Anatomy sketches

For reference I have been using drawings from an anatomy handbook, to aid the drawing of my own figures in the dream, as I felt this area needed to be improved. Also I've been sketching from a maquette, creating a desired pose and then re-drawing or tracing into these to give the drawing extra details.

 I've found this approach very useful, and feel my figure drawing has improved due to this. By tracing over the sketches I have the chance to change aspects, such as arm length or hand details to adjust the figure. Next step is to draw them into the dream sequences now, I want them to be quite shaded and appear ambiguous, with minimal detail to create a 'half-remembered' dream image.

Sam Ballardini

I found this artist in Juxtapoz magazine, and really like his shadowy style.

Another storyboard for TV/island dream


Drafted storyboard; I am going to redraw each section to a larger scale and emphasise the detail, and from then I can scale the drawings down again to a smaller scale to create a comic-like narrative.

 Points of story:
1.Sat talking with friends in a living room. Decided to watch TV.
2. Lost was just beginning, and I was engrossed. Other people carried on talking, ignoring the show but I began to dream that I was within the show, and this kept switching between being in and just watching it.
3. When I was in the show I still felt as if I was observing everything, no one had noticed my appearance.
4. I wandered round like a ghost and watched everyone panicking, but felt calm and disconnected from everything happening.
5. Explored the island a bit, Ross was here now. In front of the huge cliff was the beach, but blocked off from the sea by the rocks so it was as if everyone was trapped.
6. Recognised our friend Anthony who was also stuck there, he had found a bridge which led off the island so took us to it.
7. He led us to the shoreline, where there was also a huge Egyptian God-styled statue almost guarding the 'exit'. The bridge was made of stone and stretched across the sea
8/9. We left together and the sun was blindingly bright as it reflected off the sea.

Sketchbook drawings, experimenting with a sketchy style quite like the work I've been researching. Below is a storyboard of my first dream sequence; I have been trying to organise it like a comic by using storyboards, and with use text as well.

Above and below is the same scene redrawn; in the dream I was watching TV with a group of friends so this is the first scene of the sequence. Then the dream shifted so that we were in the TV experiencing the program we were watching (which I think was Lost), so I tried to show this by making the TV scene span outside of it's boundaries and take over the room. I am going to redraw this scene on a larger scale, and use ink and charcoal for the darker areas.

Andrjez Klimowski; The Depository

A friend recommended this artist for my project after having seen an example of The Depository, A Dream Book. The book expresses a thrilling dream narrative through a sequence of two hundred wordless drawings, with one drawing per page which allows the viewer to really investigate and analyse each image. I enjoy the narrative style of this work, as it places complete emphasis on the visual which removes the need for a written explanation, and creates a very powerful sequence.

The drawings are contrasting black and white which submerges the viewer in a disturbing colourless world of mystery, and is comparable to "a contemporary silent movie". It tells the suspenseful story of an artist's dream; suffering from creative block he falls asleep at his desk and his imagination projects a world of "flying spirits with book-leaf wings", the spirit creatures who are being collected and held captive by a sinister collector in his depository. The story has been interpreted from various angles- political, sexual, psychological, featuring visible themes of the power of human possession and domination that is both "unsettling and unforgettable".

An animation based on the book which is also good.

Andrjez Klimowski- Theatre of Dreams 
A sort of biography of the artist, including recurring themes and visuals in his work. Useful for reference.

Dream Machines (2001) edited by Susan Hiller, is a book of works relating to altered states of consciousness, such as dreams or hallucination. Below is a selection of the artists who appealed to me due to their work with drawing and narrative, as part of my research development in FMP.

    

Jonathon Borofsky records all of his dreams and in his work re-imagines and transforms a single dream through multiple versions, for example drawing onto paper/a wall or painting on canvas. He is selective of the dream images used, aiming to only focus on ones which seem relevant or might resonance to other individuals, rather than "unlock the secrets of his own unconscious". 

I admire the style of his work and have researched this artist further to investigate the 'rough sketch' quality of his work. The technique used of re-drawing the same thing multiple times in various ways would allow the artist to be flexible within his work, and is an approach which I aim to practice with my own dream drawings.

Louise Bourgeois uses drawing in a therapeutic environment, by retracing her thoughts and memories of a day through drawing nocturnally when she cannot sleep. The drawings represent another unconscious state different from dreams, yet in a ways could be understood as the representation of a dream in another form. The work appears as ambiguous, containing unrestricted shapes and forms that are open to multiple interpretations. The approach she uses is reminiscent to me of automatism, since the artist conveys "her thoughts, memories, obsessions, angers, fears and joys" all through these drawings. Whilst not strictly relating to narrative or a strict dream drawing I find this technique very interesting, and also sympathise with the artist's inability to sleep, and this method seems like an interesting way to record one's waking sleepless thoughts.

A book titled Sogni/Dreams published by the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, was offered to visitors for free as part of a distribution project curated by Francesco Bonami and Hans-Ulrich Obrist. Participating in the book were one hundred artists, who were asked to share "one of their necessary dreams they would like to see become a reality". Despite this very few artists used the concept to include a hope for the future, instead offering personal dream narratives and images. This resulted in the book being "a window on to the unconscious sources of contemporary creativity".

Jane Gifford's Bordeaux Diary (1996) is a dream diary that documents the artist's working trip to Bordeaux. Made immediately after returning, the material from the trip was used as the basis of her work and depicts her mental state throughout her visit. All remembered dreams were included, with pages left blank for days forgotten and extracts from her waking diary added to the dream accounts.The diary portrays her time of being away from home, and working to short deadlines without being able to focus on her own art. The drawings accentuate her feelings of isolation and alienation during this time, and merges waking and dreaming realities in an unsettling and very personal manner. I admire the diary format of the work; it reminds me of my own dream diary but with added illustrations. It gives me the idea to illustrate my own diary, adding drawings to my accounts of dreams.

Jonathon Borofsky

Primarily a sculpture artist, I am fascinated with his contrast-filled sketches. These images are taken from his website: http://www.borofsky.com, so aren't the best quality. I like the rushed sense of the work, some of them feel as if only half an idea has been realised, like a sketchbook page. The contrasting black and white  also adds a stark quality to the images, which I find enthralling in it's bleakness.