Accessing the website, you can see a photo of one of the hundreds (probably thousands) of participating artists by zooming in to various sections of the whole photo-mosaic. Along with the artwork, you can read about the artist and their artwork, what motivated them to draw it, what it represents to them, and also about their own personal connection to Vancouver, Canada. All the artists' names are searchable, which takes you directly to their artwork's location within the photo-mosaic! The photos in the online photo-mosaic will then be transformed into a physical printout creating a massive 6.5 foot by 72 foot long mosaic picture. As of early June 2018, there is still plenty of room for additional artists to participate. Once the project is completed, the organizer's goal is to exhibit the huge photo-mosaic print in art museums and galleries as well as publish books that feature many of the participating artists of this creative, collective art project. It's a very cool concept and I'm thrilled to be a part of it. For more information and to see The Big Picture yourself, visit: www.thebigpictureartproject.com. Here's what I wrote regarding my drawing: My original drawing, “Love Is All You Need” is graphite and lead on 9” x 9” paper. My artwork features hearts representing love, bold lines, and the illusion of mosaic tile as a visual language of fun, happiness and love. My artwork is about having fun and bringing a smile to people’s faces. I create an illusion of mosaic tile that provides cohesion to my body of work and serves to provide balance, repetition, movement, and other elements of strong artistic design. My drawing highlights the theme of Love for one another, for the arts community, and for humanity itself. I chose to participate in the Big Picture Art Project because of the unique parallels and close connection between the illusion of mosaic tile in my artwork and the beautiful photo-mosaic look of the completed picture. The mosaic in my drawing is reminiscent of an urban city map and speaks to my hope for the world to have more love and understanding for each and every unique person who makes up our diverse society. My connection to Vancouver: I visited Vancouver in August 2015 and had a great time in Gastown, walking the Sea Walk, taking photos near the beautifully designed Olympic Cauldron, and exploring the beauty of the area walking over the Capilano Suspension Bridge. I love how the photo in the Big Picture Art Project features the natural beauty of that area. I hope to visit Vancouver again in the future! 
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M.C. Escher was a skilled print-maker who produced amazing works of art that experimented with space and time, geometry, artistic composition, playing around with values in a drawing, capturing reflection, and so much more. This particular Escher exhibit is the first exhibition of its kind in a Boston museum featuring original prints and drawings. The exhibit consisted of over 50 of Escher's masterpieces, most of which were under-appreciated by the mainstream art world. I even learned that M.C. stands for Maurits Cornelis Escher. Escher loved Tessellations, arrangements on a two-dimensional surface of shapes that interlock without gaps or overlapping. The majority of Escher's prints are woodcuts, which he preferred for the art he was personally creating. In the artwork "Day and Night" shown above, Escher explores the balance between two dimensional and three dimensional forms. The black and white birds in his woodcut are flying in opposite directions, morphing into a landscape below. Escher plays with the ideas of symmetry and contrast. The right and left sides of the paper are mirror images of each other. The white birds appear over a nighttime landscape, and the black birds appear over a daytime landscape. For those interested: A Lithograph is printed from a flat surface, most often stone, where the artist would draw on stone with a greasy crayon. The stone after being treated so that the crayon will work with the printing ink on it and the stone surface is kept wet to repel the ink. A Woodcut is a relief print where the artist carves into a wooden block to create areas that are raised that will hold the ink that will be printed. A Linocut is a relief print made by gouging and cutting a piece of linoleum, then inking it, and printing it. Linocuts are preferred when printing flat areas of color since the linoleum has no grain as compared to wood. Some of Escher's works are Mezzotints, which is a labor intensive process, so Escher stopped doing it soon after starting it!
Shown here above, are two studies for "Drawing Hands" (shown below), completed around 1948 with graphite pencil. It's fascinating to see how these hands are drawing one another into existence. The two hands are in a never-ending state of drawing and appear to be bringing life to the other. On a technical note, it's very cool to see how Escher depicts the tendons and veins of the hand with only slight changes of value in light and dark. 
 Escher's work translated into album covers from the group Mott the Hoople in 1970 and later Ian Hunter's studio album in 1975.
In the Self-Portrait shown above, it's interesting to note that it is a very serious drawing that has a tremendous amount of detail in it. However, there are a lot of abstract elements in this Self-Portrait such as his wavy hair. Many of Escher's works of art focused on impossible structures. They are akin to optical illusions, where the buildings seem to violate the laws of gravity and physics.
The theme of Reflection appears often in Escher's work. Below the distorted perspective of a room is captured in the reflection of a silver sphere. And shown below, in "Eye" he captures the reflection of a skull.
 "Eye" (6 Progressive Proofs) Mezzotint and drypoint, 1946.  Detail showing the skull image of "Eye" (6 Progressive Proofs) Mezzotint and drypoint, 1946.  "Puddle" Color Woodcut, 1952.
The wall-sized mural/drawing depicts the word “plunder” in giant, curving strokes of Gregg shorthand, the stenographers’ tool that translates sounds into curving and bisecting lines. It is an abstract image for the many people who cannot read shorthand, yet is also a precise rendering of the word, “Plunder.” Lewis's work of art, called "Plunder" continues his ongoing investigations of the relationships between drawing, abstraction, and language. In a number of his previous artworks, he would feature sayings (in English lettering) from the book, "Life's Little Instruction Book."
If you take a close-up look at the wall drawing, you'll see his use of screws and graphite-dipped rubber bands to generate the large line drawing. There are 19,000 rubber bands, each dipped in graphite, the same mark-making material found in pencils, and each fastened by screws drilled into the wall. Lewis created “Plunder” over five days in October with the help of nine Brandeis undergraduate students. It's on view at the Rose Art Museum through June 10, 2018. for more information, please visit: www.brandeis.edu/rose |
