Woodcut

For these 3 weeks I am doing woodblock with Sercan. As my take on the brief is very personal, I wanted the image itself to be personal so I drew a comic book style self portrait. I was thinking about how I felt when I did make a mistake in my words, and I almost felt as if I was being choked. I then drew an image of a mans muscely hand coming in from the right hand side and choking me. Even though I really liked the image, It would confuse others as it didnt emphasis the meaning of image. I then drew in some lichtenstein-like "pop" word bubbles, with words like my stutters. So for when I got a mental block i chose to put in a silence - "..." and when I stuttered I just put in fragmented words - "ch-ch-ch". I decided that this picture was still quite dark with the choking hand and the scared expression. I decided to think about what I'm scared about in relation to my speech. I'm very very scared of public speaking and speaking in social situations. This idea also ties in nicely with the protest title as public speaking would be a big part of this. I then replaced the image of the hand with myself clutching a microphone with the terrified expression on my face. Im using 5 colours in this woodcut (including black and white) using a light blue, a dark blue and a deep red.

Protest and Humour

We got the 2 projects titles last week - "Protest" and "Humour", we must pick one however we can combine them if we want. I think I will be picking the title "Protest". I began to do a mindmap, wanting my project to be a personal one as the last one I did was rather general.
I grew up with many speech impediments when I was younger. I had a lisp, stutter, couldn't pronouce "ch"'s, couldnt pronouce "p"'s, got stuck on words,i.e, I got a mental block in which I would have to change words around in my head before I could say them out loud. I went to speech therapy for many years and successfully managed to get rid of my lisp and the most part of my stutter. I can now pronouce "ch's" and "p's". However I still have the odd stutter and, experience a mental block at least once a day. As a result, I am not that confident speaking out loud with people who I dont know that well at all. I also get embarrassed and ashamed rather easily when someone comments on my speech.
Thats where I bring in the theme protest. Its feels as if my body is in protest against my mind. I can say anything I want in my mind but somehow my body restricts me..