I had a realization in that everything I do is to prepare myself for what the future holds, like a parent preparing its child for life im constantly doing that for myself, I always have a choice as to what I could do, and I try to choose what is in my best interested, I think that’s why finding meaning is so difficult because people think in terms of longevity and a positive take on big issues such as death is much more constructive for one’s life. I want desperately for death not to be the end, but I cannot find meaning in it because I can not know. I get frustrated that fads come in waves, cycles, that everything is popular, then played out, then It resurges and the cycle seems to continue, and I ask myself why people gravitate towards these things, and its because its easy to find comfort in them. Joining a cult where you are important is often better than living in a society where you are unimportant, and this is just picking the most favorable choice for survival, becoming part of the biggest group for protection and validation. I think one’s values are also fitting into this, as living to the values instilled on you from your parents ensures you won’t have guilt, or regret, because you did what you were supposed to, these values have a practical use and help you avoid trouble but they are all subjective, so nothing has actual meaning outside of what we give it, but the meaning we put on things is expression, experiences and expression are the two things that are undeniably real and so communication is the cornerstone of my life and what I am chasing, dissociation might stop me from feeling like myself, ADHD might stop me from achieving my potential in many areas, but I can always express myself in the moment and communicate with others and for me, that is the most important thing.

This project has been an exploration of my thoughts on meaning and has helped me understand myself a lot better. My self-portrait is just me, with no connotations or bravado, just me, but the mark-making, the colours and the pose all speak a thousand words about who I am, it is expressing an image of me through my own lens and so in a strange way illustrates the desire to be heard, I wanted to capture myself at that moment, and express that moment to the world, I wanted to communicate my experience at that moment.

I decided to buy a screen, ink, and some butterfly clamps as I was very eager to try some screen printing but due to coronavirus I don’t have access to any of the university facilities, I bought some drawing fluid and screen filler as I don’t have any UV bulbs or means of reliably exposing my screens and began drawing.

 

This was the first design I drew out, I wasn’t sure how the smaller lines and dots would come out in the print as I had never used drawing fluid, so I made sure to vary my mark-making, having some thick lines, dots, lines and big blacked-out areas. This illustration was a response to a thought I had quite early on in the project, in my Key Thoughts – Death and Meaning blog post I wrote

“I’ve been isolated but going outside and taking time to smell the fresh countryside air, seeing the trees and clouds and the stars around me makes me feel so happy to be alive”

I wanted to draw how I felt while I was present in nature, I like changing my perspective and trying the view the world around me as if I have no understanding of what anything is, looking at trees and clouds with complete presence, just seeing what is in front of me, not thinking about anything else. Ever since I moved to Brighton I have loved going to the beach and seeing the sky and the sea, thinking about how big they are and just standing in the gap between them. I tried to capture that depth and scale while drawing myself in a nieve childish way, stuck in the middle and observing everything.

I originally printed on newsprint to test out the ink screen and the detail I could achieve, not expecting anything finished but just to experiment with the process.

Considering this was my first print I was pretty happy, It showed me that thin lines were possible with the drawing fluid, but I also knew based on this that the ink was too thick so I needed to buy some printing medium, as I said I printed this on newsprint so this also meant the print came out quite blotchy. Based on this information I bought some nice cotton paper and printing medium.

 

I then started to draw out a design inspired by my original detective illustration,  I knew that thin lines would work but hadn’t tested cross-hatching so this was a good opportunity to experiment with more detailed shading, I didn’t spend long on this design as it was a test print but I tried to focus on getting relatively crisp lines as I knew that would make the print much better and regardless of drawings complexity or quality, painting crisp lines and having a good balance of positive and negative space within the composition would give it a personal, “hands-on” quality that making offers, while still being clean enough to look finished.

I was still getting to grips with the printing process but I was very happy with how this came out, there are lots of happy little accidents that give the illustration a bit of flair, for example, the hands didn’t fully print, but instead, half printed, still giving the impression of a hand without all the marks. I still had issues with the consistency of the ink, but I was getting closer to what I wanted.

 

Helio

Previously I mentioned Helio Gracie as an inspiration for my shaman character, I really liked the small drawing I did of him and felt it would work well as a print, Helio Gracie was a big influence on me when I was very young as I have always been a fan of the Gracie family and to me, Helio teaches three main principals that have helped shape who I am

1: Efficiency, is defined as achieving maximum results in the easiest way possible, and extends beyond Jui Jitsu and into life through eating healthy, being honest and respectful, and being morally correct and hardworking.

2: Patience, against larger opponents the person who exhausts the least will usually win, so rather than attacking constantly, timing and impulse control is more favorable, this example extends to being patient with friends as well as enemies, thinking clearly without impulse and taking time to consider your options are all key parts of living patiently. Patience encourages self-control.

3: Control, control in Jiu-Jitsu is imposing your will and negating the attempts of your opponent, but beyond this, it’s about controlling your choices – self-control, discipline and putting in the work that is necessary to succeed

Gracie Jui Jitsu is about empowering the weak, it is a style that dismisses many of the physical attributes that people use as a crutch and relies on technique over anything.

These values were key building blocks for me and so determined many of the things I give meaning, because of this I wanted to create a Print of Helio out of respect for the family.

 

Helio Reference image for print

 

I used a slightly different approach and instead of using drawing fluid I made paper stencils, I did this by drawing out light tones on one piece of paper, mid-tones on another, and dark tones on a final piece, then I printed each of these on top of each other, starting with the lightest colour. I used 160gsm cartridge paper along with a 50/50 mix of ink and medium, to create the prints below as well as many others (14 in total).

 

unfortunately, the screen wasn’t totally dry while printing the final layer so I got some bleeding but I’m really happy with the result, all 3 layers were drawn independent of each other so I’m glad the proportions were correct enough to have decent alignment, I think the slight shifts in proportions of each layer create a nice loose style. I’m not a fan of the darkest layer as it looks very stenciled on but I think that might just be a reality of working with paper stencils and a craft knife.

After sitting with my thoughts while my brush arrived and the base layer dried I developed the confidence to willingly risk destroying the one relatively successful self-portrait I had produced, in order to achieve the vision that I had been chasing for around 2 weeks.

I made changes to the eyes using my new brushes, making them more in line with each other and a very similar size as they are in real life, I also added darker areas to near the bridge of the nose. These small changes had a huge impact on the likeness and quality of the painting, so I continued to make the remaining changes.

Although it can be hard to see, I made some big changes to the left side of the face around the cheek area, as well as to the nose, I think more vibrant shadows helped create more variation of tones in the shadows, creating more depth.

Here I started to introduce smaller brush strokes and warmer light tones to help saturate the painting a bit more, it also helped to blend the shadow and light together as before I had a very dense area that had all the warm tones in one area of the painting.

 

I continued to add light tones and detail throughout the painting, adding more clarity and articulation to the facial features as well as repainting the lips with a more purple pallet to match the colour temperature of the rest of the piece, I also simplified the hair and added darker areas to the neck. I also found the neck and right cheek was too wide so I cut into this using the red tone of the background.

 

This is the current version of the painting however I still want to make changes to the shirt and the mouth as I think the mouth has a bit of a pout expression and the shirt hasn’t been detailed to match the delicacy of the rest of the painting. Currently, I think I have a great likeness and I’m close to the vision I had of my honest self-portrait, but there is still plenty that can go wrong…

With everything I had learned I started again, I had just completed the Will Young portrait, and the many failed self-portraits so expectations of my abilities were at an all-time low, my confidence was good as I knew id learned a lot from my failure and both of these contributed to a much more keen and careful approach, I was checking and double-checking, and finally printed off my reference image as lockdown restrictions were calming down a little bit. Rather than creating a form and changing the form by adding light and dark until I reached a likeness, I decided to measure, and mark out everything so carefully that a simple line drawing took me about 2 hours, but this was time well spent.

This was the final drawing, I didn’t feel that I had cracked the likeness, and would have continued to work on this, but I knew id properly measured everything, I made some small changes to the eyes between this and the next image but unfortunately, I forgot to photograph this change. So I started to paint based on the trust I had for my measurements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this stage I was happy with the likeness on my painting, more so than any of the others, I knew the eyes were wrong as was trying to paint them without a small brush, so I took time to reflect on my painting while I waited for a brush I ordered to arrive, In this time I edited the saturation of my painting digitally to add a little bit more colour in to make me appear less sickly. I didn’t want too much colour but reached a point where it was as pale as I wanted it, but still had some purples and pinks in the skin tone to keep the life in it.

“Heres one I made earlier”

 

After a few days of resetting I decided to give the self-portrait another go, I started again from the ground up and took a series of new reference images, in a new Hawaiian shirt, in a silly way this change of shirts marked a change in approach as the original shirt was one I got in my first year of uni when my life was very much scattered, but this second shirt was one I got more recently, a gift from my long time girlfriend and it is kind of the zeitgeist of my settled and more organized life. Of course, this shirt wouldn’t make it into the painting but it was an almost ritualistic, superstitious gesture I did for myself, to help me mentally reset and come at this new painting with a more methodical approach.

    

The photos above are my favorites and ultimately I decided to go for the final image, While reflecting on the previous failures I decided to make a more delicate painting, with smaller marks and pale skin, I wanted to paint my skin pale to remove the realism that many people expect when looking at a portrait, a pale base encourages me to paint with less harsh contrast and I knew this would prevent the distracting mark-making that I usually embrace. All this was an attempt to strip away the desire for realism, the desire for the projection of a mood, emotion and even preventing myself from becoming a reflection of the viewer’s own emotions.

 

After a few hours of painting, I realized that I was losing the likeness, This painting developed very quickly but I realized again, I messed up the proportions, I tried to fix this by changing the head shape and eye but I couldn’t get to a point I was happy with so decided to restart, yet again…

I did, however, use this failure to create this sketch, blocking out and toning my head with neon colors, this really helped me see what I was doing rather than just automatically assuming I knew what I was doing and not looking properly and diligently

I know I have no likeness or anything that actually resembles me in this drawing, but it did help me see the error of my ways and return with a new approach.

I took lots of photos to start my self-portrait, I didn’t pose or try to look good, I wanted soft lighting but still directional with some areas harshly lit, I wanted it to be honest, without forced expression, just an honest picture of me at that moment, something I could look at and see myself, my three favorite photos are below.

  

 

I liked the first one but I could only see light and dark, there wasn’t much variation within these two categories as far as mid tones go, I liked the middle one a lot but didn’t like how turned my shoulder was, so I used the third image as a body reference as I liked everything apart from how tilted up my head was.

I started by drawing out the face but for some reason, I was really struggling to get any likeness, I felt myself making the same mistakes over and over and as I was free handing it from a photo on my phone I had to rescale the face 5-6 times bigger than the reference, this is something i hadn’t done and in hindsight, I should have printed off my reference to match the size better. below is my first day’s progress

 

End of Day 1

I really struggled early on to find a likeness, I felt that I kept making the same mistake over and over, I had been working on it from about 10 one morning, till 1 that night, I don’t know why but I really struggled, perhaps it was the pressure I had put on myself to get it right, I was measuring a lot more than I usually would but wasn’t measuring properly, rather just using my thumb and a pencil to check ratio relationships between the facial features. This measuring was harmful in my opinion as it leads me to become complacent, I struggled to see what it actually looked at because I didn’t give myself a chance to look at it with fresh eyes, I had to start again 3 times because I couldn’t find the likeness but eventually, got to a point I was happy with and went to bed.

 

      

End of Day 2

I really started stong and put a lot of time into the background, I used the shirt that I associated with others view of me as a reference to create a print pattern, I thought about screen printing this on but thought that the styles would clash with my delicate mark making on the face, I was really happy with the background and felt really good about the painting going forward, I liked the composition and space around the face, I was also happy with the shirt as I achieved a good blend with the background by using the same color but with different tones to create the shadow.

I then started to paint the face, I always start with the eyes to ensure they look like they are under the skin and this was going great, I could see myself in the eyes and I captured something that I see looking in the mirror, I don’t know what id describe it as but to me it is a familiar look I give myself, a calm, honest expression that isn’t giving anything away.

Despite the success of the eyes I quickly lost the likeness, when I began painting the face I realized that all the facial features were too big, the head was too small and I saw that I was fighting a losing battle. I was painting with oils so with great sadness I had to strip away the paint. I didn’t want a mediocre painting with a mediocre likeness I wanted something that was honest, like the eyes I wanted something that is capturing a moment and truly capturing myself.

After a few days I decided to return to the painting, I started by blocking out the facial structure through tone, I made the head a lot smaller as I thought this would be easier to paint from my phone but this made the shoulders look too small. All the painting here was done with acrylics and with unusual colors as I knew it was all just underpainting but after getting to a point where the likeness was coming through proportionally I realized I was making a big mistake. The face was too small for the articulation I wanted, the eyes would look unusual if they were that small with detail, the shoulders were way too big and I would need to repaint them. I felt like I had lost sight of what I was doing and what I wanted, Rather than looking for honesty all I was doing was chasing the likeness. I also felt that the background was too bright and distracting if I was hoping to strip away all my superficial projections. I considered removing my shirt completely and having the same crop but have bare shoulders and back, but I felt this would draw attention and send the wrong kind of message. Rather than taking everything away and painting an animalistic, simple side of myself, I wanted to paint myself as I am, but without the spectacle of Joe, and so bright colors, being naked and strong symbolism would all contribute to this spectacle.

End of Portrait Attempt 1

I decided to use my interest in Carts of Darkness as subject matter for my painting, I felt that the documentary gave these people a platform and rather than trying to sell an image, they were just honest and seeing one character, in particular, Big Al riding down a hill I could see the joy and pure happiness on his face. Big Al went to prison for stealing shopping carts, and within half an hour of being released from prison, this was what he was doing…

The first image felt like what id been chasing, his expression showed how happy he was, and his trolly shows his unusual lifestyle, in this moment all his problems faded away and he was just enjoying himself.

I wanted to try something different for this painting, I decided to sketch out the portrait with acrylic paint rather than a pencil.

I decided to do an underpainting for my board as I was painting on MDF so the skin tones were likely to blend into the background without it. I started by blocking out the composition and the very light and dark on the face, starting to create a rough shape but very crude and without articulation.

 

I added in the blue of the background and began to paint the shape of the shirt, I wasn’t happy with the shape and would change it later as i was working with oils.

I started to articulate the facial features with oil, but I made sure I wasn’t too bold with my mark-making, as a mistake in the stage could have led me to overwork my painting, I could see the likeness forming on the left side of the face but knew the right side needed a lot of work.

I reshaped the shirt making it look more anatomically correct and touched up the face a lot, I had to add a lot more tonal variation to the cheek and eye to ensure I got a more 3D looking form, and I was mostly happy with the face at this stage, I also added in more tone on the neck and repainted the sky as I felt it was too vibrant in the base layer, I know the picture has an even more vibrant sky but because I didn’t use the deep reds and oranges in the face I didn’t want the sky to be distracting. Painting the more dark on the right side of the beard also helped to shape the mouth and right cheek, getting the right form was essential for me getting the expression right, and ultimately the expression was all I wanted.

I added in the background and continued to work on the shirt, I was pretty happy with this version but knew I still had to make some changes to the hair shape, shirt and add in the glasses, which could make or break.

I made the final changes and am really happy with how it turned out, I think the glasses work well as they are just a few marks to give the impression of glasses rather than a solid black line, I fixed the head shape and added more accurate shading to the shirt. I really like the expression as well as the marks structure on the face, I think I could have gotten a better likeness if I had spent more time on it but ultimately I am really happy with the final outcome, I managed to capture that pure joy.

I was up late one night browsing the internet for entertainment when I stumbled across a really interesting documentary made by Murray Siple, the documentary follows a group of homeless men who created a lifestyle removed from a conventional living, these men use bottle recycling as a source of income, to fuel their hobby of extreme shopping cart hill racing.

Above is the full Carts of Darkness documentary as well as a short trailer

Although most people feel like they need to work and live within the confines of society’s expectations of a productive citizen, these men are living detached from this, and somehow they find happiness and meaning in their own unusual way of life. I interviewed Murray Siple, the documentary maker through Instagram and told him about my project on finding meaning, he said that he found it interesting to see a completely different way of life that feels more intuitive to him than modern living and at the time of making the documentary he didn’t feel like he belonged where he was living but somehow spending time with these men made him feel at home, part of something.

These people are living very simple lives and without many of the modern commodities that people spend their lives chasing they are happy to live in a bush or a trailer, picking up bottles and living off around $20 a day. One man makes only what he needs, and any exess money he gets, he spends on growing flowers, which he gives away to the community, he spends all his time picking up bottles, painting, playing guitar and looking after his plants and pet bird, he said “my definition of riches, is not dollar bills and things, if you have one friend, you are very very rich because true friends, they will not let you down. I have cultivated a large number of friends and I am without a doubt the richest person in this area”

This mans message made me happy, because I knew he meant what he said and that he was happy. While I was watching the documentary I decided to draw some of my favourite moments.

Although they are all quick sketches I think I managed to express the calmness that I see in their life, as well as the joy that it brings them.

Although Id painted a landscape I had not painted a face in years, so I didn’t really know where to start, fortunately for me Sky Arts was running a Portrait Artist Of The Year live stream event, where every week a new celebrity sitter would come on a live stream from 10-2, a former Portrait Artist Of The Year contestant/winner would paint this person and it was encouraged to paint along at home. I took this opportunity to sharpen my skills.

below are some of the paintings in chronological order.

Week 1

The portrait above was of professional dancer Akram Khan, I enjoyed painting him but struggled as my reference image was a photo of a computer screen so it was hard to get any detail or likeness working properly, I feel like as a study it was successful because it only took 4 hours and helped me figure out a lot of shape carving techniques to create depth. I used a lot of the tonal techniques I had learned doing my rough pen portraits and I think this helped a bit but I do think I made Akram look a bit like a ventriloquist dummy…

Week 2

This week I painted acclaimed writer Bernardine Evaristo, I really enjoyed this painting as I took a more illustrative approach, and rather than going for likeness and realism I tried to focus on mark-making and lighting to establish depth but also a sense of personality and warmth. I think I managed to achieve a good likeness despite the painting being more impressionistic.

 

 

Week 3

This week I painted famous photographer Rankin, I wanted to attempt a more realistic render but again I had the issue of a bad reference image, I wanted to continue playing with mark-making and to ensure I achieved a more realistic likeness I spent a lot longer on the drawing process.

I think planning was a very important factor when it came to establishing the likeness and although previously I would have stopped with my initial sketch, I took the time to correct proportional mistakes and add marks that suggested tone, some areas of this painting are not accurate to the reference but detailed from my imagination as I felt it might look a bit plain if I painted exactly what I saw, I think this is one of my best paintings and I used composition as a tool to illustrate that he is a photographer, framing him with paint that was applied very thickly with a pallet knife.

 

Week 5

I missed week 4 as I was working on something else that I will go into in one of my next blog post, but for week 5 I tried to paint will young, This week I really struggled with likeness and proportions, I stopped after 4 hours as I didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. There are areas of the face that I really like and really think work, the left side of the face is really good in my opinion, but I think that the proportions and right side really let it down. I was painting with oils so I reached a point where it was overworked and I couldn’t go over it until it dried, I ended up frisbeeing it out of my window and into my garden to the tune of “leave right now”, but then I realized I hadn’t photographed it so that’s why there’s dirt in the paint. I’m not happy with the outcome at all but I did learn a lot as this was one of the first times I under painted with acrylics. Obviously, I was not happy that I didn’t have a nice painting at the end of the session but ultimately I’m glad I put my time into it as when I have the least confidence, I tend to perform the best.

  

 

 

I tried to create some rough self-portraits using automation, just drawing anything I felt, most of these illustrations felt quite gimmicky, the least surreal one with the leaves felt the most honest, and it reminded me of a Hawaiian shirt I am known for in my friend group, Hawaiian shirts always make me happy because they are the perfect balance of good and bad, they are bright and colorful, crude and poorly designed comfortable yet formal, perfection in my eyes…

I am partially joking of course but it is something associated with my identity in a pretty big way, so I decided to continue with this self-portrait idea but wanted to explore a new medium.

 

when I was younger I really enjoyed painting. While looking through some of my old work I found a self-portrait I had painted on my foundation, it made me feel strange how much time had past and how different I am now and I wanted to create something to mark this moment in time, as the old painting marked that era of my life. I had already been doing some small landscape paintings inspired by where I live in the outskirts of Peterborough so had a small space set up in my garage for that, I converted this into my mini studio by buying a wallpaper pasting table, an easel, and a Bluetooth speaker, all the essentials.

 

 

 

I had completed the sketches of my story and began to render it, but I felt an urge to continue developing ideas, I continued to draw and below are some of the results

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Deep in isolation, I began to stray away from my initial comic, although I planned to return to it I had a few other ideas I wanted to explore, I had just rewatched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and was listening to some old Hunter S Thompson interviews, I really like how immersive the confusion is in Fear and Loathing, it’s almost infectious how the movie is continuing the regular narrative how someone who isn’t jacked up on a cocktail of drugs would experience it, but at the same time, we are viewing the world from the perspective of Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, twisted and warped.

I felt that the surreal and unreal monologs from fear and loathing were honest, they were telling the story in a way that was true to the character, this speech encapsulates a lot of my thinking over the past few weeks.

 

“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run… but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.…

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.”

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda.… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.…

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.…

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

 

I started to draw honest representations of myself and my feelings at the moment but it kept feeling like I was looking for a gimmick, everything I drew felt like it was trying to express something but wasn’t being honest, it wasn’t showing my perspective, more a kind of cliche of what I wanted to say, and so I continued to draw myself.

I continued to experiment with the shaman character using brush pens, ink, and fine liners, below is the result

I really liked the image on the left but felt it was too religious and I wanted to make it even goofier, I realized my illustrations needed color for this spread so began introducing some greens, I really liked the two-tone contrast and had a stylistic vision for this spread based on the work of comic artist and writer Mike Mignola, best known for creating Hellboy

I felt I was getting the heavy black space right but wanted to introduce some more harsh tone variation, rather than relying on cross-hatch shading I opted for a blocky two-tone style

Above is the final sketch for this spread, I really liked the composition and use of color, I also liked the close-up image of the face as this helped compositionally as well as helping establish the character in a more detailed and recognizable setting. I took a lot of inspiration from my portraits and used a lot more tone variation than I usually would, I think this helps tie two very different illustration styles together, as the prior pages were a lot less fantastical or zainy. I liked everything about this illustration apart from the football head that I managed to mess up, I wanted to render this in a more polished way so used my graphics tablet to do so, I really liked the roughness of the pen so wanted to use texture brushes and some rough shading to keep its feel.

I think the changes I made were very successful and I would like to try printing this illustration in the future.

The narrative behind this page is that people aren’t always what you want or expect them to be, the shaman turns out to just be a man that likes to live in the forest, he wears a funny hat and sits in his favorite spot and talks to the people that pass him by, he’s at peace but he isn’t a spiritual leader of mystic character, just a man in a funny hat.

He tells the detective “I’m not a shaman, a spirit guide or a master, I just like frogs. Years ago I gave you my Frognifying glass, I told you that I hope it would help you find meaning. It’s not magic, I just saw you were feeling lost and wanted to give you something to mark a change in your life, something to inspire you… Don’t look for meaning in everything and anything, let meaning find you, all these objects you prescribe meaning onto, don’t help you find some great truth, just enjoy yourself and find a nice hill to sit on.”

I decided to develop my idea of having a detective looking for meaning in everything and drew out a short story.

 

I was inspired by the aesthetic of noir detective films and graphic novels and I started by drawing out the protagonist in more detail, I wanted to introduce color as the story progressed, I also wanted to have the detective be black and white throughout as he is stuck viewing the world and himself through his own lens, but the world around him doesn’t conform to his assumptions and so is colorful. I also decided to use folding bits of paper to reveal the story of each page, this causes the viewer to actively look for meaning on the page, just as the detective is looking for meaning.

The text on the first page reads “I have been on its trail for years, surely these clues must mean something!..”

 

I didn’t realize at the time but this character had appeared in my previous project, this short message is an addition to the original post after I finished the project and the blog, but I noticed this when writing the tell us about it portion of the blog:

I think this really shows how my brain thinks about certain topics, the same way when I see a dog, I think of the word dog, when I think of someone trying to figure something out, I think of this detective character, of course, this is all subliminal but it is strange to see part of my visual alphabet twice, totally independent of each other, months apart for the same reason and even with the same pose. This is the end of my short interjection and the rest of the blog post is as I had originally left it.

The second page in the spread introduces a magnifying glass and some more colors, I wanted the illustrations to be slightly nonsensical and I used false perspectives to do this. The magnifying glass is focused on the glass of water on the floor which looks out of place, I did this so the detective focuses on it and ignore the other objects around the room which include a cross, a photo of what seems to be the detective with someone else, a bottle of wine and a plant, the window is also open and in many noir novels, this suggests the criminal has just escaped or left the crime scene. Everything included was carefully chosen as they could all have equal amounts of meaning associated with them, everything has meaning and also doesn’t, so this helps to suggest that the detective is looking for clues randomly, without rhyme or reason.

the text on this page reads “To be the greatest detective I must solve the mystery of life and this mystic magnifying glass will show me the way. The shaman said he hoped id find the way and gave me this, it draws me to point it at all these objects, but what does it mean, if only I could decipher this great mystery, What does this mean” I was going to do some Mystic Meg, Mystic Mag jokes but couldn’t fit it so abandoned this idea, although it still makes me giggle.

The next page shows the opposite perspective of the detective looking down the magnifying glass, this creates a situation where rather than looking at random objects, as he sees, we the viewer are shown that the magnifying glass is in fact always pointed at him, just from another perspective. I wanted to include this as it helps illustrate the idea that people tend to look for meaning through their own lens, always pointed outwards but really this lens is usually just reflecting back to them what their assumptions and biases already reinforce.

amongst this visually illustrated self reflection the detective doubts himself and the legitimacy of the magnifying glass, he says

“I don’t know where to start, finding meaning these objects is confusing and distracting, I’m beginning to think this magnifying glass isn’t so magic after all. if that shaman is still in the woods he’s going to give me some answers.”

I wanted a bit of self reflection and doubt to come across here, detectives in media are famously always right and are always in a position of power where they know what happened, and are more aware than the other characters in their story, and in most cases more aware than the viewer.

I began sketching out another page where the shamen would live, I took a lot of inspiration from kill bill when Beatrix meets the Kung Fu master Pai Mei as I felt this is a cliche in a humorous way (which is a great rhyme)

I struggled to find my vision of what I wanted the master character to be, I wanted him to appear silly as he would not actually be a shaman or a master, but I didn’t want him to look so silly that it’s inconceivable that he would be mistaken for a wise or great teacher, as this would make the detective look even more nieve.

I liked this character but felt he didn’t fit the style of the other illustrations, I really liked the frog hat and thought about using a frog statue as frogs and mushrooms are often associated with shamens.

I decided to take a break from drawing with line and opted to use tone instead for a bit of experimentation, I wanted to work on creating 3d forms with tone as sometimes my work can be quite flat, so I chose a few of the great teachers that have influenced me and drew their portraits in a very loose way. I thought this might help me find my groove when it comes to drawing strong confident characters that inspired the shamen character.

 

IP Man, a Chinese martial artist and master of Wing Chung, trainer of Bruce lee

“Judo” Gene Lebell, one of the greatest grapplers to ever live, a pioneer of Mixed Martial Arts, 9th dan blackbelt in BJJ, a 10th-degree black red belt in judo (highest belt possible) and 10th-degree black belt in Kyokushin Budokai, he also trained female MMA legend and Olympian Ronda Rousey

Helio Gracie, also one of the greatest grapplers of all time, and co-founder of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu (Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu) he was a 10th-degree red belt (a master) of BJJ and passed his knowledge on to his sons, which created the Gracie family dynasty, all masters of BJJ that helped make it the dominant grappling art of the modern era

Helios son Royce Gracie fought in the first UFC and MMA organizations and was almost unstoppable against larger, stronger and more physically gifted opponents

Gracie vs Akebono 2004

Royce Gracie (6’1″ 180lbs) won using a shoulder lock against legendary Sumo Grand Champion Akebono (6’8″ 486 lbs)

I would recommend anyone watch this

I began image making by doing a brain dump where I drew in an unfiltered way, here are the results

Out of all these images I really liked the magnifying glass and the man with the hat and mustache, I thought about a detective chasing meaning and hyper analyzing every little thing trying to solve the mystery of life, I called this character “Detective Períergos”, períergos or περίεργος is greek for curious and I chose this name as I thought the detective could be my embodiment of curiosity, trying to find meaning in everything.

I continued to brain dump and created some pretty interesting images

I was practicing automatism here, while sat at my window I drew everything I felt like my hand wanted to draw, I like this drawing and think parts of it would be nice as a screen print.

 

I used a dictionary to give myself some inspiration, I wanted to select random worlds and see if I could find the meaning.

Recently I have been struggling with the reality of death, feeling that everything I believe about the society around me, and my internal identity is only true because I said so, and others reinforced it. I don’t think struggling is the right word because ultimately all I’m doing is trying to understand my place in the world. I experienced a lot of disassociation when I was younger and I think this disassociation was scary because it depersonalized me from my self in a strange way, it made me let go of how I saw myself and I think that was a really useful tool.

I feel as if I’m developing a lot of empathy for others as well as a greater appreciation for the world around me and because of quarantine, I’ve been isolated but going outside and taking time to smell the fresh countryside air, seeing the trees and clouds and the stars around me makes me feel so happy to be alive, I think the confronting death emphasizes your value of time, I feel happy that I’m alive in this small moment to see how beautiful the sunset is, and I know this is hippy-dippy and may sound like nonsense but I’ve never had that presence or clarity to live in the moment in quite the same way. Social pressures and goals have always made me jump from one thing to the next, social media have always made me want to project a version of myself that I think others want and without noticing I fell for the trap of chasing something that I didn’t care about in the rat race of life.

 

Ernest Becker wrote in his book The Denial Of Death

“The real world is simply too terrible to admit. It tells man that he is a small trembling animal who will someday decay and die. Culture changes all of this: it makes man seem important, vital to the universe, immortal in some ways.”

 

This rat race of chasing social acceptance is the chasing of self-importance through a system that was created by man.

 

Searching for meaning

everything is an opportunity to relate

an opportunity to construct your own narrative

custom made so you can be the hero

something that isn’t known is infinitely possible

so it has infinite chances to be meaningful

something that is new is unknown and so this new thing will have gravity

until it isn’t new anymore, and everything about it is known.

 

cultural fads come and go, musical genres and artistic movements all seem like the true expression of that time but then they become played out and a revolutionary new thing comes and takes its place, people want to be part of the new thing and they don’t realize that the old thing, was the new thing at one time. That’s why think fads tend to come full circle.

My focus shifted, I realized that rather than looking at how language is used to convey meaning, I began to look at how we create meaning and actively search for it in the language and media that we consume. At this time I became very interested in religion, philosophy, cults and psychology.

I was reading “The Inklings by Humphrey Carpenter” it acts as a biography of sorts for J.R.R Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, I found Charles William the most interesting out of the three men, but ill give you some background on the book before getting into that.

these men were Christians at Oxford University pre-WW2. They were all interested in alchemy and spirituality and to today’s standards it seems very cultish, but all of these men were very intelligent, Charles Williams was certifiably insane however he had a photographic memory and was very interested in literature and religion. Id recommend this book however as far as influence on this project I think the main thing it helped establish is that no matter how smart or privileged you are, you will experience hardship, and turn to some kind of meaning to find you through it, in this case, some of the greatest minds at the time believed in magic, because to them it seemed reasonable. Much like my tale of the cat pissing in my lego sounding like a religious scripture all of the cults and religions I looked into had to reference to two things, first of all a narrative that empowers believers and gives them divine strength of some kind, as well as stories that originate from the mesipitanian story “The Epic of Gilgamesh” which is one of the oldest texts known to man and outlines a man chasing greatness and immortality, trying to fill his life with achievements so that his story would be immortal. This tale of Gilgamesh weighed on my mind.

 

I began to paint in my garage, I set up a small studio space and I called it Joes Garage, I listened to the Frank Zappa album of the same name as I worked and one song popped out to me

Watermelon In Easter Hay By Frank Zappa

This is the Central Scrutinizer…
Joe has just worked himself into an imaginary frenzy
During the fade-out of his imaginary song…
He begins to feel depressed now
He knows the end is near
He has realized at last, that imaginary guitar notes
And imaginary vocals
Exist only in the imagination of the imaginer!
And… ultimately, who gives a fuck anyway?
So… So…
Excuse me… Ha ha ha!
Mm-mh… So… Ha ha ha… Ha ha ha!
…Who gives a fuck anyway?
So he goes back to his ugly little room
And quietly dreams his last imaginary guitar solo…

I thought about the intro to this song for a while, specifically this section

“He has realized at last, that imaginary guitar notes
And imaginary vocals
Exist only in the imagination of the imaginer!
And… ultimately, who gives a fuck anyway?”

I thought about the doublespeak interview that triggered my investigation,

“reality exists not in the mind of the individual, which soon perishes but in the mind of the party which is collective and immortal, what the party says is reality is real”

and these two ideas swirled around in my head for a while I began to think about why I do the things I do and where my drive to create comes from, I began to question if everything I create is to ensure that I am remembered, and I came to the conclusion that the song comes to, ultimately, who gives a fuck anyway? Frank Zappa died in 1993 and below is a snippet from his final interview which took place earlier that year while Zappa was very ill struggling with cancer, he knew the end was near.

 

The people that want to be remembered will go to great lengths to ensure they are, much like Gilgamesh, they will do anything, and Gilgamesh is considered to be a warning by many, this warning echos through this last interview.

I thought it would be interesting to use doublespeak to tell a story and began by doing a small brain dump where I tried to deliberately misunderstand my own thoughts and misrepresent them to create confusion. This process was very difficult and I quickly found myself missing the point and having paralysis in analysis, I was thinking too hard.

This process gave me a revelation, I was recounting my earliest memory and trying to recontextualise it, this is the basic narrative

 

It was 2002, I was 4 years old, the football world cup was on tv,

I was playing with my lego, two pieces were stuck together so tightly that I couldn’t separate them, half blocks too so they were really stuck.

I spent a while trying to pull them apart but I couldn’t, I put the pieces in my mouth and pulled at them with my hand, but immediately, I knew something was wrong,

cat piss

the cat used my lego box as a litter box.

I tried to illustrate this narrative using religious connotations, to prescribe higher importance to the characters, I turned it into a battle between good and evil, the boy is an entity creating a world, the cat is a beast who roams freely without law, the beast sabotaged my blocks of creation and was banished outside by my mum. I liked this narrative and imagery and wanted to create a more polished outcome but I knew I was only seeing the tip of the iceberg, the story I created felt like a parable.

I began thinking about miscommunication from a new perspective “Miscommunication sensationalizing otherwise simple narratives” the concept of inflated language that was used to define doublespeak began to dominate my mind.

 

 

 

I began this project by noting down the definitions of each type of doublespeak,

Euphemism, harmless words that replace more offensive ones, e.g “rather than failing I simply discovered what did not work”

Jargon, Terminology which is specific to a profession of activity, an example of this is using more favorable industry terms to mask the real meaning of the language e.g collateral damage rather than civilian casualties.

Gobbledygook, a type of jargon that does not actually contain meaning or maybe excessively hard to decipher that is being used to deliberately to mislead the listener.

Inflated language, this is the final type of doublespeak where more important-sounding words are used in place of more mundane language, sensationalizing something that is otherwise mundane in order to gain more attention. This example can be seen across many news articles “Top 5 celebrity shoes, you won’t believe number 8!”

on the left is a collaborative drawing not part of the project, but was done at the time with another student to break in my sketchbook so I wasn’t precious about starting the project.

At the start of this project I was fascinated by doublespeak, a phenomenon that was initially described as “NewsSpeak” or “DoubleThink” in George Orwell’s book 1984, this phenomenon Is a linguistic tool used to intentionally miscommunication information through the use of jargon, misrepresentation, etc. An example of doublespeak would be calling a bin man a “garbage disposal consultant”.

The interview with William Lutz that is seen below influenced my thinking a lot.

 

Specifically the section around 3 minutes into the video that I have transcribed below

“reality exists not in the mind of the individual, which soon perishes but in the mind of the party which is collective and immortal, what the party says is reality is real, and how else can the party do that except by language… Those in power who control language, control how we see the world”

The view that learned language is the basis of our society and this language is changed and catered by people all the time with the goal of clarity (to ensure clear and efficient communication so society runs smoothly) but also with the goal of miscommunication to sell products, avoid responsibilities and glamorize otherwise undesirable roles resonated with me a lot and my outlook on the world.