dark – Inky and the Pen

Although I prefer to draw, I did have my painting phase in University. I do every now and then revisit painting, but mainly using ink and watercolour paints in a style I can draw around. In this blog I am exhibiting five paintings from my first and second years of University. They are all completely different styles due to my lack of planning when I come face to face with a canvas. Most of the time I just wing it. I feel like Art University was a complete waste of time and I still have no idea what I am doing; sometimes it works, other times I just murder a canvas.

The first two images are from my final project of first year, I decided to make maps out of flowers and faces. The last three are from the first semester of second year, for which I decided to do a project on mental health. Check out the paintings below and let me know what you think!

Floral City map, painted with Indian ink and watercolours. Made in 2013 by InkyandthePen (Aine Kelly) — *Floral City map*, painted with Indian ink and watercolours on watercolour paper. Made in 2013 by **InkyandthePen** (Aine Kelly)

Continue reading “University Paintings” →

In 2012, my final major project, for my Foundation of Art and Design course, was based on “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. I was going through a “make all my art dark” phase, read the darkest of dark poems I could find, I based the project before this one on poems by Emily Dickinson, so I was going in hardcore.

I did a few drawings and paintings, used all my black paint and pens, took a lot of photographs of my friends at the time posing and made this monstrosity. I may be a little hard on myself now, but at the time I was pretty impressed with how it turned out. I am actually cringing at how much ball point pen I was using, which I have not used in a very long time due to discovering the felt tip pen brand ‘Staedtler’. I only learned how to use Photoshop a few months prior to the project, so I would like to apologise for the bad editing.

The poem tells a story about a man being psychologically tormented by a Raven that keeps repeating “Nevermore”. This reminds the man of his dead paramour “Lenore” and all he has lost. I found this poem interesting, other than the fact that it was dark, because the man simply takes this bird as a symbol of every wrong in his life. I could list all the symbolism I got from the poem, but I think I’ll just post a blog of the sketchbook I worked on for the project. (Or at least pick out the best pages, its a very big sketch book.)

Continue reading “The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe – Comic” →