The Psychological Makeup of an Image

As with any painting, whether it be a figurative one such as this, or one that is purely abstract there is an intense psychology at work. After I painted the head and shoulders of this young teenage girl I was so taken by how I had managed to capture the look of complete vacancy on he face, and the rather despondent way her head hung forward and down, I had to see how I would tackle the rest of her. To enlarge the composition on iPad is quite easy. You post the original to your photos then post it back onto another sheet of paper in your app, which in this case is ArtRage. You can then manipulate the original drawing to whatever size you want, within the picture plane. Here for example, is the original.

Next, the same image positioned onto a new sheet of paper.

From here it is just a matter of continuing the drawing. Although if you add another layer you can erase whatever you add to the picture without erasing the original, which makes mopping up any mistakes so much easier. Now, I don't know if you would agree with me but once I had completed the image it seemed to me that the empty space on the left added to the sense of isolation the girl in the picture appeared to be feeling. If indeed, that is what she is feeling. Although there is a way of testing this, and that is by adding another figure to see if it helps or hinders. However, to do this I first had to save the image then copy it, without posting it again to my photos.

The next image; half drawn, shows a young man wearing sunglasses. I had drawn in his eyes originally, but couldn't quite get the look on his face that I wanted. He began to look incongruous... Baring no relationship whatsoever to the girl. So I gave him a pair of very dark sunglasses to hide his feelings towards her: which is a cop out I admit, but by then I was beginning to realise I should have gone with my initial thoughts on the matter. Adding another person somehow trivialises the image, and turns it into a joke. I can almost hear him say, "So what do you make of my new shades?"

 Then again, maybe he is just a badly drawn boy. Maybe if I had made the effort I could have added something more: to provide some sort of message. To make something of a statement about human relationships for instance. It is difficult to say for sure, and why I always go with my gut feelings when it comes down to the psychology of picture making. The more uncertain your feelings are towards the girl; from an artistic point of view at least, the better. Why spell everything out?