Composition

Project 2 began as a difficult project because I was unsure of a theme to choose. I knew I was completely inspired by Shepard Fairey's work, and I wanted to do something that I felt worked not only with his style, but with his message. I chose Hip-Hop as my theme, because like Fairey's work, it has a feeling of rebellion and misunderstanding. His style and technique also function well with the feeling of flowing and motion that one gets when listening to hip-hop.

I decided I'd focus on different elements of hip-hop for this project.

Repetition

For this piece, I decided to use the graffiti aspect of hip-hop. I chose to do a spray can with paint flowing out of it for the piece, because I felt it had a lot of repetitiveness. I used different styles and patterns that Shepard Fairey uses in his work to stick to his style for the project. This turned out to be one of my favorite of the pieces, not only because it stuck to the composition so well, in my opinion, but alsobecause it was one of the first pieces of drawing I have ever done (the finger was esp

ecially difficult) and I managed to do it successfully. I also enjoyed creating shadow without the use of values in gray, something that was challenging to do, but it opened up a new way of thinking for me.

Balance

I feel that although this is one of the more simple pieces of the 4 that I completed, it not only sticks to the composition well, but it also incorporates Fairey's style. He often times focuses his attention in the center of the frame and has beams moving directed outward from the centerpiece. This piece is supposed to be a microphone, a major piece of hip-hop and rapping, and by making the microphone so large and having it take over most of the piece, I feel like it conveys that image very well. I wish I could have thought of a more interesting way to do the micr

ophone, rather than drawing in the lines with my pen, but at the time, that was the best I could think of.

Movement

For this piece, I decided to use hands/fingers once again because I felt this one should have a human aspect to it, since human motion is so natural. I thought of spelling the words “hip-ho

p” out on the hands because I felt it showed a sort-of punching notion, and it gave the effect that the words were popping off the page. Another way that I created a feeling of movement was to have the words “leaking” off the page, to create a downwards flow of motion.

In my original idea, I had the words “is dead” on the bottom of the page, but I felt it created a stop and didn’t really have the same fluid effect that I was aiming at for the piece, so I didn’t include it.

Emphasis and Economy

For me, this was surprisingly the most difficult piece to work with since I was trying again to stick to Shepard Fairey’s inspiration, and his work is oftentimes very busy, and not so simple. This one shows a record dripping—the same effect I use for the movement piece. It is supposed to show the fluidity of hip-hop. I feel like in my mind I had a greater idea behind this piece than what I was able to convey in this image. It was surprisingly the most difficult of the pieces which goes to show that sometimes just thinking simple is one of the most complicated tasks.