Meditative Art #4

For my fourth round of meditative/analytical art, I felt inspired to completely switch up the medium and artistic style of my work. Previously I have stuck with creating a series of gel pen sketches that are all connected by similar themes, then compiling them into a collage. However, I wanted to challenge myself this time to create one piece/a singular image that encompasses all of my ideas. I decided to switch to watercolor, which is a particularly challenging medium but whose flow I thought would be very conducive to the meditative aspect of this project. Comparing the two, I found that the sketch collages allowed me to easily follow and convey a flow of consciousness because sketching comes easily to me. However, this watercolor made me spend much more time analyzing exactly how to convey my thoughts into a single image. For this watercolor I found myself still focusing on Jean Zaru’s Occupied With Nonviolence. I spent a lot of time focusing on the anatomy and shading of the lips on this piece, as Zaru seems to speak her personal truth very directly, and the authority she has over her own speech is her main source of power. In many of my previous collages, flowers showed up as a common theme to symbolize unity and life amidst chaos and violence. In this, the flowers on Zaru’s face were meant to show how the struggles she has faced in her life may have left scars, but it is from this that she draws beauty and empowerment. Her empathy and understanding of the human condition as informed by her religion are very beautiful qualities to me, and I see these qualities in the flowers that adorn her. However, I did not want to downplay the trauma that her involvement in this conflict has caused her, so I painted bloodshot and teary eyes. This was by far the most enjoyable artistic practice for me, so I plan on using watercolors again in my next round.