Pandora’s Head and Artistic Licence

Posted by on Nov 12, 2018 | No Comments

Pandora’s head is not here.

Pandora's head

Yet.

In my latest video (below), I finally give Pandora the head she deserves. She’s been waiting over a decade.

You may know that I often go out sketching and end up with unfinished drawings. This can be for a multitude of reasons; the person I’m drawing inconsiderately decides to leave, or I simply need to run away because they’ve finally found me. Regardless, I end up completing the sketches much later, usually after I’ve forgotten about them.

This often allows me to attack them with fresh eyes, and new perspectives.

Ignorance is bliss before

Before

Ignorance is bliss after

After

Are you getting at something here?

When we are creating anything for ourselves, for our own enjoyment, we have artistic licence. That essentially means you can give a man tentacle arms if you want. Rules don’t control us, not any more.

Ol' tentacle arms

Tentacle arms is an obvious example of artistic licence, because I’m yet to witness a successful octoplasty in real life. The science just isn’t there yet. But artistic licence can be used in more subtle ways.

An example would be drawing a scene of a building that has no people in it, and deciding to add people to give it a story or some warmth. Or maybe deciding to add shadow to a scene you’re painting which is completely different to the shadow in the real scene in front of you. Why? Because it might make a better picture.

Lady standing in Water

Was there an umbrella and torrential rain, or did she leave before I could finish her feet?

You can choose to paint the picture as it is or you can choose not to. Some people like to replicate what they’re painting or drawing as close to reality as possible because they might see virtue in presenting it exactly as it was. Others might alter that representation of reality because they think the end result would be better. Neither is right or wrong. Just know that you’re probably not going to go to prison if what you’re portraying isn’t perfect or exactly as it is in reality. You have the licence.

New nose

Was he looking at an iPad or looking into a mirror at his new nose?

Back to Pandora

So here I am completing Pandora over a decade later. I don’t have the original source I drew it from so I am using, you guessed it, artistic licence. Enjoy…

As always I’d love to hear from you. Have any thoughts or questions? Let me know in the comments!

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