Brainstorming!! 💭

Here you can get a sense of my planning and brainstorming. Just remember that this is only the beginning and this is my broad idea of how I want to tie in all the different elements into my artworks

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I was having a mental block about where to start with this project. I then decided to start listing all the things that trigger my anxiety (in no particular order). I started by deciding on using this project to work on some of the things that makes me seriously anxious : WRITING EVERYTHING BY HAND!!! I know to some people it might not seem like a big deal, but to a perfectionist it is nerve-wracking, since this project centers around my anxiety, I felt it is only fitting to do it this way.

Although I wanted my project to center around my journey with anxiety, I started to feel very negative. It was as of I was projecting all of this anxious, nervous, and negative energy onto this project. And that is not what it is about.

I then created a list of things that I have found that helps me cope when I start to feel anxious. It might only be small things like rubbing my hand together or breathing exercises at the moment. But other things are very calming to me for example drinking a cup of tea, writing in my journal, and even cleaning. I have found various methods that work for me.

I have now decided to focus on these positive and constructive coping skills in my project. I still have a lot of ideas but I have decided on the direction that I want to go in.

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EMBROIDERY!!

When I started thinking of the different materials that I would like to use for this project, embroidery immediately sprang to mind. Not only is it one of my favorite things to sit and do while I am binge-watching a show, but the repetitive nature of embroidery is very calming.

I am going to be doing research on the following aspects:

= When / where did embroidery start?

= What was embroidery used for?

= Feminine connotations?

= What it represents in artworks today?

Although I am not set on a specific idea of how I am going to incorporate embroidery yet, it will definitely be featured in one of my bodies of artwork.

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TEA ART!!!

What a wild experimentation this was!! I was so excited to see what the different teas would look like when painted on paper.

Note: The swatches represented here have been made with 2 tea bags and then a second swatch with 4 teabags.

As you can see I have numbered the different swatches just to make it easier to reference which one I am talking about.:

1) Used - Glen teabag

2) Unused -Glen tea bag

3) Used - Rooibos teabag

4) Used - Green tea

5) Jacobs filter coffee

6) Frisco instant coffee

*I do not think I will be using the unused teabags in my art, because it is not giving me the results that I want in my artworks. I might use it as a base to work from but that is still to be determined.

My findings of doing this experiment were that adding more teabags will give you a deeper pigmentation. However, the green tea did not give off a lot of colors. I am going to try different brands and maybe different flavors to see if I can get a different result. When I was experimenting with the Glen tea and the Rooibos tea, I only noticed slight color differences between the two. I would say that one could be substituted for the other or used interchangeably.

In this experiment I tried using different spices to change the color of the tea. In the first row I used normal tea to make swatches to compare the other two against.

In the second row, I colored my tea using turmeric. This resulted in a more yellow tone. I found that the turmeric produced the most vibrant yellow when it was mixed with the Rooibos tea.

In the last row, I colored my tea using paprika. This resulted in a more reddish tone with hints of burnt orange. It definitely enhanced the colors of the Glen and the Rooibos tea but did not give the same vibrant color in the Green tea.

Using these colors that I had mixed I decided wanted to

experiment on how they would work together. I decided to do a quick drawing exercise whereby you close your eyes and make a continuous line drawing of something. in this case, I chose to do a face. I also added some flowers and leaves afterward because the drawing felt a bit incomplete to me.

I then went in with my plain and colored teas as well as the coffee mixes that I made. I focused the paprika tea a lot on the lips as well as the flowers. I used the turmeric tea on the leaves as well as in the eye area.

Once I finished the painting it still felt a bit boring to me so I added some gold accents that just made it pop. The gold complemented the earthy tones of the tea and coffee. As stated before this is just an experimental piece, but I think I will be incorporating the gold accents into my artwork.

I have decided that I will be using both the tea bags and the tea itself in my artworks in various ways. I want to paint a mandala using the teas but more experimentation is needed so that I can create a bigger variety of colors. As for the teabags, I want to create a canvas using the teabags to paint and embroider on to showcase the different stages of anxiety. This will be discussed further when I do some more research and concept development.

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NOTE: I feel like I will definitely need to brainstorm some more when I am going to decide on the specific artworks that I am going to create. This is a very broad overview, but a necessary step in the art process and concept development.