Project No.6: Power of the Cross!

Scale

Objective: For this project, our professor got us to randomly pick out from the hats two objects, one is big and one is small. Out job is to put on the surrealist goggle and then play around with the scaling and proportion of these objects. It's actually a very free project as we can use whatever medium we want and render it however we want. However, the thing about this project is that it is heavily conceptual. All that we choose to do with it need to bring out a message or concept to convey to the audience.

Progress: This is a very fun project for me, personally. I really love it when you get to be creative with random things given to you /XD

I was hoping to get something ridiculously funny but I ended up with a key and a pyramid instead which is good too. So before we can start drawing or whatever, we are required to come up with at least 10 different concepts. The tip for coming up with all these ideas is to basically brainstorm the characteristics or words that come to your mind when you think of the objects. With that, I instantly came up with my first concept. Since key represents answer and pyramid is something like a mystery, I'm going to do a giant key along side with a bunch of pyramids which is trying to convey how even though there are many mysteries in the world, there is always a big answer to them all.

I thought that was a brilliant idea and was almost sure that I was going to go with that concept. However, while I was sitting in my room coming up with the other 9 ideas demanded by the professor, I actually came up with something even more brilliant. In my religion class just few days before this project, we were talking about the passage where Jesus gave Peter the "keys" and how key represented power and authority in the Bible. Then I remembered how pyramid was an embodiment of paganism. And so, the idea of a key that looks like a cross and a pyramid with the all-knowing eye came to my mind. Thus the brilliant concept was born: "Jesus has power over paganism". My professor approved the concept instantly after I presented it to her. So I started working on the sketches:

At first, I was thinking of just portraying the giant cross-key side by side with the pyramid as you can see in the first sketch. However, I found it quite bland that way. I wanted to add much more action and dynamic to the artwork and so I had the key absolutely annihilate the pyramid as you can see in the last two sketches. And just from doing that, unknowingly I further pushed the concept behind the piece. From what I learned in Bible class back in high school, pyramids were basically Satan's attempt to copy God's throne in heaven so that he can call rulership on the earth (this is why every pagan religions all around the world all have pyramid-like temples). Ever since the fall of man, Satan really had been the ruler of this world but all that changed when Jesus came and died on the cross. He became the second Adam and reclaimed this world back to Himself. And this artwork of mine really captured just that: through the cross, Christ had put away the rulership of the devil!  

Concept aside, at first I was thinking of doing this in ink because I wanted to capture the dynamic and the action of the piece using just lines and not because I was lazy and just didn't really want to color. I played around with it for a bit but decided that I was not too familiar with ink to do the concept justice so I went with colored pencils after all. I still wanted to emphasize the dynamic of the artwork though so I did that with the red-violet action frame which is inspired by the anime/cartoon style. Anyway, here are the sketches I did with ink:

Thoughts and Feelings: I am very pleased with what I've done with this project: the artwork is dynamic and the concept solid. I am surprised myself of how profound I got with the concept. I don't know if this is a genius accident or was it planned by God that I would be coming up with all this but yeah :D

Whew, I should shut up now. Tell me what you think! /please