21 day of drawing – Relative Values

21 day of drawing – Relative Values

My plan was to draw for 21 days in a row, so I could see my improvement – to make it more complicated – I should draw values – my associations.

In the very beginning, I wanted to draw something different each day, but it all changed when I realised that even though I draw every day I can’t maintain one drawing in one day, because I am at the very start of my drawing experience, so from 21 piece I managed to draw not that much.

All my values are built on media observation, all my associations consist of things I have seen, read or heard before. That is why in these you can recognise something from movies, anime, celebrities, stereotypes or elements of culture. In drawings, I included symbols and subconsciously filled it with media. Narrative of each drawing is personal but inspired and burn from seeing, reading and listening.

Each piece of art can be perceived differently according to past experiences, so almost all of this won’t mean for you what it means for me. I drew everything experiencing some of the emotions and feelings regarding something that happened in my life, for example – Health, safety appeared when all the woods in Siberia were on fire – I wasn’t able to do something, except saying “oh dear” obviously, so I wanted to express myself. Drawing always was a way to express the idea, although sometimes it can look like it doesn’t.

Everything that I have done for this final task is naked emotions. The one thing I wanted to mean from this, that values are different from the perspective of every individual.

I don’t think that someone can see in my drawings values you see in its caption. Media and society affect us differently that’s why in my understanding of values you will barely see even a shadow of your own perception.

Faith

 Faith

I started with faith. I am not a religious person, and faith for me is the thing that wakes me up in the morning. It includes all the hopes and beliefs. Why stars? Night sky? Because when I first heard from my elder sister about eternity(at night, under the stars in cold august) everything that meant was blown away – that day tiny-me realised that nothing matters, but for the living I should find something. It is the faith – faith that I will find that something. 

Mindfulness

Mindfulness – second, but already a fail. Yeap it turned up really crappy. You can try to find these details like atom in his eye, golden ratio, weird skin damage and some sentences from Stephen Hawking's book for kids about space in Latvian language. It is a mess for everyone except me, because all this thing is just my perception of mindfulness. It is the first victim of my full on media brain. It supposed to be a singer, the one admire - his image of smart and restrained personality left an impact on me. But it is just an image.

Harmony

Harmony - something ideal, calm and peaceful, in a safe place. 

Inspiration - this one has its own big story. It was influenced by the artwork I have seen 4-5 years ago. When I think about inspiration the first thing i remember is that artwork, but when I started to draw I couldn't find it anymore, so I decided to do something similar but mine - the result is nothing near, but it came out better than I thought because it depicts what happens in my head when inspiration comes - chaos.

Iinspiration

 

Wealth - here the focus is made on colors that are associated with wealth to a certain person. Reddish colors always have meant something royal and prosperous. I have done it unconsciously because at the very beginning I had a focus on character expressions. 

As a consequence of watching anime, I have three drawings of values as characters from anime. 

Strength - Yagami Light - the main character of my favorite animated series - Death Note. I am not supposed to like this character, because he is a killer, but I like him, because of dedication and passion(?), but the real reason why I drew him is not the character itself, but because of the memories connected to it. Let me know if you want to hear a story about how I got drunk alone for the first time watching Death Note because of mental breakdown. Death note and questions raised in it left an impact I won't regret, so it is the first thing I imagined.

Freedom - second anime character. Haku - he is a dragon, but my skills are too bad to draw a dragon. And again Haku isn't the reason, even though Spirited Away is art - the reason is a surprise - personal. My friend wants to make a tattoo of a dragon. As for me freedom always was too unreachable to dream about, that is why his look is that emotionless, although he is a dragon able to do everything - he is not free, as I am not free from stereotypes, mental and health problems, barriers and worries. 

 

 Private Space, Privacy - third anime character Levi, attack on titan. Despite the fact that I watched attack on titan only after drawing this it somehow matches Levi character. Someone who looks confident, but deeply inside he is sandwiched within the box. 

Health, Safety -  burning woods, even though it is completely the opposite I wanted to say how important is to have a safe place and health because without it there is only fire and blood. I painted it when woods in Siberia were on fire and it is deeply personal not only because I was raised in love with nature, but also because of the inability to change anything. 

Exploration - interest in Japanese culture in me was born the moment I first saw Ninja Turtles - thankfully now I know much more about the subject. I tried to draw in Wabi-Sabi traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. My world explorations start somewhere in between watching Ninja Turtles and getting knowledge about Japanese culture. Also, a tree in here can be considered as semiotics, but you can just insert your meaning. 

Purpose - I see the irony in here because it is the most useless and senseless drawing. It is just what I fell about thinking of purpose.

Ambition, Individuality - the monster in all of us. As it can seem weird, but I dreamt up this odd creature years ago, since then from time to time I drew it with some changes. As my individuality changes - Weirdo also changes - as my ambitions it is unpredictable and doesn't have logic in what it appears with. Individuality is that thing I hear about a lot: discussions, articles, threads... I don't think you thought about something like my Weirdo thinking about individuality. 

Perfection - for each person is different, as beauty standards are different from day to day, as for me it is different. The day I drew this perfection - it was important, tomorrow, perhaps, it might change, but now I see in this person something perfect. 

Open-mindedness - the most important drawing out of 14, because it is the value needed these years. Finland must seem open and progressive, but I speak for my home country in which some things normal in Finland can be considered as an unspoken taboo (like this informal blog).  I worked on it a lot, trying to tell the story of break-through-the-wall, free-breathing and willingness to accept diversity.

To sum up

Media builds our perception of the world - everything we see is seen through the prism of mass opinions - that is why values are relative, however, there are enormous variations of it - reason why we see everything differently. So there are two prisms of perception now - the way the world sees it and the way a certain individual perceives it according to various factors.