Embrace the Mistake.

Plan for Mural

In a recent radio broadcast I heard that Islamic weavers would create a deliberate mistake in the patterns on their elaborate rugs, because, ‘Only God is Perfect.’

What I enjoy in looking at sketches, preliminary drawings and plans is the corrections; things altered, moved, changed in colour or scale with traces of the original supplanted by the new. Working on paper I can literally cut and paste, rub out , paint over without having to  create a perfect product. These alterations or corrections become an integral part of the finished drawing, they are no longer mistakes but are embraced in the finished work.

In the picture above I present alternative colour schemes for both background and for the figures themselves. Other alternatives are presented below as colour patches as in paint supply catalogues.

In offering alternative colours for the figure I am also examining how the presentation of black people is manipulated in the media to add interest or bias to stories