Exercise 1: Experimenting with Expressive Lines and Mark

First off - I do indeed realise I have done this exercise incorrectly. For some reason when reading it off my course book I managed to not bother reading '4 A1 Sheets' and took the exercise as putting all 4 emotions on the same sheet.

So, for now I will just highlight and talk about my 'whoops' work. I intend to later go back and correct it but for the moment I am busy working on other exercises.

Going clockwise each A3 panel represents the following: JOY, AMBIVELANCE, ANGER and CALM.

AMBIVELANCE being the emotion I was able to choose for myself.

JOY: I used Indian Ink and a pipette. I wanted to portray the explosive feelings you get given when experiencing JOY. I thus choose this medium as it has a beautiful ability to create a firework effect that trickles and bumps into all the other fireworks and keeps on spreading - in the hope that one persons JOY can rub off onto someone else and help them to be happy too.

AMBIVELANCE: My chosen emotion. The act of not knowing what decision to make or direction to go - a kind of limbo state. I used my index finger and acrylic paint. The black smudge in the centre represents the person and the streams coming out of it are examples of the all the paths and options that could be taken. Some of the paths lead to a dead end. Others, love, despair and neutral feelings. Some of the paths are connected to those trickles of JOY. There are few of these connections but they represent the reward of the consistency of trying. One path leads to CALM.

CALM: I used an XL Graphite stick. I used the stick on it's side and dragged it across the page to try and convey the idea of a loose flowing ribbon blowing calming in a breeze. Twisting and turning on it's own accord but nonetheless still done in a peaceful manner. Such as emotions go, the opposite to CALM is ANGER and sometimes CALM can leak into ANGER.

ANGER: I used spray paint. I simply sprayed a can of paint onto the page. However, it's the thought behind it that counts. When angry you are covered in this radiating static fuzz that bounces onto other people and all over your own body. You can't think straight, relax or get a sense of reason. Some parts of ANGER are very dense and it forms a black hole. Other parts of ANGER try to find an area of light where it's not as dense. Other parts try to spread up to JOY. ANGER, I think, is the strongest emotion out of these 4 and therefore whilst I have created the idea of it spreading to JOY it doesn't quite make it sometimes.