Sustained Investigation #5

For this drawing I wanted to explore the negative side of how humans interacts with nature again. I also wanted to find a way to have the material relate to my question. I decided to make it about forest fires because those can be cause by humans and using charcoal would relate to forest fires. To show that the fire was caused by humans I made a character that was sort of like fire as a person. Instead of having hair she has fire on her head and her clothes are also on fire in a few places. She is just hanging out in the middle of the forest fire and isn't bothered by the fact that she is also on fire which shows that she is probably the one who caused it. She also has smoke designs on her face. When I was figuring out the general idea of the drawing in my sketchbook I started with a thumbnail showing the whole person and then on the same page I drew a larger portrait to figure out the details of the face. I ended up really liking how that whole page looked together so instead of choosing one perspective for the final drawing I decided to include both. This also was a way to make it more interesting than just a plain forward facing portrait. Having multiple borders and perspectives made this drawing similar to another one I did which told a story through three panels like a comic.

The materials I used are charcoal, colored pencil, and ink. I used the charcoal for the trees because the idea of burning trees relates to where charcoal comes from. I used colored pencil for the fire, the ground, and the girl's clothes and face. Everything looked sort of messy so I went over it with a black pen.

By showing both a zoomed out version and a close up of the same drawing I was able to use the space on the paper in a more interesting way. I also broke the border of the closeup with some of the fire. The fire in the background had different values of colored pencil to match the colors of real fire. There are lots of lines in the trees to make a bark pattern and add more texture. These trees are the background in both perspectives which creates unity. There is contrast in the background because of how dark the trees are and how bright and colorful the fire is. My project evolved when I was drawing thumbnails and each one changed the composition while still keeping the idea of a person in a forest fire. As I drew the same idea multiple times I kept adding different detail or changing it slightly until I liked the final setup. My next steps could be to continue combining different materials that I am not used to using together or using in general.