Sustained Investigation #3

This is my third and final sustained investigation piece for my inquiry question: How can I use color to show emotion and character in people? This is a drawing of two very different types of relationships and lifestyles. The top half is all my friends from Chicago, and the bottom are some of my past and present friends in Maine. I chose to show these two groups of people because friends can be a very personal and meaningful thing in people's lives so when thinking of relationships I could portray in my art work, my different friend groups immediately came to mind. I've had an incredibly hard time being able to describe the contrast in the relationships people have with each other here in Maine, vs where I lived for 13 years in Illinois. The two cultures are extremely different which I think lends to people having different goals and values in their lives therefore affecting the types of friendships they have. So, I tried to show the contrast of two groups of people seperated by 1000 miles as best I could through this investigation.

I created this investigation using Micron pens and Prismacolor markers.

I began by dividing the page into two boxes with the intention of, again, creating two contrasting sides. For the top, I drew my closest friends from Chicago based on a photo of us taken the last time I saw them in August. For the bottom, I drew several of my friends from Maine. I started with the background for each; the lines for the background in the top section are strong and close together representing the close-knit relationships I have with those girls, contrasting the quick, scattered lines of the background on the bottom, representing the random, disconnected relationships I have with people here in Maine. I used color to show contrast between cultures in addition to showing emotion and relationships. Red and blue are what come to mind for me when I think of urban colors, so I used them to create the Chicago background of the top half. I also used pink around the faces their to emphasize that each one is happy. For Maine, I think of greens and oranges and yellows for the trees and natural beauty it has to offer. The background for the Maine section has double meaning because my marker strokes are showing the loose relationships I have with people here, while the color creates the idea of the marks being abstract leaves, symbolizing the ever-changing friendships I have here. In this investigation I again used the cheek pigment to unify the pieces. My next steps for this investigation could be to add a stronger border or play around with the borders and background and how that could better demonstrate the meaning behind this artwork.