Sustained Investigation #10

In my art, you can clearly see an untouched place outdoors full of natural life. The story told is flowers and trees are growing along the river, as the river flows effortlessly crashing into rocks. I chose to make this because I thought this image appears as a peaceful place filled with lots of hidden stories. It easy to use your imagination to visualize what would happen in a beautiful forest like this one. This relates to my life because I find trees, water, and flowers to be quite beautiful so I decided to incorporate all three. I also like the look of the trees, water, and flowers fading to add depth. The natural material I used to make the trees was bark from the woods that I like to explore behind my house. I also gain inspiration from that woods behind my house to create natural art such as the one above.

My work was made by sketching out trees and the placement of the curves of the water. I then used dark colors throughout the entire painting to develop the placement for the trees, water, and grass. To add more contrast I made different parts of the water lighter using white and light blue acrylic paint. I made the other parts of the water darker, where the shadows are, using dark blue acrylic paint. To make the water look shimmery from the sun I used a glitter/clear paint and blended it in. I made the trees in the background, closer to the waterfall, lighter to show the depth of the forest. I used a glue stick to attach bark and paper towels layered up on top of the trees, rocks, and grass. I used moss in the grass and on the treetops to add more detail. This helps to add more texture and depth to the piece. I used a similar glitter, clear, yellow paint to create sunlight in the center o this piece. I added white to the back of the rocks and the end of the waterfall to show the movement of the water and give it a more realistic feel.

The process of creating my art involved a lot of layering. At first, I had very dark colors and a week later I came back to this piece that I originally didn't like and added lighter colors. Once I added more colors, shadows, and highlights, as well as texture, my art came to life. My project evolved the most once I added the bark, moss, and paper towels. I added different shades of green and brown to make it look more realistic. This helped give this piece a more realistic look and have more detail. My next steps could be to work on making the water more realistic. I tried making rocks appear under the surface of the water and I want to continue to work on that. I also want to continue adding little pops of color such as the glittery, yellow flowers.