About The Project
Thinking about black led me to first to the idea of black thoughts, black sheep, black being the absence of colour then a black life would be the absence of life. Leading me to thoughts of how for so long I had had no life because I was too busy dealing with despair to have any time or energy left for living.
The poem came together in a rough form and I knew that I wanted to create an image that embodied despair.
I experimented with various dull textures untill I found the one I wanted for the background. I then created the black pit of despair by using a textured fill pattern, selecting one small area, enlarging it, applying a whirl effect and adding an extra layer filled with ta stucco pattern whose opacity I reduced so that both layers showed.
The arm reaching out was based on a photograph of my husbands arm, which I filled with a black stucco fill pattern.
The figure was made from a photo of my daughter, I duplicated the image 3 times onto different layers, left one as it was, filled one with the background texture and then applied a hot wax effect and filled one with plain back, I then experimented with the transparency untill I achieved the figure with shadow effect.
In some ways this has been the most difficult project to do so far as it stirred many unpleasant memories, but in other ways it has been the most satisfying as it demonstrated to me just how far I've travelled. And on a positive not, the poem was about me as I was a few years ago, and yes, one day somehow I broke free.
