In my class Painting: Water-Based Media, we've been working on the technical fundamentals of watercoloring all semester. Most of this has been done through exercises and still life's. Now, we finally have the chance to use our creativity and paint whatever subject matter we want. I decided to work on a project I've had in my mind for a long time: I want to depict women acting out their daily morning rituals, such as grooming their hair. My aim was for them to be quiet, intimate moments of everyday life.
My project took a turn as I went on. Originally, I intended for them to be of different women in different bathroom settings, but it ended up being the same woman. Designing more than one person felt daunting, which is why I toned down my ambition, but ultimately, I like the way this turned out. I think having one person doing different activities creates a narrative that's different from my original vision, but not in a bad way. Showing her get out of the shower, then do her hair, then take her prescriptions, gives the feeling that time is passing. It also shows one person's life deeply, rather than a few different people's lives shallowly. The bathroom itself also turned out to be much vaguer than I originally imagined, so I decided to push that further and intentionally showed only the bare necessities of what's needed for the scene. I think this leaves more to the imagination, and in turn, evokes a sense of uncertainty to the viewer.
In art making, not everything always goes as planned. Although it's usually possible to reverse it by erasing or starting over, sometimes it's most interesting and fulfilling to go with the flow and see where it takes you.