For this project, I have chosen a stone seal that is personalized with my Chinese name. The reason to why I chose this object was because it is an object that has special significance to my style and personality as a growing artist but also is an embodiment of my journey and process of self-discovery. It represents a certain aspect of my culture that I have developed an interest and fascination with- Chinese history and art.
The following are the 6 images I have chosen out of the 20 that I have taken. My reason for chosing these 6 is because of the camera angles and how abstract the images are in comparison to the actual object.
I also did a blind contour drawing of my object from live observation rather than from one of the photographs:
The next part of the assignment was to experiment with mediums and techniques to create 6 quick drawings of our object with reference to our photographs. I did not want to make my quick drawings too similar to the photographs so using a range of watercolour, pencil, charcoal, sharpie, collage to create a variety of abstract and realistic drawings of my stone seal.
6 quick drawings-
Inspired by these quick drawings, we then had to create 2 final drawings of our object by either combining or refining our quick drawings.
For the first piece, I decided to refine the marbled watercolour drawing of the pattern on the stone seal- creating a marble background piece that almost represents water (which was also used as experimentation in my photographs).
The second piece is inspired by the black and which ink quick drawing by which I painted the marble part of the seal in the middle and painted red squares to represent the stamps the stone seal creates. I also added some texture in the background with shaved charcoal.
Working with the object allowed me to explore the style of abstract art more, which is a style I am not used to. I do not enjoy drawing geometric shapes so it pushed me to find a way to portray the object in a different way. Chinese history and art is heavily influenced by the concept of fengshui which I tried to convey through my final two pieces.
For one of the quick drawings, I used the close up photograph I took of the object as a background and drew a willow tree which is a tree that is commonly grown in Chinese imperial gardens and palaces.
This object doesn’t only represent my journey of discovering myself and my Chinese side but also the current state of my art and doing this assignment allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and try out new art styles.
