Drawing Machines: Machine Image

Work Title: Cute Red Disasters

Describe your object: This is a scan of a book of Goya prints, a Japanese postcard, two kinds of bubble wrap, a lip liner, a pencil, two one dollar bills, and two plastic babies. The scanner settings were not altered to create this image, and the photo has not been edited.

Describe your motivation for making this object: I wanted to create depth by layering objects, and I tried to use a mix of similar and different objects to create visual interest. I thought that the juxtaposition of the Goya book with the cute illustration on the postcard would be funny.

Describe your process: 

I lay down the paper elements, being careful to interweave the pink bubble wrap between layers. I looked in my wallet and book bag and added the money and pencil because I thought that the image needed more elements, and I asked my friend Ari to borrow her lip pencil, because I thought it had an interesting form and color. I lay a clear plastic bag over all the objects I wanted to scan, to create a more dynamic backdrop.

What does this project mean to you?

Most of the objects I used in this piece were borrowed from my friends, so I like this image as an example of my ability to use things that other people have given me to create something new and interesting. I think that this was one of my most successful straight scanning projects, where I didn’t edit the color settings on the scanner. This work made me realize that I had a pretty firm grasp on the technical qualities of the scanner, and led me to experiment more with nontraditional ways to use the machine.

Author: Simon Darrow