My second class that I have longed for, for a long time (I'm sorry I love how that sounds) is color theory. A strange class to long for, I know but I feel that we have only ever skimmed the surface. In all of my education from elementary school forward we have talked about which colors mix to make what, in chemistry we learned about how color's work and how. But this class can teach me how to mix paints to get a specific goal. one thing I learned in this class was that in the early 1930's there was a National Bureau of standards which was in charge of categorizing colors. the project was scraped when categories like grayish, yellowish, pink had over 30,000 entries (Understanding Color by Linda Holtzshue.) It is a fun class where I get to play around with color. So far I haven't had to even get my hands dirty but starting this next week we should be playing with paints.
I want you to view this scene as a story that hasn’t ever been told. Feel that this is a place that was once sacred and now the forest has over whelmed it. The forest is one part destroyer and one part protector; Destroying the edifice yet protecting it from plunderers and vandals. The statue in the center looks untouched in all this ruin. Like it has been waiting all this time for this unknown hero of the story to come and take up the sword she holds.
I love looking at art and seeing little details that seem to share a secret. In my observations I have discovered that there is a difference between art that tries to be art for itself and art that is in tribute to a much larger theme. The theme itself is the focus and not the painting, drawing, or sculpture. It is my intention to just show the viewer an image of this story as if it is already known. In this way the drawing itself is not the art. It is only a description. When one views this drawing I hope they will see something of a much grander nature. Imagine how one feels today looking at paintings from the Renaissance. You might be a Christian and not know the themes that were dealt with over and over again by hundreds of artist during that time. Yet the people who viewed those paintings during the artist lifetime would have known the theme and would have viewed the painting in a different way than people today. They would expect to see certain things in the paintings, recurring themes. I want the viewer of this drawing to feel the same sort of mystery that he or she would looking at art from an different culture or time. The challenge is to create this scene with that sort of back-story. Something like that takes time.
I originally conceived of this scene three years ago. I wanted from the beginning to do a perspective drawing of this grotto overgrown by forest and undergrowth. I didn’t have the skills to render it the way I Wanted to nor the knowledge of the scene. For a long time I have worked and reworked certain features of it: I designed the building and built it in a 3d program, I drew out the statute with the sword until it looked right and now I have finished a drawing of it in perspective. I have slowly invented this scene in every concept possible. Invention is not creating something new but rather taking things that are known and using them in a new application.
In the future I will continue to work on this scene. Even if I think I have done a good job with it I feel that it is necessary to re-approach a scene again and again because it shows how much one has grown as an artist.
James Stansfield
