You are here
Very early on I had the idea of making this a mural. It felt fitting to make this a location based piece considering the geographical sense of the term you are here. The idea, however, was far from being placed in a specific location. In fact, the idea could be placed anywhere! The phrase "of all the places in the universe; you are here" was what I was hooked on. I liked the idea of getting a rather good sized wall/building where the mural would be, so scale wasn't going to be an issue. I wanted this piece to feel larger than life, just like the phrase itself. I felt like the piece was going to consist of many elements, which would just represent different conditions on earth and beyond. Desert, Jungle, city, mountains, underwater and space I thought would make a good variety.
My mood board consisted of different illustrations I had found on the internet. This was to give me some guidance with the elements that I wanted to try and include in the mural. Interestingly I found the collage style works to be very useful for this as it gave me an idea on how to piece the elements together when they seem very contrasting for one image.
I then did a little hunt for ideas that may have used the same theme of "you are here". Honestly I found this somewhat difficult as I am looking for examples that kind of took my interpretation of the term. That said I think the examples found did give a little nod to the direction I wanted to go in. It was great to see how they had used the wall space effectively and how they had flow within the mural.
Whilst searching for examples I cam across artist, Dave Bain, a Bristol based illustrator who works across editorial, advertising, branding and publishing. His murals really caught my attention with how he brings many elements together. His style is bold, and graphic, it is evident that he is inspired by print techniques.
Once I had the guidance in place, I started with sketching.
What is the most difficult/frustrating moment in jotting down your ideas, is when the sketching isn't replicating the vision in your head. It's not exactly a vision that I can understand, it is more of a feeling of the vision that is locked, with some kind of knowing of what you want. So far, this isn't connecting, even with it being super basic sketches.
This was more of a scene with the elements creating a flowing image. It again wasn't the vision but there was something cohesive going on.
In the end, I decided to find an image of a wall that would help make sense of the aim.
The difference in adding a building to work on top really showed this time. It felt closer to what I had in mind, and the magical thing is I didn't have people in it! I think there is something starting to emerge, however it certainly needed more work.
Links
https://davebain.com/mural-art - 26/11/23
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