Descent Into Madness

Cubism, you are one crazy beast. 

Am I a masochist for choosing such a strenuous content to explore for an entire semester? 

Here are the rest of the projects we had to do:

We set up still lifes in groups depending on our content and bringing in an object related to our content. I was in the "extra" group that included people that didn't pick the typical anatomy, portrait, or chiaroscuro as their content. We had 3 hours to draw the still life and I included some wine glasses and that little jug in the middle since most Cubist still lifes are often typical still life subjects. Then we had to abstract the drawing we made.

We needed 2 smaller explorations before creating a final. I only like how the jug turned out and the background.

The Exquisite Corpse assignment. We were put into pairs and drew half of a clothed model on two sheets of triple mayfair. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of my partner's side and mine together and I didn't like my bottom half that much. It wasn't as crazy as the top half which I did last, you can see I'm starting to become crazy because of cubism.

The final assignment required us to pitch an idea for the class to draw. The one picked was "indirect drawing" as a starting point (having very little to no control over drawing i.e. paint splatter). So I took some string, dipped it in ink, and dragged it across my page in various ways such as whipping it, dropping it, slithering it across the page, moving it back and forth and more.

Here's a photo of just the ink, I put tape in certain areas to create some interesting shapes.

I started off with drawing dancers after being in an event that involved dancing...and people attempting to make me/teach me to dance. I became entranced by the position of the arms, hands, and feet in dancing poses that I started to focus on them more. I then got into The Zone: drawing and erasing areas that I already drew for the sole purpose of taking a risk and going with it.

I was worried for a while that my final drawing wasn't going to reflect the work I put into understanding Cubism and worried that my last drawing in that class would be lacklustre. After two days of drawing, I finally grew to like it a couple days after finishing. There's something about seeing the mad side to yourself in visual form.

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I began this semester with little knowledge and appreciation for Cubism but decided to pursue it as my content for an entire semester as a challenge for myself and to perceive things in a different manner. It was a struggle and surprise to discover how much you must think in three dimensions to create a cubist piece. Combining different viewpoints wasn't as easy as I thought.

I'm glad I took a risk rather than settling with something I'm comfortable with. I've expanded my artistic capabilities and now I appreciate Cubism on a different level and can connect and understand it a lot more than what my previous naive self thought: "That's stupid, anyone can do that." 

I never really enjoyed Cubism that much before, but now it's apparently "my thing" according to a couple of colleagues.