After the ink experiments, the first real step was to research the Lord of thee rings’s ethical, cultural and artistic impact on the world. I wanted to do this because I’m a reader of Tolkien and had read The Lord of the Rings recently, tying the two together nicely. Whilst researching previous depictions of The Lord of the Rings, I came across a number of works that used watercolor to illustrate Tolkien’s environments and characters. This inspired me to test the medium and to consider other painting options. The decision to paint landscapes for my final three pieces was reached because of my research. I noticed that most of the artwork depicted characters or events with the world only acting as a background to the action. After some consideration, this got me painting landscapes.
In my proposal, I specified that an ideal outcome for the project would be to take an original visual style to the world that Tolkien wrote and this goal never changed, I did consider inking it based on my experience at the beginning of unit two but this been done countless times so I eventually settled on the psychedelic MS Paint style. The flowing, twisting shapes were inspired by a particular photo I took of a crooked tree, it looked strange and otherworldly which fit perfectly with the direction I wanted to take the project in. The other photos also helped me establish a feel for the project and the whole woodland experience helped get me in the mood to draw magical rural landscapes.
I decided to almost exclusively use illustration for this project because I did not want to leave my comfort zone. This will act as context for my decision to leave my comfort zone for the final major project. I have had to rush this unit because I fell behind without producing any work but this rush has impacted everything I have done since, I have had to use my time efficiently and spend less time adjusting every piece which I always have done before this, letting go of this perfectionist mentality has been eye-opening and increased the enjoyment I got from drawing.
The sketching was my least successful piece, mostly because I did not have long but also because I completed it over a couple of bus journeys making it challenging to draw, not only this but the lack of colour was boring and did a poor job of depicting Tolkien’s world. Completing work from home and using digital software to do it has been going very well and I will probably be continuing my artwork even after the project is over.
Ozzy Chambers' blog 