Sustained Investigation #1

My inquiry question for my sustained investigation is: How can I use color to show emotion and character in people?

For the first part of my sustained investigation, I created a page full of faces of some of my friends and family based on photos I took of them, and used color to show the emotion of the person at the moment the picture was taken. I chose to draw friends and family of mine because they are people I care about and am close enough to to know their personalities and general moods/attitudes, which allows me to express these traits through color.

For this piece of my investigation, I used Prismacolor markers and Micron pens. I sketched out the faces using a Micron pen then added color with the markers, layering colors in some areas to create a wider shade range.

To create this piece, I sketched the faces based off photos I took of each person, using different variations of line to create different textures and depth in the faces. I used gestural lines to get the correct shape of the head, and soft, wavy, and curly lines to show the texture of hair. I used thicker lines in the face to show depth, especially in the noses and eyes. I also used quick, thin lines to show the contours of some of the faces. I made the faces different sizes to create contrast and interest in the piece while spacing them in a way that would effectively use the space. I finally analyzed the emotion I believed each person was emitting in the photos and added color accordingly, using warm colors to show contentedness, happiness, and excitement, and cool colors to show calmness, tiredness, and sadness. As my project evolved, I became more aware of how the size, shape, and direction of my marker strokes could have an affect on the mood I was conveying from each person. Moving forward in this investigation, I could be more cautious of the shapes and strokes I use when adding color to my piece.