Express your inner world with mysterious techniques from surrealists

1. 1 Introduction: Hello. My name is Yvonne. I welcome to my new Skillshare class. I like drawing, traveling, walking into nature. I'm curious about our world and particularly about objects related to art. In this class, we will cover the topic of surrealism and all the uncanny things that it includes. I encourage you to be authentic and free because it's an opportunity to express something about your own unique inner world. Remember, this topic is just a base on which you can let your creativity flourish. You will be asked to create work that originates from your memories, your dreams, inner thoughts, and any situation that have impacted you. It's not an easy task to represent what you intrinsically feel, think, or experience, but I'm sure you will make full use of this challenge. I find that this process is interesting because it helps to represent our innermost thoughts. And this way, we can develop a better understanding of our minds and potentially consider changing some of our actions. And it could ultimately lead us to healing, feeling better in the long run. So we all have certain things we want to express, and it's even better if there is a surrealistic touch. During the duration of this class, you will learn a lot about surrealism, including the artists who take part of it and techniques that characterize it. So the surrealists are especially interested in the transformation of the reality. So some of them used psychedelics and were inspired by mentally ill people. But of course, I don't recommend that you take this avenue. These artists were interested in what lies beneath the surface of people mind. They study unusual behavior and are focused on learning about dreams and subconscious minds. So in this class, you will have the real opportunity to explore the mysterious side of you. And my aim is for you to produce something surreal with various exercises related to the subconscious and the psyche and other symbolic elements, you will create a wonderful piece of art. And I enjoy, especially this topic because it can be enigmatic, crazy and allows the invisible part of you to be revealed. But don't worry. We will go through this task step by step together, and I will help you to visually represent what you carry inside. So, let's get started. 2. 2 Plan of the class: As I mentioned before, in this class, we will dive into the surrealist movement. And Ari Micha said once that reality is divided into two realities, one panorama around our heads and one inside it. So here we will focus on the second panorama, what is inside our minds, inside in ourselves and free from the rational mind and the value of the society. So in order to achieve that goal or in other world to explore our inner world, the following will occur. I will first briefly explain what the surrealism movement is. We will then analyze a piece of work from a surrealist artist to understand what the characteristics of the surrealism movement are. Afterwards, I will show you the material and tell you what to gather for the class, photo, drawings, and text. I would encourage you to have a diary where you can record your thoughts and memories. Then we will look at a demonstration of the transfer techniques. You might need to understand this in order to transfer a photo or a drawing in your artwork. Next, I will show you how to create a surreal background. Then we explore the Rocha test. After this, we will begin with the four amazing exercises, and that's the class project related to the characteristics of surrealism. For example, I will ask you to create something surreal or include something that relates to your subconscious. And lastly, we will produce a final piece of art based on everything you have learned in the class. You will include at least one characteristic of each exercise to create your surreal inner house. Doesn't it sound amazing? I will be here to explain everything when we start these activities. You don't need any particular drawing skills or creative talent for this class. All you need is to be willing to access your mind and all the unusual sorts inside it. You will also need the desire to delve inside the inner part of yourself and to create something surreal. Don't be afraid to explore the mysterious side of you and accept what comes from it. And I will be here to guide you during all the steps. So about the class project, share it on the Skillshare website. It can be one of the four exercises or the final work with the inner house. Just take a photo of it and post it in the projects and resources section in the Skillshare website in your browser. Then additionally, at the end of each exercise, I will ask you to reflect on a specific point of the exercise. For example, what inspired you for your artwork or what do you think your work evoke to the reader? Then you can share it in the class under the discussion tab, and your answers could prompt an interesting topic among the class. 3. 3 The Surrealism Movement: Firstly, we will discuss about the surrealism movement, which followed the dataism. In 1923, started the movement included poets, writers, painters, and sinists. It ends at the conclusion of the Second World War. The main idea of the movement was to reconsider the fundamentals of a corrupt society. In the same manner as the datas, they distinguish themselves with dream like imagery, unusual images, and placed importance on the subconscious mind, a theory developed by Freud. Andre Breton who led the movement, encouraged the automatic writing, a process in which thoughts can be laid down freely on the paper. As we can see, surrealism distinguish itself from any rational ways of thinking. The artists inner world become the motif of the composition. And the universe represented is mysterious and out of ordinary. Here is a painting of CogaHowe and other painters like Rene Marguerite or Joan Miro belong to the movement. Without the rational mind dictating any control, surrealism believes that another superior reality exists. It is deeply revolutionary and rebellious because it tends to associate mismatched images in an unexpected way. It expresses in a poetic way what is invisible and unspeakable. You can see that many artists use collage techniques to express themselves. It's an interesting technique that aids in playing with contrasts like disproportionate compositions or unexpected connections. It helps to add a sense of humor, or you can also add text by sticking on headlines of the newspaper, for example. Another artist is Max Ernst, and I especially like his book, a week of Kindness. And in the next video, we will discuss about a piece of art that he created. 4. 4 Piece of Work Analysis: Here I want to break down a collage from Max Ernst, so you can see what constitutes a surrealist artwork. The first characteristic is the presence or a feeling of something strange or surreal in the artwork. We have various elements, but the image as a whole doesn't represent any concrete idea. The combination of texts, graphical elements, objects doesn't respond to the rules that we usually follow in a composition in a classical composition. So there is a non cluttered background with figures floating there and also an unusual composition perspective. And the universe refers to the dreams or the inner world. So the first characteristic is the presence of something strange, surreal or nonsense. The second characteristic is unrelated, the presence of unrelated elements in the same frame. So here, for example, we have a man in a car on the left, on the right, we have a machine with pulleys, and the third rectangle integrates enigmatic body. So the picture conveys to us a patchwork of various elements that don't always match together cold startling juxtapositions. And that's our second point. The third point is the dictation of thought or automatic writing. And as we can see, we have a paragraph included on each side of the picture. So with automatic writing, the artists want to access to their imagination. Here, the artist might have tried to convey to the viewer what his mind produced. So the third point is the dictation of thought. And lastly, our fourth point is the presence of the subconscious. So look at the repetition of rectangles. To me, it appears like screens, and this can refer to images we subconsciously have in our minds. The subconscious is like a movie of everything we keep in our minds. And we are not overly conscious of it, but it influences our thoughts and actions into our daily lives. So the last characteristic found in a surrealist artwork is the existence of the subconscious. In conclusion, with those four characteristics, the picture shows us a complete freedom of expression exempt from any constraints or rules. And the artist offers real, surreal and original way to enter in his inner world. So the key point of this piece of art analysis is firstly the aim of the artist to convey his inner world. Then there is a preeminent feeling of something surreal or a nonsense in the artwork, the presence of startling juxtapositions, the presence of dictated sorts, the presence of the subconscious. And what about you? What would your surrealist painting be? 5. 5 material: Here is everything that you need for this class, a bot of black ink or a Chinese stone, a brush, a notebook with plain pages, glue, small scissors, a black pencil, colored plant seals, a ruler, sheet of carbon paper. Moreover, you will need plenty of photos from books, magazines, or a free archive library. I find that the photos from books are usually more natural and authentic. Then you need to print them on your device or at the print shop nearby, and I find that to enlarge them or reduce them is even better. So I'm used to working with very small images, so I can build my own collage that fit inside my notebook. For example, I have an option in my printing device where I can create vignettes. So I have plenty of little photos I can use for my collage. And if you want, you can also use the collage. The photos I use for my collage in the resources of this class. Then as I told you, we will work with collage, and you can also incorporate drawings inside your artwork so you can transform the photos or also use color pencils to add colors. It's up to you. Then you can also get inspirations from books or movies because surrealistic ideas lies in many artworks. So have you heard about the movie Elephant Man from David Lynch? I'm sure you will find a way to convey your ideas in a surrealistic way. And finally, you will also need a transfer technique, for example, to incorporate a photo in your composition or also to make a new version of a drawing. We will see that in the next video. 6. 6 Transfer Technique: Now I will show you how to reuse a drawing and clean it up to create a neat outline. So the process is simple and it involves transferring your sketch with carbon paper, and here is what you will need. First, a sharpened pencil, then a sheet of carbon paper, a sheet of plain paper, and your drawing or a sketch. So the first step is to put your sheet of carbon paper on top of your plain paper with the side that has the motifs facing up. And then next, place your drawing on top of the carbon paper. Gently trace over the outline of your sketch with your pencil. And as you trace, you will see the drawing appearing on the plain paper beneath. So make sure you check often and ensure that you're tracing all part of your drawing. Once you've finished transferring your sketch, take a black pen and trace over the pencil outline you've transferred. And this will help you to create a bold, clean outline. And if you want, you can also add colors into your drawings, turning it into a fresh version of your original drawing. What's great about this technique is that it lets you place your drawing wherever you want in your artwork, giving you flexibility in your creative process. Feel free to use your black pencil to cover the part you want contrasted with shallows. You can create textures wherever you feel like. So here it is. I've duplicated this little monster, and it might come in handy for a future exercise. In the next video, I will give you some ideas about the background. 7. 7 Background Ideas: So here I will give you some ideas about the background that you might use for the further exercises. You can use a non cluttered background almost white, like we saw in the piece of art of Max Ernst previously, the one we analyzed. Or another possibility is to use the black ink, and maybe you saw me in another class. I used to take Chinese stone and make the black ink by myself. So if you have one, you can do the same or simply take a bottle of black ink instead if you don't have one. Then about the technique to sum up it quickly, firstly, put a few drops of water inside the Chinese Stone, then, put the stick of solid black ink inside the water, and by making circles, you create your own ink. Then you can test the ink on another sheet of paper to see if it has the right opacity. And now we will use this ink to create a surreal background with lines that give an impression of distortion of the space. So here is how I proceed. So once you have your ink ready, take your paper, your brush, and trace some lines and make variations on your paper to create an original background. Take the time to be relaxed and be mindful about the stream of your thoughts. You can also create an impression of depth into your landscape inside the background by making the lines in the foreground more spaced out and the ones in the background more grouped together. Then if you want, you can also play with textures and fill some of the shapes in between the lines with the black ink or adding more or less ink on your brush and create texture inside the shapes of your landscape. And one thing about the things that appear in the foreground are usually more contrasted than the one in the background. That's why my ink is blacker in the foreground than in the background. One more thing, I will use two elements that I will stick inside my background as an example for the further exercise. And then you can try to incorporate your elements a little bit more in the background by making some lines and around them. Another possibility is to create an abstract landscape by using your fingers. I dip my finger inside the black ink and then experiment the various shapes I can do with it. You can see it's a very relieving activity. Try it yourself and experiment the multiple effects you can do with your fingers. And finally, you can also take your watercolor pencils and create like colored clouds that blend into each other. And at the end, take a nice big brush and add water on your colors to make them blend into each other. 8. 8 The Rorschach test: I'm used to working with abstract shapes in my notebook, and it helps me to release my psychic surplus or to stimulate the subconscious. Have you heard about the Rochach tests? They were invented by the Swiss psychiatrist Herman Rocha. And in this way, you can analyze oneself by trying to guess the meaning of the abstract shapes. It's a way to tap into information from the subconscious and also it engaged your sensory abilities. I think it's a good preparatory exercise, and you can also use the shapes in the following exercises. All you need is a few sheets of paper and also a large paintbrush and black ink. So firstly, you create a shape and then you try to imagine what it means for you. So on the right side of your paper, you create a big shape, and then you fold your paper in two, and a symmetrical shape will appear. Then it's time to appeal to your imagination. 9. 9 Ex1 nonsense: So exercise one. In this class, we are trying to represent something surreal. In other words, the transformation of reality. Remember the challenge of this class. You want to express something about your inner thoughts. Being able to represent something surreal will help you to give visual form about your dreams and any other feelings you might have. The talented Dutch MC Escher took up this challenge to represent the reality in a complete new way with his stunning engravings and drawings, and by modifying the physician rules, he completely transform the reality, and another way to transform reality is to deform it. So how would you represent the reality in a complete new way? That's the purpose of this exercise to create a nonsense, something surreal, and it can be, for example, a dinosaur, tail on an eye, a pile of salad or a taxi in a desert, whatever. But those things are not really personal. So it's even better if you try to incorporate inside of your artwork something that you experienced, like something you read somewhere or something you heard. And then it will give a personal touch to your work, and it's much more meaningful. Now let's try the demonstration. So let me explain a situation that I recently experienced. I was close to a group of people and someone said something that was completely related to my situation. So I asked if what he was saying was related to the thoughts I was having. But he said it was something different. Sometimes people just don't want to share. So they pretend to not know. But I knew that it was exactly related to the feeling I had, but this person just didn't want to share it. It's like that in human relationship, we have a lot of misunderstanding or absurd so my idea here is to represent this nonsense, the confrontation of two words, two different minds, and maybe someone just want to make contact, and the other one just thinking about something else like food. I don't know. People are sometimes just not on the same wavelength. So here I gathered some photos, and I will do my artwork with those pictures. Start. So Let's try to represent this. Here, I will cut my first character, the one who doesn't want to answer, and then I have a series of portraits for my second character, and I will see which one will interact with the other in the best way. In fact, I realized that I could put more than one portrait on my paper so I can create different combination with the portraits, maybe left one in the corner. But then I realized that maybe I could even create shape. Which looks like a bigger face with all the portraits. I will put my portraits according to that shape and create also the mouth with the white spaces, the nose, and the eyes, if you know what I mean. Let's do that. So here is a trick to create something serial. For example, duplicate an element several times and it makes your ID crazier. Let's continue the face. Here I will draw the eyes with a pencil, black pencil and I will first draw my outline Now I'm thinking about the hair. I could maybe use waterfall to expose the hair. Here I have a waterfall I can cut. So another trick is to use your drawing skills to customize your collage. I told you that it's good to imagine a therapeutic outcome when you create your artwork. And for this one, it could be because this man wasn't answering to my question. I want to put maybe some slush instead of the legs. This is how I take my revenge. That's why an artwork is made for to express your feelings. Finally, I will cut and stick salads around the man because in French, we say when somebody tells some lies to tell salads. But in English, it's to spin the ya. It's an adaptation. So that's it. That's my idea. I realized it. So let's go to the next exercise. 10. 10 Ex2 startling juxtaposition: The second exercise involves the topic of startling juxtapositions. In the surrealist movement, we often see objects that are unrelated to each other. For example, in the painting of wiboru we see a dice in between human figures, which is quite unusual. We may not understand the meaning, but it had an element of mystery. And the writer Thomas Panchon wrote in his book, one could combine in the same frame elements not normally found together to produce logical and startling effects. Secondly, symbolic items can be used to create a startling juxta position. These are objects that carry strong meanings. They can be useful to represent your inner world or the subconscious. Examples of these symbolic items are the numbers, the sensory organs like the eyes, the nose, the mouth, animals, like a lion, a dragon, the elements, the fire, the water, the earth, metal, also an egg to represent the birth, a skull to represent the death or a clock to represent the time. And you can also use people as symbols like member of your families and think what you can put next to those symbols. But remember that you try to surprise the viewer and create an original piece of art. So to sum up in this exercise, we will create a startling juxta position with symbolic items, and don't forget to relate them to your inner world and also create a combination that challenged the reality. Think also about if those elements were represented existed together in a dream. And now let me demonstrate with an example. Here I have the paper and I printed a few photos that I might use for my startling juxtaposition. Composition, an assemblage of different items unrelated to each other. For example, this man, I want to use the river and also those Japanese girls maybe an egg. Then I will cut my various elements and see how I can place them on my paper and how they interact with each other. Also, be mindful about the instance in between the elements. So now I have this man with the mask and the egg, and I wonder where can I put the egg, for example, in the middle of my composition or in a corner, maybe at the beginning of the river. You see, there is a different meaning if I put my egg at the beginning of the river or at the end. Or if I put it next to the man, there is the dimension of storytelling inside those choices. Think about this and what you want to evoke through your artwork. And now I cut my Japanese girls, I'm thinking where we put them on the river, maybe in the middle or at the end, I will put them at the end because it's like they are in a transition and going slowly into the landscape that I draw afterwards, the landscape. Then I will position my egg somewhere around them. But I see that it's better if it's in the foreground as the egg is a little bit too big to be in the background, and it's like it evokes maybe the conversation they are having about babies. I could symbolize this. And the man, I will remove those parts of the hat and put it into the sky, maybe drawing a cloud on which he is floating, and this will symbolize a god observing the situation from above. Now I wonder how can I include something more in the image? For example, I have those mountains I could include in the background, or I also have a bunch of keys. I can include it in the foreground on the ground. And I have this man, but I find it a bit too morbid for the composition. And I have also those numbers, and maybe I will add the number 90 as it symbolized the number of days before the baby is born. And so I will continue my little story with those new elements. So now I think I arrive at the end of my demonstration. I would say less is more. And last advice for this piece of work, observe how the elements on your paper resonate with your inner word, what it evokes to you. And yeah, now it's your turn. 11. 11 Ex3 dictation of thoughts: French Andre Breton, leader of the surrealist movement, defined the dictation of thought like the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all moral preoccupation and aesthetic. So an example here with automatic drawing by Andre Masson, what we can notice is the repetition of lines, and it's the same movement again and again. So to me, it's a book like a stream of thoughts, good or bad that provides from us or others. And now I will demonstrate next. The dictate of thought is related to automatism. So as a warm up exercise, I suggest that you take a pen or a brush and some black ink, and then you can draw some shapes or more like repetition of a shape. Like, let's do this shape again and again. One, two, three, four, and so on and so on. And try to fill your page with this shape. And as you do the exercise, you can also observe your thoughts and be mindful of what is happening in your mind. Now, for the main exercise, the first exercise, you can use something you wrote in your diary or recall a memory. In my case, I will start from voices I can hear sometimes in my head. However, not very pleasurable. It says, hurry up, hurry up, and so here I will use my drawings to include on my page, and I will also make transfer techniques and my advice for this exercise is to use your own drawings to make your piece of art like it is your own. I had the idea of a spiral as I was carried away in a whirlpool. As I was thinking about the idea of the spiral, I saw a snail with the spiral on the shell. So I thought maybe I could use a picture of a snail for my work. And in addition, it will add a contrast with the words hurry up. The first step is to transfer your spiral of the snail on your paper. So you put the carbon paper first and the photo above it. Then you press on the spiral and be careful that your photo is centered or the subject is in the middle or where you want to have it in your page. And then you press on the spiral. So here I made drawings in my notebook first, and then I transferred them in another sheet of paper with the carbon paper to have the outline clean and at. And now, as you can see, I draw with the black ink on the outline to have it more like a real drawing. And I wanted two figures who are screaming like hurry up, and the other one is a bit more ashamed. And I wanted also two other drawings who are listening, people listening. So one is putting his hands on the ears, and the other one has a gun in his eyes like he feels a lot of pressure. So I told you you can be authentic about what you feel and how you want to express it. And at the end, there is always a possibility that you can represent in your artwork. But now we will start to transfer those figures inside. The composition. At this point, I really don't know how it will end up, but just try out something and it doesn't matter if it looks a bit weird. The most important is that you experiment something, and the point is to practice the dictation of thought, which is the absence of all control exercised by reason. So you can release any control you have in your mind and just repeat the figures wherever you want. Those who are screaming around the whirlpool, and then those who are listening are in the spiral like they are carried away. So this is my idea. And now the thing is to not think and just copy the figures everywhere on the page. And now I have another idea. I will make the copy the faces with sometimes omitting elements, and like they are fading away, like the voices disappearing little by little. So now I'm in the middle of my artwork and I made the figures disappearing in the page. I'm thinking about something else. I came up with the idea to include the mentally ill people dimension like this craziness inside my figures. Maybe I can add some figures like the overlapping each other or some of them don't have every element or I cut one phase and just put the half of it, or it might be cut in the middle, just to include the deformation of the pace. Now I'm quite satisfied with the composition and all the movement of the figures. This kind of mix of faces with different expressions and attitudes. So I will continue with the text. Hurry up. So I simply have to write the letters on a piece of paper, and then copy it inside my page with the cap on paper. Let's go. Something like that. Now I would like to ink the outline, the blue outline in black, maybe not everywhere, but at least a few figures. Now I'm thinking, how should I end this artwork? Should I add colors or let it as it is? I told you that it's good to include a solution to the problematic. Like, how can I overcome this stress or this pressure apart from creating art. So my idea is that I could include a rainbow in the lower right corner like the snail is going to colorful path. And that's it. So I hope you enjoyed it. See you in the next video for the exercise about the subconscious, but now it's your turn, so practice this exercise. 12. 12 Ex4 The subconscious: In intro, I told you that we will explore the mysterious part of us and subconscious has everything we need to express something weird. Imagine an iceberg and the subconscious is the part under the water, and our conscious mind is everything that is above the surface. So it is made a lot of memories and experiences, family patterns. Um, in our daily life, our habits and behaviors are strongly influenced by the subconscious. But it's quite hard to say by what exactly. It can be fears, expectations, and beliefs. I know this is quite strong and difficult topic, but let's give a chance to our invisible part to be expressed. Maybe you want to sit quietly and listen what is within you. A work that I really like is LsqaTs de la memoir by Rene Magritte, and it's completely serial and you can imagine whatever you want. For this exercise, my idea is to represent a relationship between someone and woman. So I want to represent the ambiguity of oneself identity regarding this relationship. And for this, I want to represent a man with two faces, and one has a different expression regarding the person he is looking at, and I will use screens on my paper to represent what in a way, is inside the man the man's mind. So here is the material I will use for this exercise. I have, for example, the man here, and then I will add another face, probably a vampire or something bad on the right side, facing the right woman with a bad face, I will transform, probably this woman with an angry face, and then I will add on the left another face much happier. Maybe this one. And then I will use this for the screens, one on the left and one on the right. And also, I could use this happy face, maybe or some images of, like, Buddhas to express the reconciliation between the man and the woman. Or also I have flowers. So I will seal. Let's start now with the first step. So starting from my blank page, I will add first the screen in the middle of it with the carbon paper under my photo, and then I will use a pencil to press on the photo. So here I will use this rectangle, for instance, and also this rectangle for the second screen. Then I will put the man in the middle and I will put the woman with a nice expression on the right, probably. So I want this woman fit in the rectangle. So I will also transfer this rectangle on the woman's face like this. So I know now that I can use put the rectangle on the previous one and then transfer my woman's face on the paper. Then I will also put the woman on the left, and afterwards, the man in the center. Now I want the man look at an angry woman. I will add the strokes on this face to make her angry. I will also add maybe a vampire or something bad on the face of the guy on the left, looking at the angry woman and on the right, I will add the happy face facing at the nice woman. You can always look at a picture of an angry woman if you want to copy the facial expression of her and include it into your drawing. Well, actually, it doesn't look like vampire as I expected, but I can deal with that. And it's always in the topic of surrealism. So let's try to continue with even if this accident happened. So now I will maybe take this picture of a monster and try to transfer it maybe a little bit above Well, now the man looks a little bit like nothing and there is even no head. I will try to compose a new character, new body, and it's part of my main aim, which is to express the ambiguity of someone's identity. I will try to even if it's a little bit completely deformation of the someone, I will try to draw a head and maybe a nose mixing those both expressions. One is happy on the right, and the monster on the left with this vampire and maybe angry expression on the left. Here I finished the monster in the middle with this mix of different facial expressions. You can still see the happy face on the right. But here my tips would be take the time to make a break and think about what you are doing. So we let the space for new ideas to come and to process what you have done and also see where you want to go afterwards and take new decisions. Here I see that I have a little bit unbalanced composition. On the left, there are still some white space. But that's perfect because I told you I want to add some elements of wisdom on the left to symbolize the reconciliation, maybe a Buddha or flower, something like that. I'm thinking also about adding colors because the faith is not completely clear on the monster and maybe also on the woman, I will add colors. Let's do that. So this is an example of how you can express your subconscious, and now it's your turn. I still want to include something in the background like colourful colorful background. So I need to transfer the shape I want to include in my drawing like this. 13. 13 Final project your inner house: Here we will work from our inner world, and our inner world is amazing because it's constantly alive and operating. So how to represent your inner state? We all have inner house with the people we carry inside, or it can have different levels with stairs, doors and windows. It includes also the different projects you are working on or your dreams. It's like containers old or new that you are rearranging all the time. There is a place for your friends, a place for your work, a place for your future. For instance, certain things that you want to achieve are far away and others within reach. You just have to grab them. Your inner world can also include your moods that you can represent with colors. It can also include the paths that you take in your mind like patterns or habits. And what about the dysfunctional parts that impact the other spheres? When I create collage, I like to clarify what I want my house to look like or consist of. And again, be honest with yourself and let your imagination lead your work. Express yourself exactly how you want to express, whether it may be enigmatic, sad, or joyful, and you now have several tools to represent what is happening intrinsically and in a serial way. Like for example, you know what the startling juxtapositions are and use what you have learned in the previous exercises like the subconscious or a nonsense and combine them to form a larger piece of work. Choose at least one from each category and create a surreal artwork that combine all of them. Let's start the demonstration for the exercise about your inner house. Before you start the exercise, I suggest that you practice a warm up exercise of 10 minutes where you just draw some shapes and lines on a sheet of paper with ink or pencil. So it allows you to get rid of all your bad things inside and maybe you have more space than to do the exercise. Now I will create a list with everything I'm thinking about for my inner house. For example, I want to include monsters, or I want to include happy dancer. I want to include a machine which represent a work or a wheel. I want to represent something of my childhood. Here, I printed already photos here are spiders, here are photos of interior. And here I have my doors open and locked. So I suggest that if there are too many things, you just select something about your childhood, something about your dreams, something about your relationships, something about your subconscious, something which you can't achieve in your life or something that you feel at the moment and so on and so on. But the thing important is your background of your inner house. Here I have, for example, this combination of photos. And that will be the structure of my inner house, and then I will include all the elements I want inside. What I will do at first is to transfer this background in my page. I put carbon paper under the photo and then I will press on every element I want to include in my page. For example, I know I want this wall and this door So here you will see I already have kind of perspective, and I will continue to transfer the stairs and the other elements I want. So now I finished the transfer, and you see it looks like a structure for the background. The first D I want to create is a door open, and behind this door, there is a dream. So something I want to achieve. Firstly, I will cut this door and then stick the image of the dream behind it or inside the open door. And I will include it, for example, here in this corner. So let's do that. And now, so here you have the first element in the house, and then I have the D with a wall and a girl. So it's always like an obstacle to reach a girl. So that's what I want to represent in my house to start with the most important ideas and good ideas that you have. And now I will continue with the machine and I will put it in the cave. You see that I put the woman at a higher level like it's something hard to reach for some people. So now the work is something more at the bottom. I also want to include a lock on the door here. To represent everything that I still can't do, but maybe I would find the keys in the future to open those things. And now I want to add happy dancer at the top of those stairs. It's like a dream or something that will make me really happy if I can achieve that. But, of course, those goals are really, hard to achieve or maybe there are fears on the path. So I will also add a spider on the stairs. Now I'm thinking that if I'm brave enough to reach those stairs, I could go to a very beautiful place like a flower field, and I will include that next to the happy dancer and draw a path that leads to it. I also would like to include a little boy for the guy inside me, which is still unhappy about certain things, but who is who deserve attention. And just to remind me that I have to take care of my inner boy. You see that this process really helps you to articulate what live inside you, and in a way, it helps to visualize how things are composed inside you and how they interact in between each other. I also want to include a little lost shoes next to the boy, and it's kind of a symbolic item which represent the lost. And I will continue with my collage also, including somebody screaming because the things don't really happen always as we want. And I will also include a temple, which is a place where I can feel peaceful, or I will include my it charm something that makes me feel confident and so on and so on. So build your own world until that it makes you feel like it's your own. So little by little, my drawing is being completed, but I still have some spaces here and there, uncomplete. Like here, there is an empty room. Here is an unconnected part. I don't know how I will manage that. And you can see that there are different part of my life that are connected with the part of the artwork. Like this world is related to positive things. So I will include the color. In the background, I will use the transfer technique to see where I have to cut my photo, my drawing so it will fit in the background. And then I have also this wall, and this is more like the wall where the darkest part of myself, maybe there is a dog barking, and I will also transfer this photo inside this wall. So let's start with that for now. And don't forget to make your artwork surreal. So include something weird or something you have seen during the previous exercises, like, related to your subconscious or the startling juxtapositions. So for example, I would add in this empty room a dicon like a radish. I don't know why maybe it's funny. And finally, do you remember the work that we analyzed at the beginning of the class or in the middle about Max ends with the squares, the rectangles, which could represent the different subconscious movies that happened in our mind? So I want to include this in my final empty space. So I will copy those shapes to include what matter the most in my life. So I would try to include a happy face, a machine producing something very, very precious and valuable. Also, I want to include the flowers and also somebody playing music. So let's try to add that for the last step. Finally, I will trace some perspective lines, and I hope you enjoy this exercise. Read the instructions, now it's your turn. 14. 14 Conclusion: You take up the challenge to step away from traditional representation? Could you take up the challenge to represent something surreal? Learning about surrealism was one of the goals, but to be free from the rational mind was another assignment. I really hope you had the opportunity to explore to express the unusual thoughts that are also part of you. Now you know what a startling juxta position is. You can represent nonsense, stimulate your subconscious, and practice automatic drawing. You explore what was present in your life, and consequently, you've created your unique inner house. So by being authentic, you can make your work personal and true and maybe you can touch someone else with it. So I hope you included the mysterious part of you also inside your inner house. Furthermore, if you haven't done it yet, please share your work, one of your works in the project and resources section of this class. Also, the answers about the question asking you at the end of each exercises. And if you have a comment or you want to ask a question, please do it in the discussion tab of this class. It was a real pleasure to discover this topic of surrealism and to share it to you. I really hope you enjoyed it and see you in another class. Bye bye.