Artist statement for Word Project

The word I got was Elegiac (elegy). Elegiac means having a mournful quality. This word purposed quite a challenge for me because I am not a mournful artist. I usually enjoy painting sunsets, rainbows, Disney characters and pretty flowers. Due to this planning out my compositions was not easy. I went on Google and typed in "elegiac", "elegy", "mournful" and "sad". I then compiled a list of things I noticed about each piece and what medias I thought I could use.  
     
I already knew I wanted to go down an illustrative road with my pieces, so in my sketch book I tried to develop pieces with a lot of emotion, or pictures that made you have to look deeper into the composition to find a meaning. 

I started with a collage that had a opened letter, envelope, and a hand on top. The letter Read "Dearest Jane, If your reading this.." and then stopped I did this to create an unsettling feeling that allowed my viewers to come up with an ending by themself. However to me I  thought of it as this person reading this letter may have had a loved one in the military and this is there "If your reading this, then I am already gone." letter. Over all I think this piece has a strong concept however I think It looks a little sloppy and as though I rushed through it. In addition I with I would Have added a newspaper background instead of a water color background.

The next piece I did was the winter day piece. I hate winter and snow. I think It should only 

snow the week of Christmas then it should melt and the temps
should go back to the 70 degrees. Anyways to me every day of winter just feels dead and dull because it gets dark early and no one is out side running around in bare feet, shorts, and a tank top. Overall I really like this piece and the color scheme I chose for it however I think my perspective in my composition is a little off because my path does not look like it is going back into space as well as I would have liked it to.  

My next three pieces are kind of all the same composition yet different. I did a series of eyes that deal with the stages of grief. My first eye I did was supposed to represent the shock of  hearing about the death of a person. To display this shock I chose acrylic paint, and  made the eye very wide and made it look kinda hazed. The next stage I did was anger. I chose to do a lot quick vigorous strokes, of acrylic paint, that slanted down. I also made a risky decision to paint thus whole picture in mainly blue and green because I wanted to go against the norm to display anger in red. I also thought the blue would represent that even though the person is angry they are still sad and mourning over the loss or what ever they just heard. The Last eye represents the tears and actual release of of emotion and pain of the loss. I did this one in water color. I thought that water colors would give my painting a wet muddy look that would make it look as though this person was crying. 

                       

       

                        

Although my ideas and concepts for each of my pieces were strong I feel my planning for the assignment may have been better than my execution. I think I could have enhanced the meaning of my word by not focusing on such cliche topics, however I did try to expand upon my cliche ideas. I also think some of my pieces are a little sloppy form a craftsmanship perspective and that it would have behooved me to have spent another hour or so going over my highlights and shadows with one more layer. Overall though I am proud of myself for being able to create ten decent pieces that represent my word elegiac.