The Death of the Forest

"The death of the Forest is the end of our Life."

Really I was responding to the quote above, I not sure who it is by.
I guess I was also going back to the emotion of the city idea again as well.

I Started with a photo of myself then I drew it up using charcoal, willow and pastel in my sketch book (left). Not sure were I was going to go from there I did the same only on a sheet of A1.

The image below right is what I first started with.

I wanted to portray my feelings towards the constant building (urbanization) and the destruction of our natural resources and the land around us.

I talked to one of my tutors who said that it was to personal and wasn't really getting the message across to the viewer (Although this project is 'My view on the urban environment' so wouldn't it be personal? When it comes down to it, I'm doing this for me not for others. Sorry I'm rambling!)

I wasn't to happy with it myself anyways. It needed darkening and something else... So I had another go at it.

The image below is what I have come up with so far, tho I will probably go back and change a few things, shading and such.

I added the leaves coming out of her hand as she holds them tightly against her face. I placed the image of a city in her eyes.

She is in shock as she is watching the city growing and spreading like a virus. She is holding onto what is left of the natural world. The ghosts of the forest are wailing behind her.

"I am born of a thousand storms, and grey with rushing rains."

-L.D'O Walters

I took out the ghosts. I agree with my tutors and various classmates, that they were to much and a bit comical (Casper). I think I like it much better this way. It was to busy before and the ghost were distracting. Even though I covered them up you can still see them in the background if you really look. I rather like that. It makes you look twice.

My Muse

The Methods to my madness..

This took me ages to figure this out, I wish I had figured it out earlier.
Music is very important to my creative process no matter what project I am working on. I am inspired by the lyrics, the rhythm and the sound. It helps ideas come to the surface and allows them to flow onto the paper more easily.
I'm going to start posting music by various artist that I have been listening to while working on this project, and that have helped to inspire me.
To me what I listen to is just as important as what I write down and research in my sketchbook.

This song is called 'So Easy' by Röyksopp from the Princess Mononoke soundtrack.

 I went a bit crazy and added a bunch of photos that I took around Limerick City.

Inspiring

Just some photos of surreal paintings that I found interesting. Also some notes from the book 'Surrealism' Edited by Mar Ann Cous

'Surrealist game of 'one in the other' (lin dans l'autre) In which something leads to something else that the rational mind might not have thought of, the dreamer might not have dreamed of.

'Our willing openess to the unexpected, holding our materials and ourselves in so far as possible in our surrealist state of readiness.'

- Awake and dreaing, experienced no longer as oppositions but as complementary and coexisting states.(surrationalisme)

'As the surrealists often asserted, the only bounds to our world are these which are self-imposed by the limitations of our own imagination and its verbal and visual expressions.'

'Surrealism aimed above all to preserve a sense of the extrodinary, the unexplained, and the inexplicable.'

'To shake off the fetters of the rational in the thinking individual permitting the imagination to take its free course. To find what lay beneath the veneer of an over sophisticated society.'

Manipulated

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the colour purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." 

-Alice Walker

Here are some more snapshots that were manipulated slightly, either by the program in my camera or the program picture it 9.

Purple seems to be an ongoing theme here.

" I never saw a purple cow; I never hope to see one; But I can tell you, Anyhow I'd rather see than be one."

- Frank Gelett Burgess

Snaped

"A good snapshot stops a moment from running away." -Eudora Welty

Just some more Snapshots that I have taken around Limerick city. I cant turn the picture above the right way around for some reason.

No painting can tell the truth of a single instant; no snapshot can do anything else.

 -John A. Kouwenhoven

Sweet Pea

Another Drawing from my walk-about in town of a sweet pea that was in the graveyard.
The drawing  I did below was another one of those spur of the moment things. I didn't want to think about what I was doing to much, I just wanted to do it.

I also did another one of a wash-off were the sweet pea is growing out of a brick. I did it quickly so it is pretty lousy looking.

I like how the image portrays the relationship, between man, the urban environment and nature.

 "Destruction Breeds Creation" -Red Hot Chili Peppers

Scribbling

Bridge near George's Quay

Some more bi-ro and/or watercolour drawings done while walking around the place, mostly on the way down the George's Quay.
I spent more time on some than I did on others.
I really enjoyed looking at the river and the abundant wild life that occupy it. Especially the ducks and the heron.

"The river it spoke to me, So I swallowed it down."

-Yeah Yeah Yeahs

On the way back from George Quay

I was watching the Heron in the River
 and the view across from Georges quay.

I don't know what was happening here, I was drawing the view from my studio window, it didn't turn out so well.

I liked how the building was reaching up out of all the trees and shrubery

A bridge in the distance

The church Steeple, the compass.
 Our Northern Star

Walking down to George's Quay.

Just a quick scribble of a plant I saw on the river's edge.

Graveyard sketch's

Some more drawings of variouse things that stricked my fancy in the graveyard, in bi-ro and watercolour. Mostly flowers.

"They took her to the cemet'ry,

In a big ol' Cadillac,

The took her to the cemet'ry,

But they did not bring her back."

-Old Song