My first project is posted on Flickr, but I thought I should probably post it on here...

Our first assignment for Drawing III was Art and Science. As long as it fit into this category, any project seemed to be fair game. I say "project" instead of "drawing" because I have a very traditional view on what constitutes a drawing, while many of my classmates seemed to have a broader definition. There were some very interesting and creative projects presented that made me question whether or not any form of art can be categorized as a "drawing".

It was hard for me to get started on this project because of the generality and vagueness of the assignment. A lot of people feel spelling out the criteria restricts creativity. Being an Interior Design major, I'm used to projects that require certain deliverables that are particular dimensions... I thrive on a well laid-out set of expectations.

This is my interpretation of Art and Science... I wanted to draw (with charcoal because it's my favorite medium) something that interested me. I chose a chair because of the various sciences it represents: the science of ergonomics, or how the body interacts with its surroundings, and the mechanical sciences that went into manufacturing. But also that art it represents as well. The art that is behind every design, whether it's intentional or not.

Content

The drawing itself is representative, but loosely. I wasn't trying to convey a message with a negative or positive connotation. Instead, I just thought about my chair, in my apartment. It's my chair and I like it because it's comfortable and I own it. Once I thought about this, I realized that the fact that I own this chair is the only thing that makes it different from the thousands of other identical Ikea chairs in the world.

All of the chairs in the background are identical, just facing different directions and rotated. The little chairs are simple lines because I know they exist but have never seen them. The large, detailed chair represents my chair. It's drawn realistically to represent that it is my chair, one that I have looked at, can touch and sit in.

Process

I began this project by doing a line drawing of my chair. I focused on getting the drawing down to its essence, with one line to outline each curve and shape. It was a large drawing... 18" by 24". I traced it with a black Sharpie and Xeroxed it, scaling it down to the size of the large chair in the finished product. I then scaled that down to get the right size chairs for the background.

Once I had all of this done, I used a transfer marker to transfer the smallest chairs in different directions and rotations on a piece of paper I had crumpled up. I wanted to add texture variance. I transferred the larger image on a similar piece of paper and rendered it with charcoal. I cut it out and spray-adhesived it onto the background paper to achieve my finished product. I feel my drawing's end result was about what I had hoped it would turn out to be.