HowTo: Decisions inStyLe

Yet again, I am in the position of being requested/(required) to include a segment on this blog thing that I'm not sure I would naturally be inclined to.  But as usual, I will 'make it work' and it Will be informative and interesting and You,(whoWillwant toread it) Will be So grateful that I included it.

  To enable myself to feature a 'howto' segment, I made the attempt to view my artwork as if I were Not so familiar with it, a part of the unbiased audience.  I went so far as to contemplate in terms of someone not so artisticly experienced and It occurred to me that this person may wonder curiously, how I decided to depict each image differently, as they all vary in styles.  

   In General, I begin by sorting through photos, perhaps a series from one recent event, and chose which ones are the most intriguing to me, visually.  

When I've committed to an image, I then asses what is so intriguing about it 

and what feature I'd like to highlight, 

whether it be a visual aspect in the photo, 

subject matter such as a narrative or characters, 

or a concept of my thesis including 

documentation or the entertainment aspect.  

At this point, I know what my goal of illustrating the image is and am formulating ideas to best portray its purpose. 

  For instance, the first drawing below, I knew I wanted to relay the experience of hanging out under the streetlights on an urban sidewalk. So, I maintained the view point of through One's eyes that would be sitting on the curb, looking at the street lights and their shoes on the dingy ground. This is the composition I arrived at. The style and media I chose to create the outside night environment consisted of ink washes, with fluid, transparent layers for the streetlights, and splotchy layers on the sidewalk created with ink and added texture with colored pencil also used to detail the view of shoes. 

  For the third drawing down, my main priority was to exaggerate 

the artificial golden streetlight cast upon the whole scene 

and to capture the candidness of the moment. I simply outlined the basic composition 

and created an environment from the streetlight glow to encapsulate the figures 

caught in a lurid white flash. I halted development so as to suggest the briefness of the moment in action and in a time line and also the unexpected documentation.

  If there was question as to whether an artist has reasons for their decision making, I think most do, but half the time we do not realize them because they are subconscious, automatic, and practiced. Hopefully I've given some insight into a subject you've been craving, or given rise to inspiration.. it's always refreshing when someOne can do that for Another. cheers.