02. Beautiful oops

ARTIST STATEMENT:

This artwork is based around the story of one of my own characters, named Alex. For tools, I used some of my favorite art tools, acrylic paint and pencil. Alex herself is drawn with pencil, while the colored splatter are done with watered down acrylic paints. When we had this project assigned, this image was the first thing that popped into my head. I've had this character for quite awhile, so I have a good amount of her story fleshed out, and this project just fit really well in my mind.

In this piece, I used what is an attempt at 'Formal Balance'. This Composition rule deals with things that are uniform on both sides, giving the picture a good sense of balance. In this, I went for that with the wings. One wing is a little off, as I didn't have quite enough space on the paper, but if both wings were more similar or the same, it would be 'Formal Balance'. At the beginning of the project, I started out with just the ink splatter. To test somethings first, before putting stuff on the final paper, I went to my notebook, and drew a small human figure. After getting that drawn as my own reference, I started to draw the final figure. After attempting many times, I finally got it, and then I had to think of a way to cut off the rest of the legs and arms, as I could not draw those as well as I would have liked. The wings were also a last minute decision, as I needed to fill empty space. Finally, I settled on more splatters on the paper.

I won't go into too many details, but basically, Alex's story is that she collects 'Souls' and the black ink splatter in the center is representing a 'bad soul', which, in my story, constantly try to take over her body and make her do the things they want (usually not great things). Something I've noticed is that many of my stories and artworks are really sad, which contradicts my own life, as I am a rather happy person. This artwork is no different. I created this relatively sad thing, with context. Think this is just a way for me to be more than 'happy' all the time. If I were to go back to this project and do it again, I think I would fix the proportions on Alex, as her head feels a little too small, and her right (our left) wing is a little too small. I would also change the splatters, as they make the image feel too busy for me.