Ballpoint Pen

When given the words “dream-like, surreal, and creepy” to work with for this assignment, I felt extremely ambitious. I have an interest in all things dark, strange, and somewhat unsettling. A few months ago, I stumbled across an article about why people find clowns so creepy, and desperately wanted to know, because I’ve never been afraid of clowns. The article said that because of our ability to recognize pattern, we know when something isn’t quite right. The exaggerated face paint throws normal facial features way out of proportion, raising red flags in our minds that the creature we’re seeing might not be human and may be a threat, even though our brains know that there’s a person underneath that giant painted smile and goofy red nose. In the same respect, people find dolls to be creepy because they’re meant to resemble humans, but are different in some ways, like oversized eyes.

I used this concept heavily when creating the creatures for my drawing. For the larger creature I planned very large eyes inspired by the Marine Hatchetfish, muscles appearing somewhat familiar to the human body, very elongated fingers, and a wide unsettling grin. For the smaller creature, I was inspired by the eyes being forced open in A Clockwork Orange. Including the eyelids and eyelashes drooping and stretching in uncommon areas added another uncomfortable element to the drawing, but adding bird feet and wings to the eyeball creature made it human-like and completely not human, simultaneously.

I continued use of my familiarity with human anatomy for the landscape. The walkway was inspired by the brain, and the ground was inspired by individual cells. To keep the drawing from becoming completely anatomically inspired, I created shaded circles in the upper part of the work, and a balloon containing a goldfish and a castle.

I used hatching throughout the work for shading, and directional lines elsewhere to create depth. Overall, I think that this was an extremely successful piece. I stayed motivated throughout, and was highly invested in finding the finished product at the end of the pen.