Sustained Investigation #9

In my art, you can clearly see the setting of a peaceful forest in the front and back and a waterfall flowing over rocks. The story told is this beautiful secret spot in the forest is discovered. It's found during the summer where all nature comes to life and colors pop. Rocks can be walked on all the way across the water to get to the other side. So this is why I wanted to call this unique place Summer Secret. I chose to make this because it is similar color and details as the last painting I created. This relates to my life because I too have places outdoors that bring me joy that I keep secret. The outdoors brings me joy in one simple glance, so I wanted to capture the beauty of what someones secret outdoor spot may look like.

My work was made by creating a border and then an outline with graphite. I wanted to make sure I got my layout correct before I began adding color. Once I was satisfied with the placement of my drawing I went in with brown acrylic paint on the trees. Once I was finished getting the color of the trees correct, the closer trees darker than the farther trees, I painted water. I used watered down blue acrylic paint for the water and built of different shades of the blue. (Light in the middle, darker around the edges). I lightly painted leaves on the trees and created light trees in the background behind the waterfall. I used watered down white acrylic paint to create the flow of the waterfall. I used grey, tan, and green acrylic paint watered down to create the rocks. I then used tree bark shavings and glued them onto the two closest trees in the front. I used a clear glue stick to glue them on. But, for some reason, the glue wouldn't dry, even after waiting all night. So I stuck paper towels on top of certain parts to add texture and to help the glue dry so I could paint over it. I then went in with a brown-black acrylic paint and covered the bark and paper towel spots.

The process of creating my art involved a lot of building up colors and textures. Certain spots seemed out of place from others at times due to a lack of detail. So to fix this I'd go in with different shades to make the rocks, water, or trees more detailed. My project evolved the most once I added the tree bark shavings and a paper towel because it added texture and even more detail. My next step could be to continue to build up layers. I found that working with paper towels was quite simple since its thin and easy to manipulate. I want to use paper towels in my next project as well as moss so I have more layers to my piece. I also want to work on my contrast so I think this will also help me accomplish this by making the front dark (and textured) while the back is lighter (less texture).