How an art piece comes to be, my "Mother Nature" drawing...

Hey there friend, I thought I'd do it again.

That is, take you behind the metaphorical curtain of my mind's studio, with your invisible laminated backstage pass, and give you a behind the scenes look at my piece with the working title "Mother Nature".

It's a working title because a title that doesn't work is lazy and I'm just not going to continue to support its lavish lifestyle with no responsibility. Everything in my imaginary studio has to work - no exceptions - there are no free rides on the highway to creative expression.

Anyway, back to making sense.

I chose this art piece because it really highlights how the many developments a piece can go through in its gestation period.  

Hmmm... I think I've got pregnancy on the mind, but let's go with it.

Conception

Conception is always fun. Well, it should be, or you're not doing it right. And art is no different.

For this piece I really drew from my subconscious, almost automatic drawing. I knew I wanted to draw a figure and do something a little different with it, and then this happened.


So yeah, a lady about to give birth to the Earth.  Ouch.

Does it mean that our mother's are birthing tomorrow's world?  Maybe, subconsciously. 

Is it to do with Mother Nature?  No, despite the working title. 

Is it a huge monster of a lady who has eaten the planet?  No, but very creative thinking reader.

Truth is, part of it was subconscious, and part has my own personal meaning, which if I tell you what that is, then you are less likely to find your own meaning from it.  And where is the fun in that?  I don't know.  Somewhere.

But I wasn't done.

The First Trimester

So now looking at the picture I noticed a fault.  The face wasn't quite right.  

Mainly because I had just started drawing and hadn't lightly sketched it out like one should to ensure the proportions and positioning of eyes, nose, mouth and ears were correct.  

I had just jumped right in with no planning.  I guess the passion of the moment just got the better of me ;-)

Anyway, I wasn't going to abort this living breathing drawing despite its faults.  I mean I think every artist has the right to choose whether to scrunch up that paper and start again, or persist and try to make it work, and this time I thought I would persist.  

Make it work like a working title.  (That doesn't make sense, I know, just read on and forget I wrote it.)

Mind you, I was feeling very lazy, so erasing the entire face and starting again didn't sound appealing.  So I came up with a solution.  Hide the problems in shadow.

Perhaps, I thought with a sneaky smile and a cheeky glint in my eye, shadow like the shadow Earth has on the side facing away from the sun.  Boom!  A good idea just happened like that.  She's not only birthing the planet, she's got the same lighting set up.

I could even put the far side a little blurry and out of focus with smudging.  So that is just what I did, and here it is with a little photoshop contrast increase added in afterward.

Second Trimester


Now it was time to add colour and accentuate the light and shadow in Photoshop.

Now, that could be the final piece there.  

But I thought, maybe...

... just maybe ... 

... a background could make it pop even more.  

So...

So...

...

Third Trimester

So, painstakingly, I drew a background in Photoshop and managed to fail big time.  

And no matter what I did, it just didn't look as good as the simple version above.

Here is the best of my attempts, but really it detracts from rather than adds to the image.  

The reason being the background fails is that art needs a focal point, and here the background and figure compete for your attention.  

There are too many focal points!!  


Maybe given that knowledge, the shooting star and high saturated palette I chose weren't the wisest of ideas I've ever had.

Giving Birth

However, I soldiered on passed the ugly background phase and was able to give birth to a beautiful picture with a background message that I hope celebrates how wonderful mothers are the world over.  

I mean, not all mothers obviously.  Some mothers suck and should have had to been made to get baby-making licenses before having children.  

But a message that celebrates most mothers, like my mother, my sister, Anabel and all the other wonderful mothers out there and mothers to be, who deserve all the accolades in the world.  

They truly are the most wonderful people on Earth.

Plus having text behind the image seems to make the artwork really pop! :-P


On second thoughts, maybe the one without the background is better.  I don't know.

Yours in art, stories, fun and madness,

Daniel