Impression of Ti

~Bad Poetry~Thoughts and Dreams~Pen Brush Sword

Nov. 14

Written By Tiler 'Ti' Bradshaw

Alright, so this is really the first one where I pretty much failed at making the thing quite how I wanted. Mind, I think it still came out quite nice, but despite the staggering degree of simplicity that the actual composition requires, I was unable to ultimately retain all the elements that I was aiming to render, also some of the content was added as an afterthought and [to me] stands out with obscenely blatant contrast to the elemental feel of the image as a whole and as a concept.

What's going on here is that I wanted to make a scene of how I was feeling generally about my place in the world and my sense of how I fit therein. I wanted the scene to feel like a wet, perhaps rainy and especially dreary day (actually my favorite kind of day, severe degrees of what most would consider uncomfortable levels of fog, wet, and gray), and conceding that perhaps this is more my natural element, not simply the overall mood of such weather, but also the emotion represented here with respect to how this character literally fits in this world: a clear presence, but defined by the degree of reduction imparted by the distance, the fog, the obfuscation and general nebulousness of the imagery at work; the way that the scene itself is not clear (are we near the shore? A pier? A walkway? A street? Does it even matter?); is this a ghostly wraith coalescing from foggy vapors or is the man being consumed by it? All of the questions that I could possibly want a potential viewer to ask should be similarly lost and confabulated by the dense and unyielding atmosphere, and so should the answers appropriately be.

This is what I would describe as my first proper piece of original art. Not because it's more traditionally an impressionistic piece, though it is a concept piece entirely, but is impressionistic in style. It is proper art because it has a particular audience in mind (anyone familiar with me) and it has a particular goal and intent for communicating some how with that audience, for telling those people something that I think.

The ideas involved here are entirely self-driven and not necessarily informed by any obvious [to me, at least] source. So It really is a heavier thought directly from this mind. I would like to make more paintings like this, but I had too much on my mind at the time, and other ideas for projects started to germinate in mind.

The techniques used here are not numerous, I sought to grant motion and energy to the piece by using water more as an ingredient or as a medium than simply as a facet of ink as watercolour. This painting is really mostly water in a number of ways. Also some really careful use of exclusion to retain the bright/white spots where required. I remember straining my mind a lot to not screw up too much at any point so that I can avoid having to redo the painting wholly. Normally this would not bother me, but I toiled over the planning in great depth to make sure I understood how to conserve my work and apply layers quickly and sensibly without ruining my paper by bleeding through too much or stripping the fibers with over-vigorous or too numerous brush strokes (Understand that all of the paintings that fall under 'Bad Poetry' were done in a single night, in a standard dry-media 65-70lb, 110pg 8"x11" sketchbook, not on proper watercolour paper, so things will occasionally get difficult with the materials)

I eventually ended up losing focus and literally washing off some elements of the character through inattention, but the matter was minor enough that I could not bother redoing it, and the time left for me to work with was all but used up, not to mention the mental strain from trying to keep my brush strokes uniform and in-place while painting one area while another part of the page dried enough to accept more water and ink.

This was actually one if the harder paintings I've made, and mostly because of my poor choice of media and the conditions I set for myself for completion with Bad Poetry. A fresh attempt at the methods would be a good idea, and I really did enjoy the ultimate effect of the overall feel of it, enough to justify the trouble I put myself through to make it.