Week 13

 

 Make the Mistakes

Craft

This piece was created on watercolor paper, using calligraphic ink in black.  The design of the tribal was sketched out directly onto the page, and then the ink was applied into the negative space by the use of a thin paintbrush dipped into the ink and applied in strokes.  The text was then applied using a thin pointed calligraphic pen, and then the original pencil lines were erased.

 Concept

 The words within the image were come from one of my habits in art creation- my own hesitation to work in such a method or medium that prevents me from undoing my work in the event of a mistake.  In my own mind, I have always had this thought that art needs to be clean and perfect, which makes it difficult sometimes for me to create pieces that are deliberately meant to be sketchy or untidy.  To work in a medium such as ink, it is hard for me to do so due to the fear in my mind that I will make a mistake, or ink will fall in the wrong spot, or that I would spill my ink in strange circumstances (which actually almost did happen in the making of this piece, but luckily only resulted in black ink getting on an already black sweater and ruining a blue undershirt that i had no particular attachments to).  Yet the words are a kind of reminder to me, that sometimes a mistake could be the best thing to happen to a piece, and which shows that it was created by a person, and not some machine...and it is through accidents that new things can be discovered, such as when I first began this style of art.

Composition

The piece uses the negative space as positive space, by applying the ink in an interesting manner while leaving the actual tribal designs untouched by ink, save the text which wraps to the form of the shapes.  The piece also holds onto an asymmetrical balance.