ART
for
A PURPOSE
“To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards out of men”
This is my analysis on Guido Daniele and his artwork. Guido Daniel is an artist who started the 'Handimals' movement, in which he paints animals on his hands. I decided to look at his work because I think that it is very relevant to what I want to achieve, and his purpose for starting this movement is similar to why I want to paint animals. We both want to raise awareness about animals, and trigger an emotional response from the audience.
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For this analysis, I focused more on Daniele's ideas and why he made Handimals. I did not focus as much on his work as it is quite self explanatory. He simply paints the faces of animals on his hands and uses it for paintings or advertisements. I found that in this case learning about his life and experiences was more interesting and applicable. Instead, I analysed Lara Hawker's specific artwork which can be seen below.
This is my mindmap for the unit. I decided to make it look like a lion than just an ordinary mindmap to display my creativity. Since my project is about animals, I want all of my work to convey this theme. I also though that this would be a different way of displaying my work, and shows how I took a risk to see if this would be an effective way to brainstorm my ideas.
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I think that this was effective because by doing my work in a more creative way, I have more inspiration and can produce more ideas.
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In my mindmap, I brainstormed the different ideas that I could try to convey about animals. I mostly wrote about animal cruelty, and how animals are voiceless. Moreover, I brainstormed on different methods I could use to show my artwork and have decided to use photography. This initial step of brainstorming really helped me consolidate my ideas in one place and helped me to identify my first steps.
Lara Hawker's work really inspired me, and made me realize exactly how I wanted to present my work. Most artists who incorporate animals into body art paint animals on faces. I was not too sure if I wanted to do this because it seems quite mainstream. Lara's work inspired me because she does not paint directly on the face, but on hands which she places on the face. I want to do something very similar to this, and position the hands over the mouth to show that the animals are voiceless.
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On this page, I analysed her artwork and the methods and materials which she uses. I also discussed how I could apply similar methods to my work. It was a little difficult to talk about Lara's own work and experiences as she is not very famous, and so there is minimum information about her online. Since I could not focus on this aspect about her, I went very in depth about her art and what I want to do based off of it.
This is the page which I used to consolidate all of my ideas and outline my plan. What I did was I used photoshop on my computer to make a draft of how I want my final product to look like. Basically, I will have a photography of a face, on top of which there will be hands covering the mouth. The hands will have painted with an animal face (or lower face) as can be seen on the right. Moreover, I will edit animal eyes over the human eyes to emphasize the theme of animals. I decided to put the animal features over the human face as I feel that if the viewer sees this on top of a human face it will trigger an emotional response. It will allow them to make a direct comparison between the animal and human and realize how voiceless the animals are.
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The arrows pointing out of the image just clarify my ideas. On the bottom right and left corner I have practiced drawing the noses and mouths of different animals so that I know what their general shape will be when I draw them. This page really helped me finalize all of my ideas.
I have started to experiment and am enjoying it very much! The first Handimal that I attempted to make was of a lion. As can be seen from the image below. I copied it off a picture onto my own hand. I also experimented with making a cat and owl as can be seen to the right. I think I am ready to begin my final product now.
THE PROCESS
This photo is showing my setup. On my laptop I have a photo of a jaguar, and it is the photo that I will be using as inspiration. I also have my brushes, paint water and palette with me
This step is showing how I started off. First I painted both hands a yellow ochre colour. Then, on the right hand I started to fill in the colours for the lower part of the face
This is showing me how the mouth will look over the face. For the actual image I will move the hand down much lower.
This is the beginning of making the eye on the other hand. To make it look much more like a jaguar, I must add all the black spots. I am very happy with how the eye has turned out.
I am extremely happy with how both of the hands turned out! Now I will position them on the face properly and then take photographs.
Now that I know the positioning of the hands, I will go outside with a greenery background and take some photos.
