Joellynn Dwinal

Unfinished 

  Inspirations from life experiences?  Another Artwork? I got my idea because I knew that I wanted to draw a photo of something that I have accomplished in my life, which is the Manitou Incline. On the Incline, you take 2,762 stairs to summit a mountain. At the summit, there is a wooden post that has old names signed on it, so when I am finished drawing it, I would like to draw the ghosts of those people signing it.

My process started with a grid so that I could work square by square with the oil pastels. I used blues and purples to blend the sky, also using baby oil and a Q-tip to make the blend smoother. To draw the trees and the rock that I have, I used many different oil pastels to get the perfect colors. For the clouds, I used white as a base, then filled in with blues, greys, and purples for the shadows. To me, my artwork means noticing the people who have summited the Manitou Incline, and to show how that wooden post holds more memories than you would initially think just by looking at it. 

It is most difficult for me to make the trees look more realistic, and the branches, because most of the browns don't go over the white and the blues very well. To get over this, I use many layers, and I also started to use colored pencils to scrape off the colors, like the blues and whites I have put on there before as the background. If I were to start over, I would try to make this piece look less muddy. I would say that this is a surreal oil pastel drawing; it's unique to me because I took the photo and I found the deeper meaning in it myself.