Sustained Investigation #8

Artist Statement

I decided to base this drawing around frogs because they are something I enjoy drawing and my artwork usually turns out better when I enjoy creating it. I wanted to include multiple figures and then have one figure be different to make it clear that it is out of place. For the figure that is out of place I drew a little person and then added some wings to make it into a fairy with the color scheme of a fly. Since frogs eat flies and the fairy is about the size of a fly, it is clear that the fairy is feeling outnumbered and threatened by the three giant frogs.

I created this work digitally because I wanted to use a different material than gouache, colored pencil, and graphite which I have used in all of my pieces so far. I had a couple thumbnails of different ideas in my sketchbook but I didn't really like them so I started a new idea in the procreate app and was able to alter it as I went since it was digital. I started out with a light green background and then used the dry ink brush for a messy sketch. Then I added a new layer and went over the sketch to create cleaner lines. I left some of the lines a little messy because I think it looks better that way and adds some texture which can be difficult to create with digital art. Once the line art was done I added different values of green for the flat colors of the frogs and the grass. Then I added layers of shadows and highlights to the drawing to make it more detailed. I used the dry ink brush to color the dark green background with lots of small vertical lines because I have done that in a few of the previous pieces and I feel like it ties the art style of my sustained investigation together.

This drawing is mostly colored in green but I added some warmer colored details in the fore ground to make the colors more interesting and add some contrast. Having the drawing be more colorful makes the fairy stand out more because it is colored in black and white. The shadow of the fairy is also different from the shadows cast by the frogs to make it stand out and appear more dramatic. The lines of the shadow also sort of bring the viewer's eye to the fairy. I left the colors of the grass pretty simple and flat because the rest of the piece is kind of busy so I wanted that space to be simpler. I added the leaves around the frogs to frame the image and fill in some of the space in the background. My project evolved as I repositioned the frogs in the first sketch and added more details to the environment. My next steps could be to figure out how to color digital drawings in a way that created more texture.