For this Website Wednesday I had decided to step back from working on the chair sculptures (1 chair left to work on ) and start the drawing portion of my BFA show called color connections. I decided to start off the portrait series by working on Fran Drescher first. Fran Drescher as you may remember from my previous website Wednesday posts, is in refference to the green sculptural chair I based it off of. For this portrait I had sstarted with going through google to find the most beautiful and accurate photograph that represented Fran Drescher as “the Nanny” in her hit TV show The Nanny. I specifically had wanted to refference Fran Drescher from the Nany specifically because that was when I had first discovered who Fran Drescher was as a young child. The Nanny Tv show would come on every night on Nick at Night TV; I knew this because I often suffered from insomnia and would have a hard time falling asleep.So every night I would get into bed ready to watch the show. Her comedy antics and big haired fashion was very intriguing to watch and often remember it as if watching a drama filled soap opera show staring a funny looking barbie doll due to her slender figure, big hair, sharp comedy and running around desperately to try to marry her boss whilst taking care of his children in New York within the TV show. This was a great memory I often think back to with fond memories as an important shifting point in my life where I recognized that I too need a bit of comedy in my life and to not take thing so seriously.
All lighthearted comedy aside, I began the process of the drawn portrait by projecting the desired image on to the hand dyed paper I had created prior to the drawing. from there I then began tracing the image onto the page. After the tracing was complete I then turned off the projector to modify the drawing by fixing anything I felt needed rearranging like her hair for example. Her hair I had to make slightly shorter to make sure it fit on the page but I drew in the differences by hand to make sure it was seamless. In addition I also added my own twist to the imagery such as in the original photo of Fran, it shows her in a all black off the shoulder top, I changed this to a green gingham to relate more towards the selected patterns of another outfit she wore as well as the green gingham of my chair.
