry among people who has the same job will always occur. However, there is always a way to resolve this issue too. The ballet dancers are wearing masks in my work to show that competitions happen naturally, and not because of how we look, what we wear, or what background or ethnicity we have. Yet, we have to view it as a positivity and considered it as a chance for us to improve in society.
The mediums I used are digital drawing and markers. I use Procreate on my iPad for the digital part and professional markers for the background base of each panel. I chose to use markers because I always liked the outcome markers bring out, and markers is one of my favorite mediums.
My theme colors are black, white, and bright violet. My accent colors are baby blue, dark purple, and pink. I used colors to create contrast from the positive space and the negative space; the ballet figures are in black and white tones while the background is in color tones ranging from violet and blue to pink.
Moreover, I used this color contrast in order to create emphasis on the figures, which then emphasizes on their movements as they move in each panel. This emphasis will make the viewer focus on the sequential movements more. Yet, for the colored background, I chose to use red based colors at first, but then figured out that violet based colors look better in general since bright violet colors do not engender too much compilation and tawdriness in the overall work. I plan to use romantic colors like red, pink, or violet in the first place because it symbolizes as love and care, since my topic is on love in rivalries.
However, there are challenges through the creation of my artwork. Since I am not good at drawing human figures and proportion, I had trouble on drawing two girls in balance. Yet, I obtained help and practiced model observational sketching in class, which helped me very much and I was able to use those sketches to reference on for my artwork. I also had trouble on creating the right background that would not appear too complicated while it could also emphasize on the ballet figures. Hence, I tried several times to aim for the best color and composition for the background.
Overall, I think my work is successful in alluding my concept and the aesthetics. I have read a lot about rivalries and complex competitions, and this project led me to express this issue from my point of view. Since I have never made a sequential narrative artwork before, this project taught me how to express ideas and tell stories through creating a plot-based artwork, which is also a drawing method that is new for me. In addition, I also improved in drawing figure movements from this project.
