"Her Story"
Colored pencil illustration April 2022 |
Exhibition Text These illustration drawings were created using Prismacolor colored pencils on illustration board. My intentions for these pieces was to continue my overall identity theme by recreating 1920's women's suffrage posters to shed light on feminism and how far the feminist movement has come. My artists inspirations for this project were James Montgomery Flagg and Ann Lewis who were political cartoonists in the 1900's. I was inspired by their vintage style, their mixture of bright and muted colors.
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Critical Investigation
Inspiration
James Montgomery Flagg and Ann Lewis were both political cartoonists and propaganda artists who were active in the early 1900's. They worked as political activist artists and created posters about political activity happening around the 1920's. James Montgomery Flagg is most well known for his "I Want YOU for the U.S. Army" poster with an image of Uncle Same pointing forward at the viewer. This particular cartoon was created to help recruit soldiers into joining and fighting in WW1. He was also very popular for his "Your forests - your fault - your loss" poster which displayed a man standing in a burning down forest which was an obvious reference to the anthropogenic causes to deforestation and forest fires. Some of Ann Lewis' most notable artworks were her Woman's Suffrage collection which included memorabilia and posters that were present during the woman's suffrage movement. James Montgomery Flagg seemed to focus more on raising awareness towards specific problems in America at the time and seemed to lean more democratic. He addressed serious topics like allowing women to vote, forest fires, and so called "Buxom girls". Ann Lewis seemed to be more of a collector and created/ discovered political cartoons that featured sexist quoting and imagery. I was particularly inspired by James Montgomery Flagg's big and bold lettering, color schemes, and clear, controversial (at the time) statements. I used his woman holding a baby poster with the words, "Women Bring all Voters into the World", as my reference because I loved that it was simple in style but had a strong and accurate message. I also was inspired by Ann Lewis's bright colors and I ultimately decided that I wanted the posters to have different color schemes. One consisting of beige tones and the other featuring bright and vibrant colors in order to represent each respective artists style in my own illustrations.
Planning
For these planning sketches, I experiment with using many different images of vintage political posters from the woman's suffrage era. To begin, I started off by planning out my color schemes. I decided that for the first image in order to match the artists color scheme, I used those bright reds, blues, yellows, and greens to brighten up the poster. For the second poster I again tried to replicate this color scheme to I used muted reds, grays, browns, black, and white. I sketched out how I would want to add my own touch to the posters like adding details into the background along with changing the outfits so that I would be able to modernize the posters. I decided that I wanted to have the woman in my first poster wear a sun dress so that she would be wearing 21st century clothing so I googled some images of sun dresses and found a dress that fit in with the overall color scheme I decided on. The dress consisted of the primary colors and a style that probably wouldn't have bee accepted 100 years ago like the low cut top or the off the shoulder sleeve. For poster number 2, I decided that instead of having her hold a baby I wanted her to be holding the "world" in her hands. I decided this because of the quote featured on the poster discussing how women brought all of the voters into the world. I decided that I wanted to use different monuments or land marks from around the world so I decided on the Taj Mahal in India, The Sydney Opera House in Australia, The Golden Gate Bridge in America, and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio. I wanted to create something different I felt like this was the perfect way to do that. Finally, I decided that I was going to lay out different posters from different artists and see if I could use some inspiration from their posters but in the end, I ultimately decided against it and that I would stick with the artworks I already picked out from James Montgomery Flagg and Ann Lewis.
Process
To begin, I started off by taking the drawing boards and drawing one inch by one inch grid lines on the entire board. I then began sketching out my first drawing, the negative. I started out with drawing the boarder line around the edge of the board. After that I began to sketch out the woman. I wanted to make sure that I modernized the woman so I used a sun dress from a clothing site as a reference. I also decided to change the woman's hat because it was looking a little outdated for the style that I was going for. I then sketched out the husband and children along with the wall design and the picture frame in the background.
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Continuing on, I began adding color to the woman's dress and face. I used the primary colors to give her an extra pop and I made her skin tone darker so that I could represent all women of different races. I used shading to add more depth into my picture and I made sure to also add in some highlights where lighting my hit the dress and her skin differently. I also decided that I was going to change her hair because the original was outdated. I then moved on to working on the carpet. I wanted to intertwine the vintage aesthetic with the modern aesthetic so I left the carpet green and added texture with different shades of green pencils.
Finally, I moved onto the husband and children. I repeated the shading techniques I used on the woman to add highlights and shadows to the husband. I then decided that I wanted to go a different route when creating their faces. This poster was created as an anti-suffrage movement poster in order to bring down women and make them feel less than men so I decided that I was going to add paper bags over their head as a sign of shame. According to Lewis, the husband was ashamed that he had to take care of the children while his wife voted so I put the bags over their heads to symbolize their shame even though the shame he was feeling was unnecessary. After I finished the husband and kids, I moved onto the background and the picture frame. I used a direct quote from the poster which says "What is a suffragette without a suffering household". After I finished that, I moved on to the wall paper which I colored yellow and added some star shaped patterns on the wall as a finishing touch.
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Moving onto the next drawing, I did the same exact thing as the first poster with the grid lines and the sketching of the woman. The woman in the inspiration photo that I chose was holding her baby with the saying, "Woman bring all voters into the world, let them vote". I decided that I was going to keep the slogan so I wrote it out and filled it in using black and red colored pencils. I then decided that I was going to create landmarks from around the world to symbolize how she gave birth to the entire world. I decided to include The Sydney Opera house, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Taj Mahal, and The Christ the Redeemer statue. I then began sketching out those buildings/sculptures and coloring them in with muted reds, grays, and browns. I added lots of small details and shading and I wrapped them all up in a blanket to make it look like these landmarks were her child. Finally, I shaded in the background with a light grey color and added in the same star shaped pattern I had previously put in my first illustration.
Experimentation
Colored pencils are my favorite medium and it is the medium that I use most often. I feel extremely comfortable using colored pencils and I was very confident going into this project. However, I am nowhere near an expert and I haven't used colored pencils in a while so I decided that I would work with them before I started by project. I experimented with using different paper and I worked on my gradients and blending so that a transfer between colors was smooth and hardly noticeable. I also experimented with using erasers for highlighting or lightening up colors. I found that using and eraser requires a light touch because the pencil likes to roll and smudge which can ruin an entire project depending on the severity of that smudge or marking. I also experimented with using grids as my drawing base so that my proportions were accurate and pleasing to the eye. I have used bride before for many of my colored pencil drawings, however i felt like I was a little out of practice with my drawing skills and wanted to brush up before beginning my two posters. I also made sure to test out every colored pencil I had in hand before I used it because the packaging on the outside of the pencil can be deceiving and there have been many instances where I thought I was using a much lighter color than I actually was and had to go back in with an eraser or a lighter colored pencil in order to fix my mistake. Finally, I decided that I wanted to experiment with some new supplies I bought last year and never got a chance to use. One of these supplies included an eraser pencil. It was exactly like a pencil bit the lead was replaced with an eraser and was able to be sharpened. I found that this tool made it extremely easy for me to reach small corners and erase little pencil markings that weren't accessible when using a larger eraser. I also found that it was great for making highlights. Overall, I thing that these posters turned out great and I think I was successful at using these colored pencils for this project.
Critique
This illustration project was inspired by political cartoonists Ann Lewis and James Montgomery Flagg and there are many similarities and differences between our works. To compare, I tried my best to make sure that I used similar or the same color schemes that both of the artists I chose used. I wanted to stand out from their posters but I also wanted to make sure that the connection that our artworks had were strong and has some sort of resemblance. Another similarity between their artwork and mine is that we all created our pieces around the topic of women's rights and women's suffrage. The final similarity between all of our pieces is the art style. I wanted to make sure that I was able to recreate the vintage style that was featured in my inspiration pieces. Continuing on, some of the differences between our pieces are the overall image of the people. I wanted to modernize the people while leaving the background looking vintage so I modernized the woman's clothing in poster number one and added some modern buildings into poster number two. Another difference is that I used colored pencil for my posters and my artists used supplies like markers, pens, and paint for their respective posters. The final difference is that I changed the skin tones of some of the people in my posters. I wanted to include everyone into this illustration and show how white women weren't the only people struggling at the time and women of color had an even harder time trying to fight for the right to vote.
Reflection
My inspiration for this project was artists James Montgomery Flagg, and Ann Lewis. I appreciated the way that Flagg used his artistic talents to raise awareness for "controversial" topics and the was that Lewis used color bright and vibrant color schemes to make her art work pop off of the paper. I wanted to be able to show how far women and the feminist movement has come from the 1920's to the 2020's and how the scales are starting to become more balanced as the years progress. I loved the line work that was used in James Montgomery Flagg's poster and how the woman appears abstract because of these jagged and harsh lines. I also really liked the different colors and hues that were used in both posters and how they heavily resembled the cartoonist style. I love how both of my poster turned out and the process of using one of my favorite mediums. The meaning behind this piece is especially important to me and I feel like it was a great way to show the growth we have made in gender equality. If I were to re do this assignment, I would make sure to add more detail in the background because in the end I felt like they were missing something but overall I really liked how they turned out. My biggest challenge when completing this project was trying to come up with my overall idea. I have a hard time with coming up with new ideas and inspiration but luckily during my research, I discovered the vintage suffrage posters which lead me to my main artists. Overall, this project was successful and I really enjoyed using colored pencils.
ACT Questions
1) Clearly explain and describe how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork.
The artists propaganda posters that surrounded women's suffrage inspired me to create my illustrations in order to represent the feminist movement and the strives that women have made in society and will continue making in the future.
2) What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
James Montgomery Flagg has a more democratic or liberal approach to his artworks and the political issues that he focuses on. Ann Lewis seems to focus on more of a conservative and negative approach and has lots of artworks surrounding an anti-suffrage movement.
3) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I have made the conclusion that in the early 1900's people were extreme,y conservative and men were seen as better than women in every aspect. Although this was not news to read about, it was quite shocking when I did my research and discovered what some propaganda posters had to say about women.
4) What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme around my inspiration and research was women's suffrage and the feminist movement.
5) What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research
I made the inference that Flagg was liberal and Lewis was conservative because of the messages they were portraying and the art they created.
The artists propaganda posters that surrounded women's suffrage inspired me to create my illustrations in order to represent the feminist movement and the strives that women have made in society and will continue making in the future.
2) What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
James Montgomery Flagg has a more democratic or liberal approach to his artworks and the political issues that he focuses on. Ann Lewis seems to focus on more of a conservative and negative approach and has lots of artworks surrounding an anti-suffrage movement.
3) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I have made the conclusion that in the early 1900's people were extreme,y conservative and men were seen as better than women in every aspect. Although this was not news to read about, it was quite shocking when I did my research and discovered what some propaganda posters had to say about women.
4) What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme around my inspiration and research was women's suffrage and the feminist movement.
5) What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research
I made the inference that Flagg was liberal and Lewis was conservative because of the messages they were portraying and the art they created.
Bibliography
1. James Montgomery Flagg. (2022). Retrieved 8 April 2022, from https://americanart.si.edu/artist/james-montgomery-flagg-1571
2. Site created Jennifer Krafchik, I. (2022). Ann Lewis Women's Suffrage Collection. Retrieved 8 April 2022, from https://lewissuffragecollection.omeka.net/
3. James Montgomery Flagg - Illustration History. (2022). Retrieved 8 April 2022, from https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/james-montgomery-flagg
2. Site created Jennifer Krafchik, I. (2022). Ann Lewis Women's Suffrage Collection. Retrieved 8 April 2022, from https://lewissuffragecollection.omeka.net/
3. James Montgomery Flagg - Illustration History. (2022). Retrieved 8 April 2022, from https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/james-montgomery-flagg