The Phases of a Tortured Heart

The theme of my creative project is “secrets and their consequences.” I got this point across by making a succession of heart drawings that could represent how secrets could affect a person. The first is a heart that has a lock and chain on it. As a caption for the picture I have, “Hold them back, seal them away.” This symbolizes someone who has a secret; they would try to hide it from the world, and in the process, they would hide themselves and their true feelings away. The second heart has a lock pointing towards the lock and chain. The caption I have is, “Prying eyes see through the lies.” This symbolizes people who may try to see past the exterior of a person and potentially find their secret. On the third heart, the lock is unlocked and the chain is falling. The caption is, “Collapse in character, lapse in security.” This symbolizes what happens when someone is afraid that someone may know their secret. They may become paranoid and start acting out of character because they are afraid they could not hide their secret. The fourth heart is on fire. The caption is, “The guilt burns; the heart’s an inferno.” This symbolizes the guilt someone would experience while holding the secret. It would feel like the secret is burning them from the inside out. The last picture is a pile of ash. The caption I have is, “Destroyed from the inside out, scorched soul, blackened reputation.” This symbolizes someone after they have held their secret for so long. Either they would feel terrible about holding that secret or someone would find out about their secret and no longer trust them; it would ruin what others think of them. 

The first thing I drew was the heart. I didn’t mean for it to come out as detailed as it did, in fact I only wanted it to be a simple line drawing, so I would be able to draw it over and over again. Since it came out as shaded as it did and I didn’t feel like I would be able to replicate it, I had to find another way to produce my transitional pictures. On a separate piece of paper, I drew an outline of the heart. I did this for each different drawing. I drew the object that would lay on top of the heart or around it; the chain and lock, key, and fire. I cut the pictures out and lay them on top of the drawing to take pictures of them. The corners of the little pictures kept curling up, however, and it would have been difficult to scan them with my scanner because the pictures would fall off. This caused me to have to find another way to get the pictures onto the hearts. I thought about tape, but it would show up in the picture. So I decided to try using plastic wrap. I pulled the plastic wrap taut around the heart picture and glued the little pictures on top. It still showed up a little in the pictures, but it looked better than I though the tape would. 

I think, despite all the challenges I had to overcome, that the heart drawings came out well. They were not what I had pictured, but I am still proud of how they came out and how I figured out a way to overcome the challenges.

I feel like I could have found a better way to add the pictures onto the heart. Though the plastic wrap was efficient, it still shows up a little in the pictures. If I would’ve had more time to edit, I would have tried to add the pictures on digitally, so they still had the stand out effect that I aimed for after the heart came out very realistic (cartoonish vs. realistic), but so that it looked much cleaner than it does.

If I could do it all over again, I would try to make a simpler heart drawing, so it would be easier to replicate it and add things onto it. If I were not producing the heart drawings, I would make a succession of different drawings instead, this way I would not have to be worry about the sizing of the picture and how similar they look to the others, as I had to do with the heart drawing.