Memento & Sampling Project Illustration

The sampling project is a collective project made my the student body of UCA, a tessellation of equally sized 30 x 10 canvases. Essentially every student was given a canvas of this area and we made something creative out of this space. The collective artwork was created as a testament to the history and legacy of UCA Rochester and its students and staff as it closes.

Memento Project

I also included this drawing for my sampling project as part as my project for my Memento work. I thought that this would be a good idea as the entire sampling project initiative has the same idea as a memento; it's like a token of everyone's work to remember UCA Rochester. This piece of work is essentially a memento of my work, as part of a collection of everybody else's unique work. It is essentially like a memento in a memento.

For me, and my own project, personally the illustration itself is a memento; it captures a moment when Jane smiled in the photo of my camera, though it was in a jokey way, but it was one of the happiest memories of my life. The whole illustration is like a snapshot of that scene, which I sketched in my sketchbook and then became this digital work. My Memento project is essentially about my relationship with her and how much it changed me. It's about the little things that remind of her, and the things that made us so close together. It always made me so happy to see her smile, and even looking at that photo now, I still feel the same. Therefore this is why it's a memento to me.

Sampling Work

For me illustration is a big part of my life, and one of my favourite mediums of artwork so I created a small scale drawing in this space. It carries a lot of meaning and I had spent over a week creating it, and though its so small, it's one of my favourite pieces of work.

In my illustrations I often draw intricate yet disorderly patterns. For me, I do this as a way of expressing my anxiety. I also mix this with text (just honest thoughts) as well as portraiture. Specifically the quote at the top 'I need saving, I'm fading, I'm fading...' was a quote taken straight from a song, 'Limbo' by Royal Blood - as I found it really evocative of her confused feelings of vulnerability and hopelessness - as well as being stuck 'in limbo' with her mental illness.

I always draw people, especially if they have some sort of emotional significance to me. I do also love to draw scenes, I tried to portray a sense of chaos and disorder in my half of the rectangle, and a different sort of scene of natural beauty behind the person on the right - the 'person' being not exactly an ex-girlfriend, rather a girl I cared a lot about, more than anyone else.

The illustration itself was essentially an emotional dump of thoughts and feelings. The thoughts represented by words, the feelings represented by patterns. I think it was a very different and unique approach to others entries, as most people, I noticed, didn't draw/paint anything or anyone in particular - it was mostly patterns and abstract art. For me if I was to make some abstract art, I would find it meaningless, whereas I would rather my work have a concrete, obvious meaning, no matter how different it looks to everyone else's.