Emotion Design

I did this digital painting for my abstract emotional design. The subject of the painting is up to the viewers' interpretation, but I designed it with tree branches in mind and others have seen it as water. The background is entirely black. I made this in krita primarily using a brush whose size and opacity is linked to the pen pressure. In this drawing, I used line to show shape, color to show value, and value to show form and texture. I used pattern and rhythm. I used color and pattern to give the piece unity.

When I designed the piece, I used the rule of thirds to lay out part of the drawing. I decided the viewer should first focus on the bottom two points (the face) and the top two points (branches). Then, they should notice it is a similar shape and color to the face and look at the center where there are more person shapes. After this, they will hopefully look around the drawing a little. I decided to center my subjects with formal balance to emphasize the movement. I also used selective focus to show this. I created two copies of the main layers. Then, I erased the bottom half of the top layer. After that, I used the motion blur to make it look like the top half was moving up. Another thing that added to this was the leading lines that point up.

The meaning behind the drawing is isolation. Humanity is made up of interconnected people, and we are still unable to have perspective. This project relates to my life because it is definitely one of my favorite digital drawings I've ever done. Before I submit this to the scholastic competition, I plan to do the following:

• Clean up the lines (it looks really messy when it is blown up to be printed
• Make sure it is a large enough file to be submitted
• Add more people
• Make my meaning more obvious
• Fix the faces of some of the characters
• Make the branches have a different consistency (I want to make it look like liquid glass)
• Maybe add a little bit of a background (if I do anything it will probably be a gradient)