Summer Project Post #1

I've decided recently that, in order to keep myself busy and prevent falling into an artist's block, I want to be fairly artistically productive this summer. This all began a few weeks ago (or months ago, but the details are irrelevant), when I was listening to the song "Now That You're Home," by the band Manchester Orchestra. If you haven't heard of them, you have now, and you should totally check them out here because they are amazing! At any rate, in this song, lead singer Andy Hull is essentially singing about his journey finding God. In the second verse, he sings, addressing God, "from mirrors You looked like a fool." This line struck me pretty poignantly, mostly because of how unfortunately true it is. As Christians, we are to be mirrors to the world of who God is, living out our lives in a godly fashion as Christ exemplified perfectly. Of course, due to our human nature, we often screw up along the way (and fortunately for us, this is where God's grace comes into play), but even so, the song served as a good reminder for me and helped me realize how my actions may be affecting others, not to mention how others view me (or at least my beliefs).

All that being said, I was inspired to illustrate this concept of Christians and mirrors and how we should be acting versus how we act so often. At the moment, all I have is a basic, conceptual sketch of how I'm thinking the finished image will look. Hopefully I'll have some more concepts of how to best portray this idea, but here's the imagery that first popped into my head:

Larger image here

I'm hoping I'll be able to convey this better in color (I plan to use gouache as the medium), but everyone in the picture has a mirror for a face. The main question the piece will be asking is basically "Who or What Are You Reflecting?" The "busy street" (which doesn't look terribly busy in this sketch!) seemed like the best backdrop for a piece like this, since it's meant to reflect the present-day. Anyways, I'm open to suggestions and constructive criticisms on how to better convey the idea I've got!

I'll likely be making updates about this piece on and off as a work-in-progress from now until I finish it (hopefully sometime this summer), so expect to see much much more of this picture!

Next update, though:

An InDesign project for my Computer Imaging class.

Objective:

To design a CD for a band. Band of choice:

mewithoutNoBread.

I'm stoked. XD