22 February 2011
Photoshop

(The description is copied from when I submitted this to DeviantArt a few months ago. Not tagging as mature for now because even though the figure is nude, there's nothing to see because of the pose.)

A few weeks ago in an art appreciation class I finally learned what the point of painting a single geometric shape in the center of the canvas is. It's part of an art style called supremetism. The idea is to visually convey things that cannot be seen in a literal sense, such as emotion and the divine, without relying on cultural symbols and depictions of objects. Pure supremetism tends to be just plain confusing, though. If you don't use symbols that people already know, they won't get it. Yellow circle behind someone's head = divinity makes sense because we've already learned the meaning of that symbol. Black square on white canvas = spiritual energy does not because there is no physical object shaped like a black square that's associated with spiritual things or energy, and the symbol isn't part of our culture.

Pure supremetism usually fails to get across the intended meaning. However, learning about it did get me to think more about the way I depict emotion. I made a few sketches related to it during class - horizontal line = calm because it makes you feel calm, coiling shapes = love because it kinda suggests what a hug feels like. The idea for this picture came from the same way of thinking. Guilt = black slime coming out of your stomach because that's what it feels like - something black and gross inside you that's trying to break out and consume you. I stuck pretty closely to the original idea, but there's also something I added that I didn't originally plan. Digital cookies if you can find it.

I think this is the most hardcore anatomy I've ever done. I used a ton of reference, and even bothered to smooth it out and everything! I had to guess at the shoulder, though, because the model was clothed in the reference picture I used for the upper body. I hadn't expected getting so detailed with anatomy to actually be fun, but for some parts it was, and I never really disliked doing it. I also kinda understand now a quote that my friend ~msafs used to like - something about art is never finished, you just give up on improving it more after a while. I guess it takes really high standards for that sort of thinking to make sense.

References: Stock 1, Stock 2, Stock 3