andrew's blog gud

Materials: paper, colored pencil Processes: Everything in the final piece is transferred from drawings in my sketchbook. Ideas: This piece explores the emotions of lust and self-hatred explored in the song “Closer”. A very overt reference to Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” is made to symbolize the protagonist’s worship of sex (as a representation of lust this is why her face is obscured). The protagonist sits torn open on a mound of dirt, representing his passionate shameful longing, as the petals of a black flower float into the distance and turn into insects. Love is often poetically compared to a blooming flower but this is love is corrupt, and thus it reintroduces the recurring theme through my pieces of insects. (The black flower is subconsciously inspired by the iconic line from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”: “Let the black flower blossom as it may!”)

 Materials: paper, pencil Processes: I drew these figures in my sketchbook and transferred these to the page. Ideas: I am trying to convey the self-hatred and yearning that this song expresses, the protagonist making a god out of his lust (thus the reference to “The Creation of Adam”).

Materials: Colored pencil, charcoal, and pastel on large sketch pad. Process: I took a reference photo of myself holding a friend’s 3D-printed toy gun and sketched it on the page. After that I scribbled a chaotic background and darkened the area around the gun to make it slightly more three-dimensional. Ideas: To reflect the most brief song on the album, I decided to go with a simple look, focusing on capturing the song’s chaos. “Big Man with a Gun” is important because it is the character’s first embrace of violence before “A Warm Place”, his last glimpse of hope and a comforting moment before everything collapses.  

Materials: Colored pencil on a large sketch pad. Process: The images come from reference photos I took and drawings in my sketchbook. Much of this was drawn by using my sketchbook and piece on my window, working as a light table. Ideas: The song “The Becoming” is about the main character being (at least emotionally) transformed into a machine. I tried to portray the contrast between human and machine, especially as the main character feels he is ripped apart as he is being replaced with mechanical parts. A few lyrics incorporated into the piece are “made up of wires”, “covered with scabs”, “I could try to get away / But I strap myself in”, and “...this noise inside my head”. The song uses a 13/8 time signature, which I visually reflected by dividing the piece into 13 sections (including the corners) with 8 lines.

 Materials: Drawn on a large sketch pad using colored pencil. Process: The person and hands are based on reference pictures I took of myself. I drew a few hands in my sketchbook based on my reference pictures and drew over these sketches many times to get a crowd. For the text I printed out the text on a piece of computer paper, drawing over this on graphite paper on top of what would become the final piece. Ideas: I tried to reflect the ideas of the song, which are about mob mentality and consumerism. The main character feels lost in a world where the people around him exploit him in a world seemingly built off of materialism, greed, and eternal unfulfillment. The composition of this piece is based on the line in the song, “Take the skin and peel it back, / now doesn’t it make you feel better?” In the context of the song he is hurting himself but in this piece it shows that from his point of view it is the madness of the crowds and the hollowness inspired by materialism that cause...

 Materials: Done on a large sketch pad with black colored pencil. Process: The person is based on a reference photo I took of myself. Most time on this piece was spent drawing each insect. Ideas: Since “Piggy” has some of the most abstract lyrics of the album, I tried to focus the piece on the sonic and emotional aspects of the song. The song is simple compositionally, so I tried to make the piece understated and simple. The song is about the character detaching themselves from reality and the song itself uses white noise in the chorus to reflect this (this is all my interpretation). To have the same effect, I reincorporated the idea of insects from the last piece, but this time they form a wall of visual white noise.

 Materials: Drawn on a large drawing pad with colored pencils with paint splattered on top. Process: After drawing the mouth, I scribbled the background with colored pencils and drew the insects flying out. After that we covered the mouth by taping paper over it and splattered red paint over the piece by flicking a brush dipped in the paint. Ideas: This piece corresponds to the first track on the album, which is written as the voice in the main character’s head speaking to him. The mouth in the piece represents this voice, with the insects representing the negative emotions and desires the voice inspires (these insects recur in my art and are inspired by some tracks at the end of the album which sonically and once lyrically reference insects). This piece attempts to reflect the song sonically by conveying chaotic movement.