Stargazer

I've been going through my quotes book and one of the circus tents that stuck out to me so much in the beginning was the Stargazer, a tent that contains a ride that allows the viewer to watch the starry sky unobstructed:

'Walls are covered in diagrams, white spots and lines of black paper, framed maps of constellations... top of the stairs they reach a black platform, where everything is endlessly dark save for a circus worker in a white suit who is guiding patrons inside...something like a sleigh or a carriage...tilts backward so they are looking up instead of forward... gentle swaying of the carriage makes him feel almost weightless...incredibly quiet... star- speckled sky.'

The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

www.space.com

Therefore I started gathering research on constellations and stars, looking into the history and types of stars that exist. I was fascinated by the lines that form the constellations as to me they don't particularly look like the imagery they are referenced to but I like the geometric shapes that they form and the possibility of layering and mixing up those shapes. 

I began by experimenting with creating stars on paper by splattering and dotting white ink on black paper with a variety of tools and techniques such as skewers and paintbrushes and using them in different ways. I explored recreating the constellations with stitching and in animal shapes to bring in a sense of magic to the paintings. When I think of the stargazer I imagine it to be like lying on my back and looking up at the sky so I cut my ink experiments into circular shapes and I'm really happy with the outcomes; they are quite simplistic but I like the freedom in my mark making when using thread and ink in such a sporadic way. 

Stitching experiment 1

Ink animals experiment

Stitching experiment 2

To develop these I want to experiment with layering them up and printing them on different materials such as tracing paper and acetate to see how the quality of tone and surface change the feeling of the images.