Regardless, keeping track of my thoughts in relation to my art helps me keep on track and accountable to myself in my work progress. I know I've mentioned this in prior posts. In Russia we say "repetition is the mother of learning" and I find it very useful. It's nice to look back on prior posts and relish my accomplishments. It's also very useful to look back on any ideas or reflections in the past posts that are applicable to my future work because often I forget them and a record helps me stay focused and progressive.
So with those forethougths out of the way, I'd like to say a little bit about my Veleveteen Rabbit. This piece started as a sketch on one of my long days of subbing at the Tucson High School. Often the classes there are such that the sub is left with very little to do except just be present and on those days I read or sketched a lot. So I started sketching a rabbit drinking tea and didn't think it would turn into anything much. But after I finished my loose sketch I really liked the layout I came up with and decided to paint over it.
As I started painting, I kept in mind the detail and depth of the paintings I admire in some of the pop surrealist culture that has propped up in the art world in the past 100 years or so. I decided I will do my best to imitate the level of technique that I see in rendering eyes and textures and shadows. I see many painters that are able to depict something completely imaginary in such realistic shadows and tones that it impresses me a lot even if I don't like the subject matter. That's what I was going for.
I feel that the bunny came very close to the quality of aesthetic/technique I was looking for. Perhaps some of the inanimate objects could use a little more practice, specifically the table cloth, which I don't think is believable as a real object, as well as the table plant, and maybe just the entire setting. But I'll stay strong in my belief that the bunny came pretty close to being as real as a tea drinking bunny with purple fur can possibly be.
I feel that this piece of art is a stepping stone for me. It really shows where I want to go with my art. I am envisioning fantastical scenarios that are believable to the human eye, not in subject matter but in rendition. I'm also envisioning a human-animal hybrid. I'm not sure why but I really enjoy giving animals human characteristics, hands, like you see in this painting, are a common component of my animal characters. Often I also give animals human feet or human faces or just human eyes.
These believable human-animal hybrids live in worlds that are also realistic-fantasy hybrids.
Although the Velveteen Rabbit is not perfection relative to what I'm trying to accomplish, it is closer than I've ever been before, and I'm very excited about it.
