Sequential Drawing

MELTING CANDLE

Reasoning:

In the olden days before the invention of clocks, people use burning candle to represent time taken for a certain activity. The burning candle is left with nothing, which is a strong visual representation of an end over a period of time.

Inspiration:

Inspired by the concept of deduction/subtraction of an object to represent consumption over time.

Technique:

Sequence drawing technique
Graphite pencil on white paper
Contour drawing is drawn heavier on a clean sheet for tracing the outline of the candle on the next page

Process:

Developing from the previous drawing exercise, this drawing continued to explore the concept of time using a representation of an object being consumed over time. The imaginative image included a burning candle in four critical stages (i.e., A new candle just got lit up → a melting candle → a candle which is almost burnt → a finished candle).

To be able to keep consistency of the shape of the original candle, the contour outline was drawn heavier on the paper, which left a trail behind the page to trace off. By tracing the image it also gives consistency of the size and shape of the candle, so that the changes in the melting candle become more obvious without distractions of other variations.

Reflection:

This is a process sketch to illustrate the process over time. One thing that I have learnt is that the number of images might have an effect on the perception of time taken to burn a candle. For example, viewer may perceive the process being slower if the sequence drawings were drawn in more frames with little changes by little from the previous candle, compared to the one with four critical frames. This is a more time consuming sketching process but is worth testing to explore the different effects.

Another learning was the importance of consistency across the sequence drawings of the same object. For the message and highlighted message to stand out of the image, other variations of objects in sequence drawings should be reduced. For example, if the candles were in different in width or shape, it would create confusion for the viewer to wonder if they were different candles instead of the same candle burning over time. The message of “time” would be weaker compares to the one that is drawn with consistency.