During class, my group and I decided to compose our Calavera Sunday piece collaboratively in an attempt to create a dynamic and lively park scene that would incorporate the craziness that we have experienced in parks in New York through the comical imagery of skeletons.
Each member added their own skeleton studies resulting in a multitude of styles and poses that allowed us to create a mural that we thought told a nice story. An amalgamation of little stories take place in our original mural, with skeletons lounging, smoking and listening to the performances happening behind them on the bottom left corner. A little higher up, a group yoga session is taking place while others are enjoying nice conversations on the park benches as dog walkers and skaters come by. Finally, toward the far right, a group picnic takes place while a little pigeon steals a plastic bag and discreetly walks away.
Even though this composition was fun to work on, I decided to create my own interpretation of a Calavera Sunday while still using the same figures and elements as our groups original mural.
To start off, I decided to empty the mural and place all of the components around my compositional frame to see what I was working with and what narrative I would want to implement in my own rendition of the mural.
I decided to section the mural and started off with the left side of the mural. Similarly to the group composition, I decided to keep the “lounging” skeletons on this side as the turned back made sense to me. Afterwards, I wanted to create a fantastical scene where the rat is bigger than the skeleton-people and joins them for a smoke, while a lady in the back notices and takes a selfie of it.
Moving towards the middle I wanted to create a picnic and bench area with more recreational activities. I wanted to create depth through size and the perspectives of the benches, thus, making the benches get smaller and smaller as they move into the background. Furthermore, by overlaying other elements such as the “yoga skeleton” I wanted to create a more interesting composition with more intrigue and interest.
Afterwards, I decided to add more details and elements such as another “yoga skeleton” and a pigeon on a bench to create more details and depth in the composition.
For my final composition, I added more elements and stories around the mural playing with angles, scale and depth to create a “park feeling.”
I though that it was interesting to work with different perspectives, and wished that I could rotate each figure more and maybe reflect them so that I could have more possibilities.
I also thought that the process of drawing 10 different skeleton poses from imagination was difficult especially when thinking about it on a skeletal level. However, the more studies I did, I was able to understand the human body better. (replicating the poses physically didi also help.)
Overall I enjoyed the experience and being able to work with other’s in the class, as I got to see their styles and interpretations of the skeleton and the project!