Project 3
Pandora's Jar
India ink on mixed media paper November 2020 35.6 cm x 43.2 cm Exhibition Text Inspired by the Greek myth of Pandora's box, where pandora curiously opens her jar, that was given to her by Zeus (King of the gods in Greek mythology), little did she know, by doing this she let all sadness, death, sickness, and many other troubles of the world, leaving only hope inside her jar. Though, a world without misery is a world without hope, and that wouldn't be very fun at all. |
Planning
Inspiration
Stylistically, I was inspired by Jeremy Sorrell and his use of classic shading methods. His 'sloppy' art style is gorgeous and I was very inspired by this. So when making my piece I threw caution to the wind and didn't use pencil once in the entire process. If I were to make a mistake I would have to work with it.
I was inspired to use the Greek myth of Pandora with the lesson of why the human race will forever need hope, is because I wanted to inspire myself to be a little more hopeful. With everything thats going on these days everything is stressing me out way too much. So I wanted to make this to remind myself that there will be light at the end of the tunnel eventually, and that I just need to keep on working and pushing through the clouds of negativity. |
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Planning Sketches
When I was first planning for this project I found my artist inspiration first, which was Jeremy Sorrell. Since his art style is pretty spooky and industrial looking I wanted to stem off of that. When I chose pandora's box as my main subject of inspiration I started playing around with different ways on how to depict it. I started drawing boxes because the myth is widely know as pandora's "box" but when I researched a little more I found out originally the box was actually a jar. I was actually very happy about this because then I could use the see-through glass aspect to show what was inside the box.
So I then thought about doing a glass orb with either hope or all the bad things in the world inside of it. These are the ideas I ended up fully sketching out. I really liked the right two sketches. Specifically the glowing star inside the top one and the ghost masks on the bottom right one. So I combined the two. |
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Process
Process
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Experimentation
My main points of experimentation are the stipple shading and just drawing without a pencil outline. The stipple shading was a challenge to say the least, since the piece was sort of big, doing a stipple gradient around the longest part of the page was a mistake. It took so much longer than the sphere and the orbitals did, probably around 6 hours total, and my friend even helped me when she was over one day too. Needless to say, it was exhausting. But it looks cool at least!
The just straight up drawing without an undersketch was also very hard to do in this high-contrast greyscale piece. I definitely had to restart a couple times to get the orbital rings right. It was also difficult keeping how i was going to shade this at the front of my mind all the time. |
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Critique
I wish I wouldn't have blacked in the edges like that, I could see it looking way better without it, or having the gradient go from light to dark going in the opposite direction. A couple of the orbitals also don't have the correct anatomy and perspective to them, so they don't really look circular at all. I also feel as though I could have drawn the ghouls a little better, they kind of just look like squiggles.
Reflection
I really wish I could have spent more time on this piece, I feel as though I would have liked it so much more if I finished the background how I was planning in my head. Also truthfully, I should have used an undersketch, at least for the orbiting rings because they don't look circular at all. Overall though, I like this piece and what it means to me, and am excited to have this be a part of my portfolio.
ACT
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork:
My inspiration of Sorrell lead me to use greyscale.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The pandoras jar topic of inspiration was very fun to research, and I learned that pandora didn't have a box, but a jar.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I came to the realization of how creative some of the stories in greek mythology are, we are surrounded my the surreal every day but I imagine it would be very difficult to produce stories like this to explain the world.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
Pandoras box and my personal lost hope.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I came to the realization of how creative some of the stories in greek mythology are, we are surrounded my the surreal every day but I imagine it would be very difficult to produce stories like this to explain the world.
My inspiration of Sorrell lead me to use greyscale.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The pandoras jar topic of inspiration was very fun to research, and I learned that pandora didn't have a box, but a jar.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I came to the realization of how creative some of the stories in greek mythology are, we are surrounded my the surreal every day but I imagine it would be very difficult to produce stories like this to explain the world.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
Pandoras box and my personal lost hope.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I came to the realization of how creative some of the stories in greek mythology are, we are surrounded my the surreal every day but I imagine it would be very difficult to produce stories like this to explain the world.
Bibliography
“Pandora's Box.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Nov. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora's_box.
JEREMY SORRELL, www.jeremysorrell.com/.
JEREMY SORRELL, www.jeremysorrell.com/.