My Personal Project Idea

Sep 3, 2019
2 min read

This week I have been developing the idea for my personal project for the follow two semesters. I have decided that I want to focus on storytelling through art.

I was inspired by several pieces that I saw at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Where the artist had created a series of artworks, each could stand on its own as a piece, but then put together they told a larger story. One piece that I was extremely fond of was The Book of Death series from 1910 by Kay Nielsen.

Below are three out of eight images that make up the series. The story shows love, loss, and the renewal of the character as it shows him going through the process of losing and dealing with the loss of his wife.

For my personal project I will create a series of digital illustrations/paintings that will be able to stand on their own as individual pieces but will show a larger narrative when looked at as a collection.

My story will be of an adventure following a group of people in a fantasy setting. I hope to explore the ideas or companionship, bonding, relationships, glory, loss, and other general themes of life that most people can relate to in their own lives. Viewers will follow the loose narrative, and may even come up with parts of it on their own as they follow the characters through their adventures. I hope to make the viewers feel attached and relate to the characters,evoking emotions, and forming connections.

The art style will be very similar to the recent piece I did below.

I may even include this as the first picture in the series after I make a few adjustments to it. Not sure yet,

My research part of this personal project will be on artworks and series that have been created with this story telling narrative theme and how successful I feel like they are at telling their stories and connecting the viewer to the characters in the story.

Also, this week I traveled to New York City and visited the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in search of some more artwork that I could use in my research part of this project.

Knowing that the Guggenheim offers a Modern art selection of works I was curious if I would be able to find anything that was along the idea of telling a story through a series of individual parts. Unfortunately I did not find what I was looking for.

I hope to be able to visit more art museums this year and will keep looking for more artworks and series that have this theme.