I realized that I have so many sketches that it would take me years to post them all here at the rate of one per week. So, I decided to post a sketch twice a week instead- to speed this up a little. At this rate it will only take me 10 years! One sketch will be posted every Monday and the another one two days later-every Thursday.This is a concept sketch for a Dorian Gray doll. I made it quite a while ago and have yet to start working on the project. Although I love Oscar Wilde's style of character development, I am ambivalent about the book itself. Ultimately I enjoyed it, but I thought it was missing something and I can't quite put my finger on that elusive something. *SPOILER ALERT*Perhaps it was the fact that I could not fully comprehend why Dorian was condemned as a horrible human being. Yeah, sure he ends up murdering somebody, but that doesn't happen until the end of the book while he is regarded as an indecent and a corrupted man all throughout. His great sins seem to consist of being an ever-young and immortal, drop-dead-gorgeous, charming hedonist who enjoyed money, sex and recreational drugs. Oooooooo! Big deal! Who doesn't?!I think the meaning of the book lays in the times and the social context of its inception. Today, many of the puritan social attitudes of the Victorian era have become irrelevant and extinct. Dorian's behavior may have been considered scandalous then, but has since been normalized. He was made into a monster, for acting like a human. True, he was not the best human being around. He was a vein, arrogant, narcissistic, heartless and inconsiderate- but that describes the majority of young people. Many of us tend to grow out of it. Dorian was an immortal stuck in eternal youth: In constant pursuit of new sensations and pleasures with no fear of consequences, aging or death - how lucky for him. Frankly, I'm jealous.*END OF SPOILERS*The Picture of Dorian Gray is a multi layered book and perhaps the reason I thought that something was missing from it is because I felt like it approached these really heavy and complex philosophical questions of life, death and humanity in a very light, simplified almost playful tone. But now that I think about it: why not? They have no concrete answers, why not play with them? On the surface the book definitely felt more entertaining than insightful, but it did make me think a lot afterward. I'm still thinking about it. And that's what makes a good book in my opinion.The sketch in the lower left corner has nothing to do with Dorian Gray.It's quick drawing of a vivid scene from a terrifying, erotic nightmare I had one night, about being tortured with scissors by a attractive man, who kind of resembled a young Benicio del Toro. I swear I've never felt anything more painful in my life than when he cut my thigh with slow, deliberate strokes. The pain was so real. I actually woke up weeping and choking. The strange thing is that I'm not that into sadomasochism, maybe just a little, but that dream experience was very....exciting.I have pretty awesome dreams. I've been wanting to start a big project of painting scenes from my dreams, but i don't even have time to sketch them down daily. Oh, how I need more time!
ENCHANTED DOLL Marina Bychkova