Thursday, July 26, 2007

IF: Poem

This is the black and white version of this piece. I tried a lot of elements I have never used before, but have been wanting to try them for quite a while. Black and white was a big one for me.

For this illustration I tried thinking about a couple of different ways to work with the topic. At first, I was going to paint some sort of bird, like a peacock then research a poem about peacocks. I found that to be a lot of leg work and what if I couldn't find decent poetry. Then I was going to find a wonderful poem an illustrate it - however, that also would require a lot of leg work and give me less time to work on the piece itself. All the time I kept remembering words, phrases, passages and quotes from Anais Nin's diaries, Vol. II 1934-1939. I still had to narrow my choices, I kept going back to this one because it seemed poignant for what was going on in the world today, yet this is from the 1930's.

I am not unaware of the political drama going on,
but I have not taken any sides because politics to me,
all of them, seemed rotten at the core
and all based on economics, not
HUMANITARIANISM

Anais Nin 1936

However, I could not help but add a little color.

5 comments:

Miz K said...

Love the touch of color!

rachel stoleru haim said...

very interesting illo, and the poem reflects my thoughts exactly. I prefer the b&w version. It's a big challange for me as well.

Jess von I said...

A very strong piece, I love all the detail through-out.

Sarah said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sarah said...

Doni, I must say that this piece came together quite well considering you only had a week and several late evenings at The Med. It was exactly as you described it to me. It is exciting to see this piece completed. I personally enjoy the version with just the hints of color mixed in. The little bits of color really accentuate the black and white details that you worked so hard to achieve. I also like the contrast between the masculine soldiers and then the feminine flowers at the bottom. In the B&W it looks like the flowers almost resemble a barbed wire fence; giving the picture a very militant demeanor. However in the colored picture it has a slightly more peaceful tone to it because the flowers represent life/ humanitarianism. Great job and I can't wait to see what is on the plate for next week!