Self Negotiated Project
What is this project about?
For the overall project, my initial idea was the concept of symbolism. I looked briefly at different types of symbolism, for example symbolism within: colours, flowers, metaphors, literature and animals. When looking at the range of symbolic ideas, I concluded that symbolism within literature would be the more interesting and thought-provoking route to take.
Once I had a brief idea of what i would be continuing with, I looked further into different forms of literature such as novels and children's books. My first thought would be contrasting typical Disney movies with 21st century issues such as deforestation and pollution. However, when looking at artists, many were extremely similar with what i was looking to proceed with. Therefore, I decided against this idea. When writing down the forms of symbolism within literature, the thought of my favourite novel, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' was an automatic link. This is because the novel is very influential on black history as well as consisting of many forms of symbolism.
'To Kill a Mockingbird'
When beginning the project, I began with the most famous quote of the book; "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird". As I had a clear idea of the meaning behind the quote as well as its meaning, it would be a good starting point for my project. As mockingbirds are not necessarily birds of pray but song birds they cause no death nor destruction within nature, giving them the 'innocent' appeal. The symbolism behind the mockingbird stands for Atticus' view on the current day society within the novel. The black community did nothing to harm those of the white, therefore are in fact innocent (like the mockingbird) but however, racism within the white community overshadows the truth leading to the discrimination that continues throughout the novel.
As a starting point, I looked at drawing birds using a range of materials to get a feel for their shape, size and proportions. Working on both A4 and A3 paper helped me with the transition of making the images slightly larger whilst still keeping proportions in tact. However the birds ended up look fairly crude and not innocent like the mockingbird is portrayed within the novel. When thinking of 'what makes something look innocent and harmless' the colour white came to mind. Choosing black paper and using white acrylic paint as my material as well as a different movement of the bird (falling rather than flying) the harmless effect became more apparent.
'There is only one type of folks...folks'
Moving on from focusing on birds, I took a different route by looking at the human figure. As i changed direction within my project I decided to change the quote also, in order to give more depth within my project. The quote 'there is only one type of folks...folks' said by Scout (the young daughter within the novel, also known as the narrator)., signifies the purity and innocence within Scouts mind as she doesn't see colour within the communities only people. By saying there is only 'one type of folks' she is showing the reader that colour does not in fact matter as everyone is human and all deserve the same rights. By having this in mind, I started exploring the human figure and expression by only using monotones, therefore working in charcoal and pencil over white paper. By excluding the use of colour, nobody is able to know the ethnicity of the figure showing that colour does not matter and that everyone is the same. Although, once experimenting with that idea, I moved back towards using colour in order to see if whether monochrome or colour works best within the message being held within the quote. As acrylic paint hasn't been widely used within my project yet, that is the material I had chosen in order to add colour to the skin-tone.
Moving forward
In order to move on within this project, I had to stop being so literal with my work. By doing this I would be able to stay within the Fine Art aspect of this rather than accidentally move into the illustration area. However, I found it extremely difficult to stop being so literal within my work. This is because, as I wanted to reflect the symbolism in the book I was still unsure how to do this without using quotations which made my work very 'illustration-like'. As I decided to no longer use direct quotations from the book, I bought 3 copies of 'To Kill A Mockingbird' and decided that I would do something within them so the idea of the book was within my work. However, working within the books didn't work out as well as I planned. This is because some of the images I used weren't necessarily directly related to the novel making it unclear what the message was symbolising. Although, in one of the book, I painted a simple black tree with white leaves and a mockingbird sitting on a branch. Out of the three book I believe that this one was the most successful as it captured the meaning behind the book without the message being straight up in your face.
For my final exhibition piece I pained a very large canvas Mars Black and paired it with a small white mockingbird, like the ones seen on the front cover of my books. Out of the entire project I believe that this was the most effective and successful piece i produced. This was because the overall appearance of the canvas was simple and very effective. It made you think about what the bird (which was painted in a child-like way) symbolised and what the meaning behind it was. As well as this, the plain black background allowed the bird to be the centre of attention, as well as leaving you thinking about why the piece was monochrome and included no colour. Although I thought about adding in areas of red to symbolise the death within the book I decided against this as I concluded that the splash of colour would be too distracting from the bird as well as its meaning.