Myth in Images Graphic Interpretation Poster
This graphic interpretation abstracts the small snapshot of the story Ovid, Metamorphoses - Latin Epic C1st BC - C1st AD when the nymph Lotis who, when fleeing from Priapus, was changed into a lotus tree. Following this event, Dryope wanted to give some of these blossoms of the tree to her baby to play with, but when she picked one the tree started to tremble and bleed. She tried to run away, but the blood of the tree had touched her skin and she found her feet rooted to the spot. She slowly began to turn into a black poplar, the bark spreading up her legs from the earth, but just before the woody stiffness finally reached her throat and as her arms began sprouting twigs, her husband Andraemon heard her cries and came to her rescue.
I wanted to directly reflect this moment quoted from Metamorphoses “There is a lake in Oikhalia whose shelving sides had shaped a sloping shore, and myrtles crowned the ridge. There Dryope had come, not dreaming of fate’s design, and, what must make you more indignant, bringing garlands for the Nymphae . . . Near the lakeside was a water-lotus flowered, its crimson blooms and fair hope of fruit to come.” The graphic mosaic uses light and pale colors, ranging from a mute pink to a rich purple-blue. The colors come in a wide array and are scattered according to seeing this scene as if your eyes are blurred and you’ve stepped far back. Imagine when you try to remember a dream you once had… you mainly only see colors that blotch together in a scene of running mixture. This is what I wanted to portray in a mosaic style to reflect the phrase “dreaming of fate’s design”, displaying the use of interpreting how one might remember a dream. I chose to use a pair of one mute pink shape and one darker pink shape to reflect one of the water-lotus flowers that floated in the space between shore and water. Though the passage mentions “crimson,” I wanted to show the youth in the plant with a more muted palette due to the use of the phrase “fair hope of fruit to come.” The gradient of pale greens and mute blues intersecting reflect the meeting of water and land, mainly resting on the limbo of the two that is the shore where the water-lotus flowers float.
Initially, I began with the idea of using watercolor on paper to reflect the interchanging gradients of color that I wanted to portray. This didn’t end well, for watercolor goes nowhere you want it to and everywhere you don’t want it to so the “mosaic” effect I was looking for wasn’t interpreted as so. Finally deciding to move onto a graphic version, I began by creating a two-toned pattern of triangles that were all the same shape and size to fill the entire artboard in Illustrator. I also created another artboard with triangles that were more jagged and not alike in anyway to see if I could portray the same gradient of color change and contrast as if I were using all the same size shapes to reflect the scene of Metamorphoses. After considering the effect of each graphic mosaic: one with jagged pieces of no familiar size and one with symmetrical, same-size pieces, I decided to move forward with the symmetrical version. The version of the graphic mosaic that used jagged pieces reflected a more accurate version of what a physical mosaic made from glass would look like, however it was distracting from the use of colors, which I felt like was the most important part of the piece that portrayed the scene more closely.
Moving forward, as I began to put the final touches on the color choice in my mosaic graphic, I wondered how I thought the reflection of a myth should be presented. This is what led me to my final idea to make the graphic into a poster that contained my reflection directly on the piece itself. As I read and re-read this myth of Metamorphoses when the nymph Dryope is changed into a lotus tree, it began replaying in my head and I began to see it as a performance on stage that was, of course, in need of a graphic poster to display the upcoming event. This was the final idea to display the work as if the scene had it’s very own performance coming up, ready to go on stage.
In conclusion, I wanted to transfer the colors and images that formed in my head when reading this myth onto paper so that I could display the beauty that I saw in this captured scene to an audience. I believe the image is successful as a graphic element alone and as a poster used for this “made-up” performance by the nymph who was made to change into a lotus tree and Dryope who came across her flowers.
I wanted to directly reflect this moment quoted from Metamorphoses “There is a lake in Oikhalia whose shelving sides had shaped a sloping shore, and myrtles crowned the ridge. There Dryope had come, not dreaming of fate’s design, and, what must make you more indignant, bringing garlands for the Nymphae . . . Near the lakeside was a water-lotus flowered, its crimson blooms and fair hope of fruit to come.” The graphic mosaic uses light and pale colors, ranging from a mute pink to a rich purple-blue. The colors come in a wide array and are scattered according to seeing this scene as if your eyes are blurred and you’ve stepped far back. Imagine when you try to remember a dream you once had… you mainly only see colors that blotch together in a scene of running mixture. This is what I wanted to portray in a mosaic style to reflect the phrase “dreaming of fate’s design”, displaying the use of interpreting how one might remember a dream. I chose to use a pair of one mute pink shape and one darker pink shape to reflect one of the water-lotus flowers that floated in the space between shore and water. Though the passage mentions “crimson,” I wanted to show the youth in the plant with a more muted palette due to the use of the phrase “fair hope of fruit to come.” The gradient of pale greens and mute blues intersecting reflect the meeting of water and land, mainly resting on the limbo of the two that is the shore where the water-lotus flowers float.
Initially, I began with the idea of using watercolor on paper to reflect the interchanging gradients of color that I wanted to portray. This didn’t end well, for watercolor goes nowhere you want it to and everywhere you don’t want it to so the “mosaic” effect I was looking for wasn’t interpreted as so. Finally deciding to move onto a graphic version, I began by creating a two-toned pattern of triangles that were all the same shape and size to fill the entire artboard in Illustrator. I also created another artboard with triangles that were more jagged and not alike in anyway to see if I could portray the same gradient of color change and contrast as if I were using all the same size shapes to reflect the scene of Metamorphoses. After considering the effect of each graphic mosaic: one with jagged pieces of no familiar size and one with symmetrical, same-size pieces, I decided to move forward with the symmetrical version. The version of the graphic mosaic that used jagged pieces reflected a more accurate version of what a physical mosaic made from glass would look like, however it was distracting from the use of colors, which I felt like was the most important part of the piece that portrayed the scene more closely.
Moving forward, as I began to put the final touches on the color choice in my mosaic graphic, I wondered how I thought the reflection of a myth should be presented. This is what led me to my final idea to make the graphic into a poster that contained my reflection directly on the piece itself. As I read and re-read this myth of Metamorphoses when the nymph Dryope is changed into a lotus tree, it began replaying in my head and I began to see it as a performance on stage that was, of course, in need of a graphic poster to display the upcoming event. This was the final idea to display the work as if the scene had it’s very own performance coming up, ready to go on stage.
In conclusion, I wanted to transfer the colors and images that formed in my head when reading this myth onto paper so that I could display the beauty that I saw in this captured scene to an audience. I believe the image is successful as a graphic element alone and as a poster used for this “made-up” performance by the nymph who was made to change into a lotus tree and Dryope who came across her flowers.
