Tokyo

As I mentioned in my first post, this semester I leapt into my first college-level art class! It's been a really great experience so far, and a source of A LOT of inspiration. So you can expect to hear about it A LOT.

Hopefully I'll have pics of some of my earlier projects up soon if I ever get them back. But for now let's focus on my current project, which is very exciting to me right now! My assignment is to use various print techniques to explore spatial qualities with a foreign land as the subject matter. My subject? Tokyo.

So the girl who loves cities picks the biggest city in the world. SHOCKING. But I just can't get over how amazing it is. Since the biggest city I've ever lived in is Milwaukee, all of those people occupying one space is pretty much impossible for me to imagine. But when I try, it's absolutely mind-blowing. I'm an absolute freak for cityscapes and architecture and people and lights, so Tokyo naturally gets my creative juices flowing. It's everything I love about Milwaukee and cities, but on steroids. Really, really powerful steroids.

The current layout and progress so far...pay no attention to the blank rectangle.

One of the most interesting aspects of Tokyo is the duality of its culture. This contradiction between modernism and tradition, energy and structure, urban architecture and nature is the main focus of my print series. I'm exploring this theme through color, symbols and line quality. The bright neon golds, violets, and greens of the city at night find their counterparts in the softer browns, pinks, and greens. My main symbols for the urban life are the Tokyo Tower, the Metropolitan Government building, and the metro system, while cherry blossoms, the gateway to the Meiji Jingu shrine, and the kanji characters for "Tokyo" represent the opposite.

Most of the shapes thus far were created with a matte medium/acrylic paint combination and stencils I created. The metro map and the kanji characters, however, are the products of Xerox transfers. It's a really cool process that I've never used before, but that I'd definitely use in my work again. In fact, this whole print-making thing is pretty new for me, as my only previous experience with print-making was basically torture. It's awesome to re-discover and explore techniques that you maybe only half-new before, if at all.

I'm seriously digging the interplay of the different textures and layers right now, so although I've got some work to do before I'm done (hello, white space!) I'm pretty pumped to see the final result. Here's to experimentation, new techniques and, of course, Tokyo!