talking about work is good for the soul.

a friend from foundation is staying with me for a few days while he sorts out his house. it's nice to be around him again and to be able to talk about art in an informed way. we spoke about a lot of things- things that he had done over the summer, things that i had done, the excitment of seeing someone's work we knew so well but having it be new and different. Like when artists that you follow bring out a new exhibition or line or group of images or directs a new movie. we love our films, so we talked about that too- but mainly i am bringing this up because i showed him my doodle book and i let him just soak it in and critique it. (He is a fine artist- a painter- and although we are coming from very different sides of the art community we've always been able to appreciate each others work and try to learn from eachother. it's nice to have fresh (but old) eyes looks at work. it also feels easy to talk about work with him because we have very similar ideas about standards and work ethic. that sounds silly when i type it out, but it's true).
this was his favourite:As he was going through the whole book he pointed out several things which I hadn't originally noticed as coming through so strongly- but were evident when I was making them:
-the use of black vs the sickly childish and happy colours. like no matter how much happy colour i tried to squeeze out of 'life' or the image, i couldn't stop those darker colours coming in.
-the overall tone of something sinister or 'bad' happening.
-unsettling feeling, which i took as 'sadness in the shadows' and the shadows actually forming the lighter parts rather than vise versa.
-we talked a lot about the shadows- because the images and characters that i chose to draw were all interesting to me because of the hardships and 'darkness' in thier past or present. none of the people that i've been doodling have had it 'easy' and that really rings true to the things i've been feeling right now.
-the actual marks i've made. in some of them the 'artist' seems present and you can tell they have chosen each line carefully where as (in the one above) peter said the maker and the made were distanced, and almost pushed out of the image because of the way i've chosen to mark the page. childlike, spontaneous (however thought of), but still holding stature.
-we talked about the backgrounds either working together with the faces or actually overwhelming and 'dumbing down' the engaging part of the image. how the balance between them was what made specific pages work.
-in this specific page, he described the two side of the pages as saying the same thing- which was important. if one was more powerful than the other, it would tip the balance but because they worked together to convey that particular emotion it was harmonious.

I thought I should really document this somewhere, so it's going here. feel free to comment if you want. [: as a result of this conversation, i'm a little more hopeful for this year- i'm excited about meeting new people to have discussions with and to see what people have been up to. fingers crossed.