Hi CC, I think your drawing bridged together the images within your collage really well. I can imagine working on this assignment was difficult in many ways, and I wonder how making this work helped articulate some of your feelings. This collage is clearly a nightmare, as you title it. This might not be the case at all, but did your choice to make it release some sliver of the nightmare from your head by depositing it onto the page?
I like the smudges on the paper that surround your mini drawings on the page. They show the haziness, ambiguity, and complexity of the nightmare. I think you could emphasize these, or add even more with your chunky graphite stick. But if in the future you did want to clean a drawing up and remove smudges, I recommend using your kneaded eraser at different stages throughout the process. Your kneaded eraser won’t leave behind the shredded bits that a normal eraser usually does. You can simply “press” or dab the kneaded eraser on the areas where you see a smudge to pick up those marks, or you can sculpt the eraser in a fine point to get at detailed areas you don’t want to ruin. Another tip is to use a fresh blank piece of paper to rest over parts of your drawing where you can rest your hand while working. It will act as a barrier between your hand and the drawing to prevent smudges.
The point of this exercise was also to show you how collage can lead you to make a drawing that might not have been able to occur through observation or pure imagination. In your case, it can also help you to start to articulate a complex experience or topic through found imagery. I am not sure the drawing of your nightmare would have turned out the same if you hadn’t made the collage first. And if you were to make a translation of this drawing again, it might then lead to an entirely new drawing with different edits and new discoveries through that process.
Hi CC, I think your drawing bridged together the images within your collage really well. I can imagine working on this assignment was difficult in many ways, and I wonder how making this work helped articulate some of your feelings. This collage is clearly a nightmare, as you title it. This might not be the case at all, but did your choice to make it release some sliver of the nightmare from your head by depositing it onto the page?
I like the smudges on the paper that surround your mini drawings on the page. They show the haziness, ambiguity, and complexity of the nightmare. I think you could emphasize these, or add even more with your chunky graphite stick. But if in the future you did want to clean a drawing up and remove smudges, I recommend using your kneaded eraser at different stages throughout the process. Your kneaded eraser won’t leave behind the shredded bits that a normal eraser usually does. You can simply “press” or dab the kneaded eraser on the areas where you see a smudge to pick up those marks, or you can sculpt the eraser in a fine point to get at detailed areas you don’t want to ruin. Another tip is to use a fresh blank piece of paper to rest over parts of your drawing where you can rest your hand while working. It will act as a barrier between your hand and the drawing to prevent smudges.
The point of this exercise was also to show you how collage can lead you to make a drawing that might not have been able to occur through observation or pure imagination. In your case, it can also help you to start to articulate a complex experience or topic through found imagery. I am not sure the drawing of your nightmare would have turned out the same if you hadn’t made the collage first. And if you were to make a translation of this drawing again, it might then lead to an entirely new drawing with different edits and new discoveries through that process.