Mary and the Man-Child

This week in XX/XY, we had to make an illustration based on either lactation or testosterone. It was pretty open ended, really, and we were encouraged to draw from cultural perceptions, history, science, etc. I was pretty psyched up on the article we were assigned to read about lactation, which among other things brought up the many depictions of Mary nursing the baby Jesus (a few examples below).

I love this Hans Baldung engraving (or woodcut?). Why is there a man in the moon? What are all those clouds about? Who knows?

A classic example of the tendency of artists to show Mary's breast as a sort of water balloon or globe shape by Bernardino Luini. Also, what a weird garment!

Quite a coy little christ

Mary's milk is essentially seen as the purest and strongest of any human excretion, for it both symbolically and physically sustained Jesus. I also wanted to touch on maternal guilt in past and present society and the ridiculous amount of pressure and judgement that mothers face. This guilt often manifests in over-sheltering and coddling a child in order to shield them from physical/psychological/emotional harm. And thus, we have the "man-child."

A common animal in my experience at college, the man-child is a male, usually white, who has been sheltered so much by his loving mother (and father, perhaps) to the extent that he is unwilling and incapable of taking care of himself. He may be in college or living at home, but in any case he is still suckling at the metaphorical teat, while he depends on others to perform basic tasks of adult life for him: laundry, cooking meals, paying bills, cleaning his residence...The man-child is immature and greedy, after being indulged for far too many years by a well-meaning family. Stunted, he will continue to depend on others until forcibly weaned.

So I guess what we have here is a juxtaposition of the man-child and classic Christian imagery. The mother's care (milk) is powerful nourishment, the most formative of a child's early experiences. But like all mammals, the young must eventually be weaned, or it will become a gluttonous and helpless mess - a man-child.

Oh, and have some sketchbook pages to make up for the slow post rate.

"Mary and the Man-Child" 

Two pages, two days

I got to stop by open figure drawing for a bit today, something I would never have time/energy for during the normal schoolyear. 

Sex Ed!

This week for XX/XY brought a "sex ed" assignment - to create a two page spread (implied that it is in a sex ed book for a chosen audience) or an instructive toy/game/object. The interpretation, audience, medium, etc. were all up to us. I made these two pages with the imagined audience of a fairly young girl, perhaps age seven. This was kind of about exploring a new process for me as well - I started with an ink drawing and tried to develop it to finish in Photoshop. It took longer for me to figure things out than a traditional process would have, which was very frustrating. I'm not 100% happy with it, but I feel like I learned a few things during this project in regards to brushes & workflow that may come in use in the future.

Hidden

Below you'll find my second assignment for XX/XY. The prompt was to make an illustration which applies to one of the following topics: transgender, intersex, or androgyny. I chose transgender, and I owe a lot of my inspiration to the French movie Tomboy (which is great, by the way. See it!). The comic is pretty bittersweet, I suppose, but in the context of how most transgender people are perceived by the world at large, this is a pretty optimistic take. Both pages are approximately 8.5"x11" watercolor, with some minor revisions in photoshop. I don't usually tool around with stuff in Ps  save for contrast, value range, color vibrance, and the like...but seeing how other artists use digital media to make changes quickly and efficiently or even work solely in digital has changed my mind. I'm an amateur when it comes to imitating or improving  upon my traditional stuff in Ps,  If you look closely, you'll definitely be able to see a couple places where it's clearly touched up. Yikes! I suppose I must start somewhere, though.

XX/XY

Below you'll find my first assignment for XX/XY - a diptych. I'd rather not say too much about the pieces, save that I'm much happier with the first one than the second. Both are opaque watercolor and ink on my favorite ridiculously heavy watercolor paper.

What is the Value of a Sketchbook?

I've been thinking a lot recently about the importance of sketchbooks. Part of this is due to the fact that my cousin bought me Drawn In, which is a really great collection of pages & spreads from various contemporary artists (many of which went to risd?! what?) + short interviews about their contributions. I haven't got to examine every page yet, but it definitely stirred some things up in my brain.

For me, I do my most inventive work in my sketchbook. I'll start off drawing an idea or my surroundings and then slip into this weird mode of intuitive creation. Time will fly by as my hands seem to make decisions on their own - decisions I would never come to by pure, rational thought. I'll admit, the results are not always groundbreaking. However, they are always looser and more interesting than when I get out a piece of nice paper and decide to "make art." Looking at other artist's sketchbooks generally seems to confirm this tendency. Something is lost in the trip from pure expression (doodling, random collage, life sketches for me) to planned expression. 

Questions: Can we then present a sketchbook spread as a finished art piece? The sketchbook itself as an art piece? How does a doodle change in meaning when it is made as "art" instead of as a doodle? What about artists who don't use their sketchbooks often? 

Answer: I don't know, you tell me!

Anyway, if you get a chance, definitely pick up Drawn In and allow yourself a long time to look through the various artists. You'll not regret it...

Still Alive, Just on Break

Well, my break is just ending in a couple days, but here are a few things I managed to make while not stuffing my face with home-cooked meals and staring at the computer screen...

Advanced Drawing Final

My Advanced Drawing final was supposed to be a series of paintings, made into a book, but at the end instead of a book I made a comic page...whoops. All the paintings are based off of a jumble of WWII reference images of American planes, mechanics, and factory workers. Anyway, here's what I made:

New Layout

So, you may have noticed I switched up the layout to the "dynamic" style template blogger encourages users to try out. It gives you the option to view a lot of posts at once, try it out! Just click the different format options at the top bar to mix things up. I'm not sure if I'll be keeping this format, so let me know if you have any strong positive/negative feelings about it!