Filipino Slum

All over the world people live in extreme poverty but they are able to survive even though they have almost no resources. For this drawing I focused on the slums of the Philippines. I have visited some when I was very young and I still remember the experience of that place. The slums are a place full of texture and smells. People are out and about in the streets and the slums seem so alive. Life survives even in the destitution of the slums.
The drawing media consists of Micron pen for the outlines and various markers for the color and the surface is a cold press illustration board. When mapping out my slum I wanted to capture the ideas of overpopulation and lack of any government regulation mixed with the energy found in these places.
First to really express the overpopulation I decided to use a large drawing surface and packed in as many houses as possible. The houses are placed at various angles and they are butted up so close to one another that any possibility of a street between the houses would be impossible. The angles of the houses and lack of space shows how these houses have sprung up randomly because the people have simply started building their own shelters. There are no building codes and there are no government inspectors that come to places like this to ensure that everything is proper. Houses keep rising up and almost choke out the sky. Since there are so many people living here it seems that the only place to build a house is to rise up higher.
The slums possess a certain energy and sense of community that I do not feel in the well kept suburbs of cities in the 1st world. I captured this energy with my line work as well as the vibrant colors I decided to use. The lines I used were much looser than to the tight lines that I use. The lines seem to vibrate with the energy that flows in the air of the slums. I used very vibrant colors for the houses to help express the liveliness one feels in the slums. You are constantly surrounded by people and commerce in the slums. It is as if you are in a metropolitan city made of small corrugated steel buildings. The doorways are kept white to show an empty interior because the only treasures that people have are their relationships to each other and that the material processions that they own are insignificant.