Drawing a Myth
This weeks prompt said, 'What vision in your mind's eye does the concept of a myth conjour up for you? It could be an object like a the Giant's magical Harp, or Thor's hammer...'
How should this theme be interpreted? Some of you have used objects or references from the web to inspire you, creating new works. Others chose to understand the brief in a more literal way. Here are two examples of the different approaches.
Monika
Monika's father comes from Ljubljana in Slovenia, which is known as 'The City of Dragons', so she has drawn a dragon from the famous Dragon Bridge only a block away from his family home. She has used photos and a souvenir paperweight to reference the dragon and inspire her drawing. But she has not treated it as a realistic drawing and has not done an drawing of a dragon statute. She has created a drawing of the myth of the dragon based on real life references.
Using a 2H pencil to sketch the outline, she drew in detail with a Rotirng graphic 0.3 pen. Using Inktense pencils in pink, yellow and purple she created wash effects then intensified once dry with colour pencils. Finally she used a Rotring 0.1 and 0.5 to add detail and highlight.
By adding colour and not trying to draw the 'paperweight', but draw a dragon, Monika has brought to life the legend of the dragon on the bridge. Her dragon lives and breathes and she has illustrated the myth.
JD
As Monika did, JD has used an actual object as her reference. In this case she has drawn an Egyptian alabaster canopic jar. This is one of 4 jars, each jar representing on of the four sons of Horus - jackal, baboon, falcon, human. JD has chose to draw the falcon head jar using Staedtler Graphite HB, uni pen fineliners in sepia and light grey. She began with Prismacolor watercolor pencils lightly washed to create tones with more colour added when dry to intensify the hue. Drawn in her Windsor Newton 200gsm heavyweight diary JD has done a very well drawn and realistic rendering of the object.
The use of colour works well, JD has successfully created the texture of the alabaster material. It is a well drawn work as well, her attetion to shapes and the perspective ovals are pretty good. I like the use of the sepia pen to create detail and give the impression of the inscribed heiroglyphics. A good drawing of the object....
...but... it is not, IMO, a drawing of a myth. It is a very literal drawing of an object relating to a myth. A quite good drawing though, which is why I wanted to show it here.
What do you think? Do you feel I am wrong? Is this a work that represents a myth? Post a comment and let me know your thoughts - I am more than happy to have you disagree with me!
I agree, Linda. An interesting story and a very detailed and intricate drawing,JD,although not strictly related to the topic.
ReplyDeleteHowever,well done to attempt something as complicated as this!
Jean