Pencils
First two weeks mini project.
After returning from the summer holidays, raring to go, our first brief; a short start up brief to help us get back into the zone of projects for college, was pencils...
Just pencils... seriously
Pencils; we were told to take it any way we wanted; just make a piece inspired by pencils and based on our personal pathways ready to hand in in two weeks.
My pathway being illustration I instantly thought about how I could make a story from pencils, and I thought about the different types of pencils:
Mechanical
Recycled
Plain HB
Charcoal pencils
Water colour pencil
Coloured
Thinking about some of the many different types of pencils, made me wonder what the human like characteristics of these particular pencils would be like.
Then I thought of "The Power Rangers", "The Crystal Gems", "The Sailor Senshi"
Groups of superheroes, all of the same make/race/team but unique in their own way.
Power Rangers - "The Power Rangers" - A ranger for each Colour
Steven Universe - "The Crystal Gems" - A character representing each Gemstone/Colour
Sailor Moon - "The Sailor Senshi" - A soldier representing each planet/element
A Superhero team who are based on pencils!
(because why not, its only a two week project, might as well have fun with it :D )
My first drawing - I didn't have a specific plan with designing, this first drawing was really just to get me into the project and help me come up with more ideas. I really like this design even though I had no idea what pencil it represented or if I would use it in the end.
Mechanical Pencil - I was inspired by this white, clear and blue pencil, and came up with a futuristic soldier design.
Water colour Pencil - The general inspiration for this design was water and so I gave the character an elegant, flowing hair and dress design.
Coloured - I couldn't make up my mind for this design; something colourful, bouncy and maybe even crazy looking.
Perhaps the Pencil Characters use the pencils they represent as weapons.
I've been trying to think of how to present the pencil project, and I considered a surreal fantasy piece.
I've been looking at images from Nicoletta Ceccoli; one of my favourite artists. A surreal fantasy artist, her works always have pretty female characters, often in some very bright and pretty, yet dark setup. I even have two of her art books! Love them.
Another theme with her work are toys or small creatures, such as bugs.
These images show her characters fighting or bullying some of these creatures.
A few people from my class have asked me if my drawings are of dolls; because for one of my projects last year I created my own doll collection. While they creeped a lot of people out, I loved them. I didn't plan on my characters being "Dolls", I was simply drawing them in a style that made them all look similar but different (Inspired by the superhero groups I mentioned earlier.)
- However, if I were to create a fantasy piece of the characters, I should give them a bit of story, so why not dolls?
- If they were tiny people who used pencils as weapons, how about a group of dolls who are protectors of some kind of toy land?
Sketch of doll fighting bug
Time is unfortunately getting on, and I haven't even designed the whole Team yet.
So I believe I have to change the direction of my piece. I've decided to create a sculpture of this illustration, like a piece of superhero memorabilia.
- A surreal fantasy sculpture piece, based on my illustrations (My chosen pathway) and inspired by pencils, why not? I think it makes sense.
I used clay for the sculpture
Painting process, used a mixture of poster paint and acrylic; just any thick paint that would work on clay really. I used a wee turning platform for painting on, very handy.
I loved working on the sculpture, I've found I enjoy 3d crafts such as this, but their just so time consuming, because I want them to look fabulous!
I'm dead chuffed with the hair.
Doll - "I'm Gonna' Sharpen the crap out of this pencil!"
The hem of the dress was a bitch, but worth it.
"Nooooooooo!"
An actual pencil holder that's a pencil wielding warrior; if this doesn't count as a pencil inspired project I don't know what does! As I was pressed for time making the sculpture, I had to leave out the bug warrior thing (I don't even know what it was exactly, again, time) because I didn't have a full explanation for its inclusion and I didn't have time to work with it.
I decided to go for a bright set of colours because that way I could say that this particular character represents a bouncy, crazy, "coloured" pencil.
Loving the small details.
I Love the face, I love the colours and the two different shades of pink for the hair.
The back of the hair was torturous to paint; this was the night before hand in so I had to rush the hair. It was really awkward to paint because of the layers of curls, but I honestly believe if I had time, I would have been able to do it properly. I would also have looked much neater if It were just one, but from the beginning I knew I wanted more than one colour for all the separate colour curls and lines.
Final Display
I think she looks pretty badass.
I gave her a coloured pencil that matched her colour scheme (more or less), and with that pencil I gave her a name:
"Princess Prismacolor of the Pencil Rangers"
I actually found a scarf that matched the colour scheme of the sculpture in my closet, and I thought that it was better than nothing, considering there wasn't anything else to display.
If I had more time I would have added much more detail to the display. I would have had illustrations of the characters which inspired this piece on the wall around it and therefore more explanation as to how I came to the final result. However I was lucky to have finished the sculpture, which is a bit messily painted at the back with the hair. Someone even commented on the painting of the hair and I just wanted to say;
"Hey! Lets see you make, dry and paint this in 4 days!"
(The actual length of the process)
"Hey! Lets see you make, dry and paint this in 4 days!"
(The actual length of the process)
Ideally if this were a large project, the painting would have been a lot neater and I'd have created a whole set of pencil holders character sculptures (Again, making the project process clearer to passer-by's) and made a much more impressive final display. However for a two week project, I think I did pretty awesome.
I had lots of fun and I got an awesome pencil holder out of it.
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