Illustration - Working Methods, Week 3 Studio Project: Midnight in the Garden

Holy crap, this was a stressful studio project! We were given the title 'Midnight in the Garden,' with practically no requirements other than that we had to work on at least A3 size. I was immediately picturing small animals in my head, all the night creatures and critters that come out to feed after dark. I remember as a child with friends jumping over fences and into the neighbours garden to nick vegetables (no, I wasn't that poor, we just did it for laughs), and eventually I came up with the idea of rabbits thieving carrots.

I went to the library to research rabbits and do some prelim sketches, and ended up in the kids section (who knew: that's where all the really good science books are!). The noise and the screaming and running around nearly drove me mad (and that was just me; you should have seen the kids! ha ha). I was pretty frustrated because the images of rabbits I was finding didn't match the images in my head, and even though I was drawing a lot, I wasn't getting any closer to the image in my head. I decided to ditch the library and head back to the studio.

My instructor asked if I could try the monoprinting again (the technique I used for 'Light Lunch,' and also asked if I could incorporate some of my drawing skills. I had a hard time with these requests because I thought they conflicted. The last time I attempted drawing on the monoprint it completely ruined the texture! No matter, though: it took me nearly two hours of monoprinting, playing with textures and colours, and finally cutting out the rabbits, and I barely scraped enough time together to paste the rabbits haphazardly onto the massive sheet of paper.

I was very unhappy with the finished piece, mostly because it had deviated so far from my original plan. I think part of this was due to a serious lack of planning (I didn't really do any thumbnails this time - ooops) and of course the time constraint.

When we were going around the circle critiquing the pieces, my instructor (henceforth: SUE) asked me how I felt about it. I basically told her what I just told you, and that it was unfinished and I hadn't added faces, etc etc. Then she asked everyone, "What do you think Cody should add to this piece to finish it off?" There was a resounding "Nothing!" from several of the other students. Sue looked at me as if to say, let that be a lesson to you.