Sustained Investigation #3

Calm

17" X 21"

Oil Stick

The story behind my artwork is that I wanted to create a drawing that shows calm. When I looked for inspiration/ideas online, every photos showed a person sitting in front of completely calm water with pretty reflections and clouds. But, I thought that calmness is more realistically portrayed when it is showed despite the challenges of life, rather than something that happens when everything is perfect. In the drawing, the girl has her head tilted up with a neutral positive expression. The only smoothly blended places on the drawing are her face and the water in the background. There is a very textured wave crashing over her, and the patterns on her shirt are both flowing and chaotic. This project relates to my life because I've been wanting to use oil sticks for a long time, and I had a really good time working with a less detail oriented medium.

I made this using oil pastel sticks on bristol paper.

I started by painting a base of purple and blue undertones where the shadows would be. Then, I added warmer tones to her face (red and orange) to create a more realistic tone. Then, I added the background by adding white over the dried blue then adding some more color and blending it out. For the shirt, I started with a base tan color with circles of color, but I decided that it did not fit in with the drawing well, so I use a purple, blue, and white oil stick to create a new pattern. I tried to make use of color and texture to show motion and emotion. Going forward, I might re-do the face to match up with my sustained investigation theme more ("Using patterns to evoke emotion and/or tell stories").