INITIAL IDEAS
Responding to the brief 'Make a mask of yourself' I considered aspects of my own personality, or character, that I felt I could generalise. Sketching a multitude of faces and expressions, I began to work more specifically on one expression which I find myself using in lots of situations, triggering the idea of 'a mask for all occasions and situations'. Working through initial ideas, I trialled different lines and marks to communicate this 'go-to' expression. Employing a continuous line to draw the facial features introduced an interesting line quality as the direction of the pencil altered the strength of the line.
DEVELOPMENT
Having drafted my ideas in china-graph pencil, I developed my ideas through consideration of scale. Ink worked as the perfect medium for enlarging the marks, maintaining a sense of fluidity whilst varying in line weight. This tapering issued a sense of depth to the lines which worked well against the block background colour to achieve strength in the expression. Testing on cardboard and working on top of china-graph also allowed textures to emerge.
Echoing some of my initial ideas to create a mask for various occasions and situations, my final outcome uses fluid lines to create a simple expression that is not overly personalised, rather generalised. The warm yellow of the boat seemed fitting to the sense of being content, while the water taxi offered the sense of wanting to be taken away from uncomfortable situations.
