Sustained Investigation #1

Artist Statement

The inquiry question that I have chose to explore is "how can I express the feeling of being out of place by using contrasting colors, subjects, or art styles? For this piece I used color, art style, and materials to show contrast and make it clear that something doesn't belong. I wanted to start my sustained investigation with a simpler take on the inquiry question so the idea behind this piece was an orange juice bottle feeling out of place on a shelf of milk in the grocery store. At first I was just going to do all milk and then have one in a different material and simpler style but I felt like that didn't show my inquiry question clearly enough so I changed it to orange juice. This was a better idea because contrast would be created by the materials and art style as well as the colors. The warm colors of the orange juice bottle stood out among the cool colors of the rest of the drawing. You can see in my thumbnail sketch that the different milk jug was going to be the one in the middle, but when I switched it to orange juice I also moved it off center which I think makes it look even more out of place.

The materials I used in this piece were graphite, colored pencil, and gouache. I started with a pencil sketch and then went over the lines to darken them and make them look cleaner. Then I added some shading in pencil and then went over everything with a dark blue colored pencil making clear marks for the shading because I like how that looks with colored pencil. I was worried that I added too much blue on the milk jugs so I tried to blend it out a little bit with a white colored pencil. That got rid of some of the marks I made so I went over it again with the dark blue pencil. I also used a light blue and a gray colored pencil to add more values. Part of my sustained investigation is to use a different material for the thing that is out of place so I used gouache for the orange juice bottle. This also helped with the idea of using different art styles because the colored pencils created very visible marks while the gouache made a more smooth look with more solid colors and lines. I used graphite to color in the background because I really liked how that looked in the thumbnail with visible marks to go with the colored pencil on the milk jugs.

There is balance in this piece on the top and bottom shelves because they are pretty symmetrical. This makes the middle shelf stand out even more because the orange juice throws off the balance. By drawing all of the milk jugs the same way with the same materials I created unity between all of them. The color and material of the orange juice bottle adds emphasis and contrast. There is also a lot of texture and value on the milk jugs from the colored pencils. My project evolved when I added in the orange juice bottle to make the idea stronger and clearer. I think the colored pencil might have looked better on a less textured paper because it was a little better when I was testing colors in my sketchbook but I used watercolor paper for the final piece. My next steps could be to continue developing my sustained investigation and making more complex pieces with the same general idea as this one.