Becomings
The Last Drop
The Last Drop is the first work in my collection Becomings and the main cause of its creation.
Becomings is a home for works that exist in a state that can sustain incompleteness and error, without pressure or promise of being finished but allowing their evolution to developed works and beyond. This artwork contains all the saved files I made of different phases in the process of creation so far. Each can be set as the display state of the artwork.
This piece started with the thought of just drawing something from observation, an everyday object. I picked up my coffee mug. Since I had recently started on ADHD medication I had to pay attention to the consumption of caffeine and this became intertwined in the work. In digital drawings I mostly work in black and white, but I had been considering doing more works with color. I did some experiments and was thinking of ways to justify that transition.
As I worked on the color, I remembered the mug as beautiful object it is, and how essential the color it is to it. It was also a nostalgic memory from my childhood, my favourite mug, that I had later spent some time acquiring. As usual to my drawings they evolve in the process organically, sometimes with more thought and sometimes with a feeling. The pills came to be part of the image for brief time, but I figured it was too much. I left their color to live symbolically in the background and kept working on the whole. I should say that, I usually stick to Windows Paint with my drawings as it works best for me, when it comes to adjusting things like colors I will use Photoshop.
After a point I was trying to make a deadline to submit this piece, and realizing it needed more time. I left it for over a month. I opened it later just to take a look. I felt detached from the drawing and could see it more objectively. There were many flaws I could correct, but I was not ready to work on it at that time. The finish line was near but not near enough. I reflected on that, connecting many ideas I had been introduced lately. It came to me that this work could also exist incomplete in a state of becoming. As we are.