Mother's Fear Triptych Ada

Here are the stages of Ada & Mom at this point....




Obviously lots more to do...haven't even really started the baby's face yet. I really could use lots of input on color.... I wanted to use blues in the base background to help tie it to the Contentment piece from the Relationship Cycle but I'm not sure it is working. Lots of the drawings have been covered & it looks rather cloud like. The claw form is created with reds & greens to tie it to the other two works in the triptych. At first I hated it because I felt it looked like a huge palm tree behind her but with the addition of the purples & reds it is getting better. Should I vary the sizes of the points? Color?

Mother's Fear Triptych Ada

Here is the background completely attached...the claw form is different in value because of the newspaper. The kids images are xeroxes of the originals & thus all have cold white backgrounds. If you are curious, I did have the kids sign an artist release form stating that "Mommy can copy my drawings and use them in her artwork." They felt really important... start them early with copy right.

Mother's Fear Triptych Ada

I've been doing lots of work on the last piece for the Mother's Fear Triptych. With this one I wanted (as you may recall) the background to include images of Helena & Liam's drawings with the "harsh reality" text somehow attacking the figures of the mother & child. Josh suggested letting the text take on some form & I decided to go with a claw like appearance. Above are some close ups of the background before it is attached. I start by collecting text or images then I lay them out as I've done above to plan where I want them. Next, I attach them with gel medium & then enlarge the image on the background with gesso. This is followed by painting with the oils.

Relationship Triptych thumbnails, sketches,....

HELP!! I am back to working on Disconnect from the Relationship Cycle... as you may recall it was a bust (see bottom image of this post). The colors were terrible & I was really unhappy with it. Well, I'm at the point where I need input on the image. I've redrawn the female figure & am happier with her at this point. I intentionally used myself as a model this time....even though I feel the woman's role in the work is universal, since the portfolio deals with my identity I want the work tied more to me. I've also played with the light. I want more darkness on the figures so that the beckoning light from the background is more prominent. I need real help with selecting the male for the new image. The first rough sketch shows the two male options and below are slightly more refined drawings of the female figure with the male in place.


This first sketch below has the male getting up & I really like the dynamics of the composition that it creates. The diagonals & additional focal point of the hand & fabric add to the image (I think) but the actual pose is changing the meaning of the work for me too much. Here the male is physically leaving... getting out of the union (bed, marriage, etc.) which is too strong of a break. For me, the meaning behind Disconnect is more emotional detachment and thus a part of a cycle that repeats in the relationship. If the male is physically leaving then the cycle is broken...


The image below is closer to my meaning & is much closer to the original composition but I don't think it is as dynamic because it lacks diagonals & the additional focal point to strengthen the composition. What I do like about it is that both figure are lost in their own thoughts, it is quiet & still. There will be some space above his head & the rectangular "window" will be on the right. Sorry for the mess with the tracing paper taped to the other drawing! What do you guys think? Which is stronger?

Below is the ugly original! Pink, what was I thinking?!

Photo Work Thumbnails

As I mentioned previously with the sample double exposure image of Liam, I am going to be doing some photo work using that process. Since the other bodies of work for this portfolio have been in triptych format I am intending to do the same thing with these. The rough sketches show I want to incorporate color as well. I want to do this for symbolic reasons. As I mentioned in a previous post (or was that my paper?), I feel that the media in this country has a great impact on what we fear. For example, issues or incidents that cause maternal fear (sexual abuse of a child, abduction, child abuse, etc.) are often top stories in the media due to our appetite for those types of stories. It is a catch 22; they tell the stories because they hold our attention & we are attentive to these stories because of our fears from constantly hearing these stories.



This was the first set of thumbnails for the photo double exposure work. As you can see, this was before I decided to include me in the white section.



This is too dark but you can see that now I have added myself in to the central image which is, I think, more in keeping with my theme.




For the photo triptychs I want to have 3 images...the red & blue image will be the same image toned either blue or red with Berg toner while the white image will be of me with the child being focused on in that triptych (I have plans for 3, one triptych for each child). Here you can see that the mother in the central work is smiling. This is because I have decided to use the white piece to again show childhood innocence and non-corruption by having Helena & Liam's drawings as the background text component. The red & blue pieces will both have the fear inducing text from newspapers.