Sustained Investigation #7

Bubbles

13" X 10"

Chalk pastel, soap

The story behind this drawing is that the woman, made out of bubbles, is floating up. I originally wanted to show a happy (bubbly) emotion, but I had a hard time making a primarily blue drawing with an emotion like that. I changed the figure slightly so that she is dancing on one of the bubbles as it rises. This project relates to my life because I wanted to create a drawing with something translucent, and I wanted to try to use more expressive lines, something that I was not able to achieve with oil pastels earlier this year.

I made this using pastel paper, graphite, chalk pastel, and soap.

This work started as a sketch on pastel paper, then I added chalk pastel, creating layers. After that, I decided that the chalk pastel wasn't creating depth in the way that I wanted it to, so I blended it using soap. I wanted to use soap because it connected with the drawing. I used lines in the bubbles to create shape, and I used color within the bubbles to create form. My project started as a standard chalk pastel drawing, but I used soap to deepen the color and add depth. For next steps, I might start over on this project.