When I heard that this week’s assignment was about drawing cracks, the first thing that came to mind was a metaphorical meaning of the word, a sense of brokenness. My original idea for this week’s concept was to find cracks along the Freedom Trail because in a lot of ways, America feels pretty broken right now. For some reason though, this idea didn’t quite click.
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| 9 x12, colored pencil |
Then, as I was walking around the Boston Common one day, I came across a crack with pieces of grass growing out of it, and it gave me the idea of breaking as a means for growth. I’ve always thought of plants as being particularly magical. Despite the obstacles (in this case, being paved over), plants always tend towards growth, which is what I saw when looking at the tiny blades of grass blooming its way through the cracks. In a lot of ways, I feel like the blade of grass right now. Starting this new chapter in my life, it has been necessary for me to break the attachment to my previous routines and comforts. It’s been anxiety-inducing, for sure, but I already feel a sense of newness and discovery within myself. Maybe some of you feel the same way.
My overall concept was to use different color combinations to draw the cracks, with the colors representing all of the different possibilities on the spectrum of growth, whether it’s professionally, psychologically, interpersonally, etc. I used colored pencil for this. Because we were also required to draw a crack in pencil and pen/marker, I decided the black and white cracks could represent the void before the growth, that space of challenge that requires us to become more than we were.
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| 5 x 8, colored pencil |
In keeping with my theme of blooming through the cracks, I went to the Boston Public Garden and Back Bay Fens (the latter of which was already on my to-do list!). Generally, I would walk around and look for cracks, take pictures of them, then find somewhere to sit and draw them. Because I had a metaphorical sense of cracks in mind, I tried looking for ones that could represent the different ways growth happens. For example, the straight line of a crack represented how growth can be linear. For the crack on a large piece of paper, I chose one that had one main vein, with multiple smaller cracks forming around it, which to me, represented occurrences where, out of a main source of growth, smaller, tangential forms of growth also occur. Another crack I found only occupied a little corner of the pavement. To me, it represented breaking as a beginning in the long journey towards growth, which is why I chose to draw it in graphite.
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| 5. 5 x 8.5, graphite |
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| 26 x 28, colored pencil |
Getting accustomed to the different materials was a fun learning experience. I have never taken an art class, so learning the different pencil grades was a discovery. When drawing the crack in graphite, I used the darker shades to create parts of the crack that were wider and used lighter shades to create parts of the crack that were thinner. The colored pencils were interesting to explore too, as I found that the ones I have are quite soft. I liked practicing blending the different colors into each other. With both the colored pencils and drawing pencils, I also enjoyed playing around with pressure, noticing how harder pressure produced cleaner lines, while lighter pressure created more blurred lines.
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| 3 x 3, colored pencil |
When it came time to setup the presentation, I knew I wanted to place it by some plants, but unfortunately, the little green area was being maintained. The space by the window was free, which worked out nicely, because the light shining in from the window came to represent the light on the other side of a challenge. In setting up my board, I placed the two black and white cracks at the bottom, with the colored pencil ones above them to represent the “bloom” of color emerging out of the darkness. I purposefully placed my board on the floor to emulate flowers and plants growing out of the ground. Finally, I placed the largest piece in the middle because I used all the colors of the chakras to represent the crack, so I wanted to place it prominently, while the other cracks of color were presented to the left and right of it, matching the different color schemes of the smaller ones along different points of the main one.
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| 5. 5 x 8.5, pen |
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| 8 x 9.5, colored pencil |
Hi Chitra!
ReplyDeleteWhen I first looked at your work during the class, I really like these colorful and integrated cracks. Personally, your artworks are different from others black and white or concrete work, which attracted me to know more about them. After I finished reading your explanation, I felt excited about your concepts. I had same ideas when I saw the cracks, the sense of brokenness, but I didn't deeper my ideas. I think it is amazing when you used different colors to express diverse emotions and psychology things. And to use cracks to express curiosity about other things. I really like the way you use color to express it.
I really the love the idea that you use different colors to describe the cracks and each crack includes a unique combination of colors. At first I thought they were blood vessels. It is interesting to learn how you present the concept of “blooming” through the cracks.
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