06. Colored Figure Drawing

Artist Statement

The Colored Figure Drawing is pretty much the fraternal twin of the black and white figure drawing; at least criteria wise. Tasked with taking an animal figure and drawing it, the only way that this assignment differed from the b&w figure drawing was that now we had to draw it and add color. Switching away from the eagle and focused subjects that I did for my b&w figure drawing, I chose a billy goat instead. Sketching out the figure first, after I completed my sketch I decided that I wanted to mess with the figure a little bit. Switching out the hind legs of the goat for a fishes tail, I then went over the pencil drawing with ink. Finally diving into colors, I decided to use watercolor this time to go over the already drawn ink. Doing the background with the same material, I then went back in to put some final touches with a sparkly green pen; adding scales and a fin to the fishtail.

I did have some challenges, which so turned into regrets when creating this piece; all revolving around the "sea floor" that the goat-fish stands on. Before the seafloor had not been outlined as I wanted to make extend fully to the left and right. But after finishing the seaweed, I thought it wouldn't look so bad if I just outlined the sea-floor as it was then. Outlining it, I consider this a huge mistake as I feel the seafloor now looks like a floating island up in the sky! I contemplated if I should push the seafloor over anyways, but didn't as I knew the floating island outline would still be visible.

Besides the seafloor problem, I'm happy with how this piece came out. I really love the coloring that I chose for the goat and the details that I added in with the regular and sparkly pen! I don't think I'll be revisiting this piece in the future, because even though there are things I regret, I don't want to risk destroying a piece that I really love just because of one thing.