Girl Series

This post has been a long time coming. Most of the following drawings have been completed or started in July of last year and I only now got to finish them. They remained unfinished for so long in part due to time restraints; there is always a lot to do but only one of me. And also partly I dreaded coming back to them because this series came to be during a very difficult phase in my life. 

The last year was emotionally and mentally quite tough for me, it took me a while to get out of the swamp of negativity I found my self in.

I was so glad to find that I was able to translate a few of the issues into my art, actually giving my other half a good scare in the process. All he knew of my art so far was that it was... nice and... pretty and -well- harmless. Then I learned how to draw whimsical human faces; the endless possibilities that lay ahead now...

The first girl kind of started the whole series, I made her using only Caran D'ache Neocolor watersoluble crayons simply because I had just bought them new and wanted to try them. About two days after drawing her I got a very bad tonsilitis, when I went to see the doctor about it I had to write everything down because I could not talk at all.

I really love this girl, she is so creepy and scary and so tormented.

The next girl you might already be familiar with if you hang out on atcsforall.com, I am using her as my avatar there. She is very different to the Shroom Girl because she is pretty more so than creepy. She very beautifully illustrates what my mind felt like over the summer of last year. A boiling and fiery mess about to overflow and explode.

To make her I used Inktense Pencils, acrylic paint, iridescent medium and glitter glue.

This next girl I tend to call Golem Girl, but that is not what or who she is, she does not need a scroll with secret writing placed in her mouth to tell her what to do. She ties in very closely with the first two girls, dealing with the need but inability to communicate what is going on inside of her. She -to me- personifies the martyr aspect of the Queen of Swords in the Tarot: a very brave and passionate person that just deals with whatever is thrown at her and happening around her without whining about it. This can be driven into the extreme as seen here in her martyr aspect.

Again I used Inktense Pencils, acrylic paint, iridescent medium and (this time home made) glitter glue. The glitter really emphasizes her crackling clay surface, revealing the heat within.

And so far the last girl in this series, the Gooey Thoughts Girl. My guess is we have all had the feeling of trying to think in quicksand at some point in our lives. Sluggish reasoning, not getting any decent thinking done, not being able to focus... thinking in quicksand. While at the same time looking at a diseased, pestilent world and not even being close to having any solutions for our own problems, let alone societies. Seeing things around you turn to sh** and being aware that you are watching "history" unfold... You know, "history", the stuff you heard about in school, the stuff you thought modern society had learnt from and risen above...

These last two girls are the ones that still needed finishing, and they have been waiting very patiently. I am glad and proud I made them, I find them all beautiful in their intensity and also in what they represent for me. 

Hopefully you aren't overly shocked about them, they are in each and every one of us to some extend or another, they are extremes that need to be faced. Facing them makes us stronger.

There will be more of them.