Meg Campbell 1908015 YR2 Art Blog

  The "FunGirls" Moving forward with the "fungirls" I decided that colour was something I wanted to add, but I didn't want to make the colours too bright because I wanted to make the figures still seem whimsical and fantasy-esque. This lead me to using watercolour to keep a washed out effect as well as then defining key details using both fine liner pens and darkening certain areas with pencil. I did this to create more shadow and make them seem more real on the page. The made me feel a lot happier to look at, the colours added a level of happiness to the figures and made them seem more alive, rather than something that haunted my dreams.  I tried to use reference imagery from real mushrooms that exist in the world and my own photography to create a further link between myself and them. These have become a mild obsession of mine through my art and I really want to now experiment with them in more abstract areas to see their visual interaction and create textural...

The "FunGirls" The "fungirls" evolved from a play on words with fungi and girls after I drew women that appeared to me in a dream after I had been taking a large amount of mushroom pictures. In the dream I was lying in bed in the forest when mushrooms started to grow around me until they were approx. knee height. They then started sprouting feminine bodies and dancing around my bed. After a time they sank back into the forest floor and I jolted awake. From there I started drawing in the early hours of the morning with what I could find which happened to be grey scale pens. These area are a few examples of the work I created at this point. I made a point of highlighting the shadows and creating high contrast with the pens as well as finer detail in fine-liners. I found the results quite interesting and made for both beautiful and somehow uncanny work.  I also find these particular ones quite eerie to look at simply because they remind me of the dream that I had...

Mushrooms are a vital part of the ecosystem of the planet and help with decomposition and decay, giving back to the land. They also have a complex system of "roots" with a structure similar to the synapses in the human brain, meaning they are nearly impossible to get rid of. Not only this but their spore release mechanism allows for wider spreading and communication over wider areas.  Personally, I just love the shapes mushrooms create as well as the micro landscapes created when they pop up in random locations. The sheer number of shapes and colours fungi can take is fascinating to me as well as how their root system relates to the way humans function with one another, a veritable network of connections.  Not only are mushrooms/fungi interesting to me, I find them very beautiful. Something about their shape has me captivated as well as how those shapes interact with other variables such as figures, skulls, lips and eyes that dominate my own pe...