Sigafoos2
(I've included the laying shot so that more of the charcoal pencil details can be seen.)
Here is my rendition of Pocahontas. My concept is that from the time she 11 until she died at 22, Pocahontas was a link of goodwill between the Algonquian Indians and the English colonists. After marrying Englishman John Rolfe, being baptized and renamed Rebecca, she became a well respected, yet non-traditional English socialite. My narrative is to convey how she quite literally "wove" together and reflected, two very distinct and powerful cultures, "colored and white" you could say. I am striving to show the contrast of culture and yet maintain her native ethnicity on both sides.
I've chosen to "frame" the right side in order to convey a sense of how the English culture made her appear confined and traditional even though her ethinicity wasn't. Also I've chosen to render text from the Europeanized paintings of Pocahontas that exist. On the left side I will also be incorporating Algonquian patterns.
I collected birchbark, wove it together, and chose to incorporate it for two reasons. One being the Algonquians used the bark for everything, from canoes, homes, to jewelry. What's more, the women were mostly in charge of such weaving. Secondly, birchbark represents her tribe and when weaved together, solidifies my narrative and concept.
Comments
Holy crap! This is awesome! Way to really take advantage of the unlimited amount of materials that we were able to use in this project. It makes me want to really look outside the box on how I can improve my pencil drawing! I absolutely love it, but I would like to see more drastic darks and lights throughout the piece, but that is something that could be easily fixed! :-)
Posted by: Natalie Olbrantz | February 3, 2008 10:08 PM
Alison, your conceptual ideas translate well into visuals. There is a lot of apparent (and subtle) symbolism with the apparent dichotomy of her two lives. One thing that is difficult about collaging different types of media together is getting them to function as one cohesive piece as opposed to several separate layers. I like your idea with the birchbark but I'm wondering if there are ways to better integrate that as part of the drawing as opposed to sitting on the drawing. Also, your large pop-up images are HUGE that we can't see the entirety of the image, can you make those files smaller and re-post? You probably don't want to go any larger than about 500 or 600 pixels.
Posted by: Heba | February 4, 2008 09:50 PM
This is a great piece of work. I instantly knew who your person was without reading your description. Pocahontas is a well known figure and I had the opportunity of learning more about her in my history class last semester. I like that you did both sides of who she was. The contrast between the two works well. I would like to know what the white side means. (the words are what I'm referring to) That's about all I have for yours because I know enough about her and you covered her well in this drawing. great job! :)
Posted by: Micki Benson | February 8, 2008 03:46 AM