Shared Spaces 2018

Shared Spaces is an annual art show run and set up at Nazareth College. Local Art Teachers pair up with seniors at their respective schools, and produce a piece of art work. The pieces can have a common theme or not. 

This year I picked my Art Club Vice President Kailey Bunting. We batted around some ideas for our theme: we thought about challenging each other ad picking tools we would be uncomfortable with; we thought about using a subject we were fearful of; and eventually we landed on using music as out inspiration. Kailey gave me a song to be inspired by, and I gave her one! 

From there started to brainstorm ideas and research the singer/songwriter's inspiration for her album as well as the song. Turns out she wrote and recorded this album in her husband's dead parent's home. She also talked about not feeling too well one morning after a night of celebration--and out of all that, this song was written. I latched on to the old house theme, as well as "I woke up this morning and made a pot of coffee..." to start my sketches.

Process

1-My original idea was to have a ambiguous female figure pouring coffee.​ But the dimensions of our paper was proving to be difficult to jam the figure on to. 
2-More sketches
3-Even more sketches
4-More sketches
5-Sketches of a seated figure catching coffee?
6-A gigantic seated figure?
7-Sketches at actual size, a figure climbing the house like king kong
8-The figure sitting on the house?
9-Finally, the figure sitting on the house with the coffee! 
10-Final sketch transferred to the fancy paper! 
11-The rendering has started! I wanted to use Faber-Castell Pitt markers combined with their Polychromo colored pencils. I started with the house since I had a color plan in place for that structure. Obviously, I wanted it worn, weathered and mysterious. 
12-My idea was to create the figure with planes of light and to make her alien-like with pink and blue skin for some sadness. I showed my wife my solution and she gave me a long pause and a "no". 
13-I quickly covered over the pink areas with some more blue and a lot of blending to cover my blunder. 
14-had to fix the legs too! 
15-ahhhhhh the creative blunder is fixed! Onto the background! 
16-I had some strong diagonals, but the coffee spill pointed to the bottom of the paper with no where to go. I added the hills and some more houses to make the composition flow a little better. 
17+18-I used photoshop and a quick shot with my phone to play with colors. Eventually I landed on blue to be cohesive with my figure. 
19-22-A few edits to my background, moving around some clouds and blending like a wild man! 
23-The final touches! 
​24-On display, mine on top, Kailey's on the bottom!