Becoming Tim

One

Two

Three

     People are influenced by the the things they experience in life, and they create works which reflect their reality. This is not to say that all artwork is unoriginal; artists find their own spin on existing mediums to fashion something new.  For this project, the focus was upon the medium of drawing.  Each sketch is modeled after a piece of work that Tim Burton has already produced.  Burton loves dark themes, and he places a great importance on the meaning of his drawings rather than having perfect line and form.  I created three pieces of art within the drawing medium which explored Tim Burton's style and the freedom of sketching. 

     In One, I combinied a scary element with a very feminine, soft element.  Much like Jack and Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas, the evil pumpkin and flowering of spirals balance each other out just like frightening Jack and caring Sally.  The spirals in the drawing are heavily influenced by an element in this Tim Burton film. In the cemetery where Sally finds the Deadly Night Shade, there is a hill that can constrict into a tight spiral.  This piece, One, is a complete original, yet there is a history which precedes it.  Even before Tim Burton, the spiral had great cultural meaning behind it.  In ancient China, the spiral symbolized the Sun. Spirals have been drawn for thousands of years, and yet spirals can still be used in a distinct way.  Originality and uniqueness can still exist within the art community, as long as the work is coming from one's own hand rather than another's.  

     Two is a celebration of Tim Burton's famous sketch of Edward Scissorhands.  His drawing is somewhat creepy while evoking an emotion of pity. The shape of Edward is very long and skinny, a body type which I tried to have with Two. Instead of having scissors as hands, I drew super long, curly fingernails.  I had not gotten this idea from Tim Burton, but rather a Ripley's Believe It or Not Book which I had read back in elementary school.  Again, this drawing was drawn solely by me, yet I had help from past experiences to receive inspiration.  

     Many of Tim Burton's art pieces make a critique on human activity. In "Cupid's True Colors," a drawing done by Tim Burton, two lovers are shot through the head by an arrow Cupid shoots off. Looks of utter horror shows on the faces of the lovers, while Cupid has a devilish smirk running across his face. In Scott McCloud's "Show and Tell," the author comments on how "various individual artists of the modern era breached the frontier between appearance and meaning!"  Gathering from this, one can see that Burton's picture is not just of an evil Cupid shooting two lovers through the head.  In this drawing, Burton comments on how love has become so fantasized.  Love is wonderful, but it can be tragic at times.  In "Three," I made an attempt at breaching the frontier between appearance and meaning. "Three" is not just a funny picture of a broccoli contemplating eating a human leg for dinner. It is a reflection of ourselves and our consumption of food. When we eat dinner, do we just see the food as sustenance that will silence our hunger? Or will we glance at our roasted turkey and think of the life it once led?

     Working within the drawing medium gives a great amount of freedom to the artist to explore different possibilities. Perfect form is not necessary, and it is okay to make mistakes since this medium allows for it. It looked back on my past for inspiration, something that drawing naturally catalyzes me to do.  In Edward Alden Jewell's newspaper article, he noted that "...the quality of a civilization is largely judged and understood through its art." All people on planet Earth will leave some sort of legacy before passing on. It is important to think about this legacy and how one's lasting memory stems directly from the events of their past.