1. Maybe a quick introduction first?
Hello. My name is Marina, and I like making art.
This site is my way of tracking my progress and the things that I deemed to be worthy of my artistic expression at various stages of my life. I think that it will be interesting to see how I've changed over the past two decades (the only two decades) of my life... let's get into it!
2. Who run the world?
As we all do (?), I started with drawing girls. I was
in this phase for quite a long time (and to be honest,
I still enjoy it from time to time), and you can see that
I was really loving the front and center, feature-focused
portrait style of drawing, simply because I could focus
on drawing the cutest girls possible. I think that these
range from elementary and junior high school, with the
bottom right one being the most recent done in my first
or second year of high school. I was really pleased with
these at the time because art was a way for me to draw
pretty things and confirm that I can control a pencil,
paintbrush, or stylus at my will.
I started getting a little bored after a few years since I was not really changing anything about the pieces other than my subject matter, so I was eager to explore what other things I could draw.
3. ...or paint.
A pivotal point of my life was when I received oil paints
from an anonymous donor (my dad) and I was introduced to
the world of painting. Of course, I had painted before, but
it was all kind of minor stuff, but now, I was prepared to
create Masterpieces. I was still in junior high/high school
at this time, and I had a lot of free time, so I was creating
at a pretty high pace. I never had enough canvases, so I
always painted over an existing canvas to create more space
for the new visions in my head.
I really liked these paintings, but as mentioned before, I wasn't particularly attached to any of them since I was creating them under the impression that I would be painting over them at a later date. But it still kind of sucked when I gave some of them to my boyfriend at the time, who then turned into a crazy stalker ex after we broke up, so I never got to see them again.
This is another painting that I did (titled "Chicken or beef")
, and while I liked how
it turned out, I was frustrated with the level of detail
that I was unable to get because of the thickness of both
the oil paint and my cheap brush that I was using. Rather
than spending time developing my oil paint skills or
investing in a new brush, I decided to go a different route
for my next fixation on art.
4. Into the digital world.
This piece was the first piece I did digitally
(other than the girl at the bottom right in section 2,
which I'm pretty sure I did with my fingers on my phone
so it doesn't count), and I used a drawing tablet with a
stylus attached to my computer along with Adobe Photoshop.
My goal was to see exactly how much detail I could get
through a digital artscape, and I was pleased to discover
that there was hardly a limit. The red line was added at
the very end after several people told me that they thought
they were just looking at a black and white photograph.
With this piece, I was still using art as a way to fine-tune my core skills - how close can I get my end result to look like the reference picture I found on Pinterest? But after its completion, I felt rather satisfied with that, and started thinking about where I could go with art in the future.
After that piece, there's a pause in my visual art production for about a year for two reasons: first, I was creating fashion pieces because I was thinking of pursuing a fashion degree in college, and second, that was the final piece in my visual art portfolio I was going to send to colleges, so I was feeling a little burnt out. Art is really the best when you're doing it for yourself.
5. Go explore some lines.
Coinciding with my search for artistic expression outside
of realism, I started researching the emergence of mycology
in Japan from the late 19th to early 20th century. This
sounds fancy, but all it means is that I looked at a bunch
of articles about mushrooms and fungi, and this really fueled
my interest in "gross" looking things, a stark contrast to
the beauty-centered art I was previously creating. I also
started getting into non-flat canvases, which is just a
nice, parent-friendly way of saying that I got into tattoos.
Dear family, if you're reading this, I have no tattoos.
Although I was less pleased with the final outcome of these pieces, I really enjoyed the fact that they allowed me to explore a new artistic venue, especially the exploration of lines as the focal form. Growing up in America, I never fully realized the extent of light and shadow I always implemented into my works, but over this period, I started to recognize the line-focused art created in Japan and its stark contrast with foreign art.
6. Finger.
At this point, I was tired of the commitment of sitting down with the intent to create a masterpiece, so I got into drawing on my phone. This is a grape boy I drew into existing pictures using Markup, really embracing the rough "sketch" nature of the work,
and these were done using Markup as well. Compared to my
earlier works, these have a more thematic meaning beyond
simply creating accurate or beautiful results, and although
the final results are less polished than before, I can see
where my threads of consciousness were guiding my paintstrokes
(fingerstrokes?) in putting down colors and lines on the page.
This was one of the larger pieces I did using Markup, and
it was done on a day when I felt especially emotionally
heightened, thus the bright colors and tense vibrations
in the piece. Especially in context of my earlier works,
I think there is a story to be found in this one, with more
than one point of interest in the piece. This was done
as an attempt at catharsis, and I think that the visuals
really reflect the turbulence in my stability at that time.
7. 3D in what way?
After I felt less pressured to create masterpieces thanks
to my fingerdrawing phase, I returned to other forms of media
as well. This one was done digitally via drawing tablet
and Krita (pretty nice if you're just looking to draw), and
I was really able to explore dimensionality via the various
layers as well as the difference between creating form with
lines vs light and shadow. I was also mentally down during
this time, which I think is reflected in the face of the
figure, but I'm really starting to see thematically that
the pieces I tend to like later are the ones I made when
I was not at the happiest in my life.
8. now what?
Lately, I've been exploring several themes: first, the use
of technology in art, both as a medium and as a platform
for archives (and what is the difference?),
and second, the relationship between light
and shadow-focused art in Europe and America vs the
line-centered art from Japan, and how this reflects the cultural
beliefs of each nation, from the binary Christianity of
the European and American countries to Shintoism and
cram culture in Japan.
I think I will continue down my path of using art as a way of thinking through my ideas, following my lines down the page into their respective thought processes that I can later track like a page full of notes. Perhaps I will keep updating this page with my works, and see what I deem as worthy of keeping on this page!
