*UPDATED BELOW WITH PROCESS VIDEOS!

I’m working on a hand-illustrated album cover for Jill’s class that I would like to feature for this post, but it is not yet complete. I will continue to document my process and post video once it reaches a state of (at least mostly) completion (hopefully by Sunday evening? No promises). In the mean time, here is a placeholder image:

*UPDATE! I shifted direction a bit on this. Feeling moved by Joni’s live performance of “Woodstock” from 1970, I decided to carry over my fascination into our Color Theory anti-war poster project, with an attempt to visually interpret her words “and I dreamed I saw the bombers, riding shotgun in the sky, and they were turning into butterflies, above our nation.” Here is a quick mockup/guide I created in illustrator:

And here is a time-lapse video of me, from 10pm-5am, trying out this “peel and reveal” art technique that I have seen versions of elsewhere, and always wanted to try (underestimated the time investment, as usual).

As far as what inspired this project: too many things to count! I drew some inspiration (and shape of plane silhouette) from this meme, which spoke to me at the time:

But perhaps most importantly: the butterflies on the poster, aside from stemming from the lyrics, are representative of the fragility of our minds, our consciousness, and our imagination. And how incredibly important it is to “tend that garden” at all costs. How perhaps the only way we can build a better world is by keeping that spark and that vision strong. And it is NOT THE SAME as being willfully ignorant or checked out. It is the choice, with sensitivity and awareness, to move in the direction of optimism, creativity, kindness, vulnerability, expression, and a life lived on one’s own terms, protecting the inner spark, and striving to bring out the good in ourselves and those around us.

I believe that while we may not be able to tear down horribly broken and destructive systems, we can build something different, starting at the individual level and expanding from there. As one of my heroes, Fred Rogers, once said:

“Peace means far more than the opposite of war.”

I know some classmates understandably disagreed with the assignment of this project, and it brought up some challenging emotions for many of us. However, I think it’s SO IMPORTANT for creatives to express these very big, very difficult feelings and topics- especially those of us who have the privilege to do so. It may be the most important role we have- to be channels of those emotions in transformative ways.

This is the finished (pre-reveal) poster:

Materials used:

poster boards, color aid paper, acrylic paints, glue, artist’s tape

Here is the (big reveal!!!) presentation of the project in front of the class. I was pretty nervous about it, as the entire project was a total experiment with new (to me) materials. I was worried my tape would stick to the artwork, or that there would be paint leaks through the cracks in my taping job. But it came out ok! Grateful to Elan for the “peel assist” below, and to Sergio for the video recording (link here in case the below video does not work):

Overall, I was really inspired by this topic and project, and the chance to create something with my hands which has deeper significance than some of the other work we have been doing (more about building a skillset for the professional world- also important!). Striking a balance between both is definitely worth striving for.

As for this particular project- ideally, I think it would be most effective as a work of performance art- maybe as a mural on the side of a building or something- where a group of people could be filmed peeling away the dark and dismal image of warfare to reveal something beautiful, hopeful, and imaginative underneath (revealed rays could contain art or inspiring words by different people, perhaps)- symbolizing the importance of working together to shed what is no longer serving humanity, and move towards a shared vision of a different and brighter kind of reality/future.

At the risk of becoming too “kumbaya” about this, I’m going to sign off, but here is the final image: