Exercise: Conversations with pictures- Interpretation

Brief

Working with the principle of the ‘suppose-we-make-it-different’ approach outlined with the painting of Camille Monet on a bench above, review and select images from your own sketchbook and interpret them in the following playful ways:

Return to your figurative images and add in dialogue to a selection of these to suggest what these ‘characters’ might be thinking. Are they considering something in the near space? Thinking distantly about the future/past or later on in the day? Musing on Their worries or appreciations? What might be something unexpected they would say? Use post-it notes, or anything you can lightly tack to your earlier sketchbook work and photograph the results for your log. Redraft any ideas you like so that these are whole drawings complete with the dialogue later on in your sketchbook.

Write a letter to someone from one of the characters in your sketchbooks or from one of the spaces you have drawn and visited. Could your illustrations be redrawn and included in the letter? What quality paper might the letter need to fit with the style or tone of the content and what kind of format might best suit where or who the letter is from?

Illustration (captioned)

Coming up with a letter

The idea for the letter came to me when looking at the coffee shop observational drawings that I did, I wanted to imagine this guy writing a letter to the mysterious girl he met at the coffee shop (last image) who left in a rush.

How it would be somewhat drafted (and completed), is him expressing his compelled interest in her-- talking about how if she stayed what they would talk about and if destiny were true she would read the letter and meet again.

I'll include the illustration and changing them slightly for the context of the letter, and may include the image of "her".

The Letter

Evaluation

This exercise was very fun to do! It allowed me to look back at some work and think about certain narratives for each of the sketches, ultimately I was more drawn to my newer work for the letter part of this exercise because I've improved a lot (personally). I wanted the letter to be personal and explore a similar genre to what I've done previously with a love narrative, I used the sketches of the cafe to help bring the letter to life-- drawing an angry man, a hopeless romantic and happy-go-lucky woman. Additionally I wanted to make it feel like it could be in the setting that he's writing in, so I added a sketch of some drinks and a cinnamon roll, as well as adding some coffee stains.

The little post-it notes helped me think about what the character is doing to be thinking a certain thing, or saying a certain thing; and also helped me come up ideas for the letter.