FMP – First Sketches

After looking at various charities for Mental Health awareness, which has been building up my sense of direction for this FMP. I still know that I want to create a narrative/campaign/series of artworks to showcase/illustrate and raise awareness to the darker side of what Mental Health issues can cause.

I have seen there is a lot of bright and friendly designs (previous post is just one example) based around encouraging people to get help when struggling with mental health issues. THIS IS GOOD! I don’t want to alarm anyone, as a friendly approach is sometimes the most appropriate and helpful way of telling someone its ok to get help.

However, as a personal exploration, I want to illustrate that it is not all happy and charming, as mental health can really be a horrible burden and a horrifying story for people. To illustrate this, I have come up with some first initial sketches of my opinion and personal experience with struggling with mental health troubles.

VISUAL IMPRESSIONS

Using pencil and pen I created some drawings of which are my own vision of the mental health monsters, as related to artist research of Shawn Coss and Toby Allen. I used the mask in order to conceal identity to the face. I wanted to show how mental health can also the body into a physical burden; twisted, brain pulling, nerve shattering strain for some people. Many mental health illnesses come with there share of having great, horrific, effects on the body, such as, muscle aches, twitches, eating problems, and sleep troubles.

I then combined drawings and chaotic patterns with the images I found from the Bethlem Hospital archives. A collage approach. Doing quick collages from found imagery and single colour use can help generate a lot of fast imagery. I wanted to see what happened when I cut up these archival pictures and placed them with my own drawings, creating a much fuller sense of narrative and visual metaphors.

SKETCHBOOK SCANS

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