Two Sided Drawing

So here is RISD drawing #2. The assignment was to make a drawing that utilizes both sides of the piece of paper. I thought this was a really interesting challenge and I had a lot of fun brainstorming ideas for it. Actually I'm pretty sure I spent way more time thinking of ideas than actually drawing. There are a number of different approaches you could take for this assignment. First there is the time elapse. I had contemplated drawing myself on one side of the paper and drawing an elderly version of myself on the other side. Second there is the 180 degrees change in view. This tearing through the paper drawing is an example of that. I'd also thought about drawing a person wearing a hospital gown, from the front and from the back. And third there is the drawing that wraps around the paper. That idea never really appealed to me.

I would really love to see other people's drawings! They told us about one person who did a sketch of her drawing on the front side and the finished drawing on the back. I thought that was a pretty interesting idea. I guess it sort of fits into the time elapse category since it shows change or evolution from the front side to the back side. It's an interesting spin on it though because it directly addresses the process of drawing.

Speaking of process, I thought I would tell you all how I went about making this. If you've been to my house recently you've probably noticed that the doorway to the den is blocked by a gigantic piece of white paper and to get into the room you have to crawl through the three foot high gap at the bottom. This is pretty inconvenient. However, located directly at eye level (at least for me) is an exceedingly convenient hole through which you can peek in on a movie. My parents were watching sisterhood of the travelling pants 2 (hahahaah) and I just stood there watching them through the hole for a really long time. They didn't notice me until I started making sounds at them though.

So anyways if you haven't figured it out yet, to get the photo references for this drawing I taped a large piece of white paper up and then tore it to make a hole large enough for my head to fit through. I then had my Mom take a picture of me from the front and then crawl underneath the paper and take a picture from the back. It ended up taking a ridiculously long time to get the pictures taken. I'm thinking close to four hours largely because I like to be in complete control of my pieces and me being the model made that difficult. My Mom would take a bunch of pictures and then I would look at them and then change the lighting a little bit and then she would take some more and then I would change my expression some, and it went on and on like that. I'm really grateful for her for putting up with me and also for crawling back and forth over and over again. yeah..

Oh I also wanted to thank all of my friends who have come over and talked to me while I was drawing! Especially Abby who came and talked to me while I was drawing for two whole days, even after she was bored out of her mind the first time. Many good times were had listening to "Abigail, Belle of Kilronan" by the Magnetic Fields on repeat. By the way that song is now the number two most played song on my ipod (number 1 is Say Yes of course).