Project 7: Visual Experimentation. Exercise 3: Turning Words into Pictures

This exercise is virtually the same as one I did earlier in the course, when we had to illustrate the synonyms of ‘shape’. This time, I chose the word ‘childhood’ and sketched out on a sheet of A3 paper all the images I could think of to do with childhood. This time I used a more bright, rainbow colour scheme rather than the black, white and red on a brown background that I used for ‘shape’. 

The exercise asks whether I begin to see a personal style emerging. The answer is no, not really, because this is merely a more sketchy version of the personal style I’ve had for the last 7 or more years. Really when I enrolled on this course my aim was to move further beyond where I have been for all this time. I think there is one thing of note though: for this and the ‘shape’ drawings I drew more quickly and sketchily than I have usually done for ‘finished’ drawings. There is a looser feeling to these drawings, where there is no need to perform or get it right. I think that, perhaps, I could take this into the way I draw more ‘finished’ pieces. I do tend to have too much of a plan at the outset, which can limit how things can then develop. 

Does this way of generating ideas help me arrive at a final image? Again, not really. The drawing that captures for me the essence of childhood I wanted to convey - setting aside for now the sheer horror of being a child - was that sense of diving headlong into sheer sensation and wonder. The first drawing I did, with the child in wellies jumping and splashing in a puddle, conveys this most successfully. I need not have drawn all the other sketches because my first idea was the best one.