WatchamaDrawit

Artist Statement

The prompt I was given was to draw a planet where people walk upside down. I interpreted this as people walking on their hands. When I pictured a setting where people would walk I around I thought of a city so that't where I set the drawing. This artwork relates to my life because for reference pictures I used some that I had taken in London so the buildings I drew were based on the ones in the picture. I did change the background buildings by simplifying them so they weren't the main focus.

I chose to draw this piece digitally because drawing buildings involves a lot of straight lines and small details that would be difficult to do with traditional art. I also wanted to focus on perspective and the app I use for digital art has a drawing guide setting that basically just adds a grid over the drawing. I could have drawn a grid on a piece of paper too, but then I would have to go back and carefully erase it.

In this drawing I experimented with creating a more detailed environment and with drawing figures in unique poses. I had never drawn people walking on their hands before so I had to figure out what that would look like. I know that when people walk on their hands, their feet some times go over their head a bit to stay balance and I thought their feet would be flexed and not pointed since they aren't gymnasts. I think I was able to show how their weight was on their hands with the people in the background, but I couldn't get it to look like that with the guy crossing the street so he looks a little bit like he's floating. I also changed the scale of the people to show which ones were further forward or backward in the image. My project evolved as I drew the buildings and decided which details to include and which to leave out from the reference picture. At first I also wanted to add a car going down the street to make it look less empty, but I could figure out how to add the element of an upside down world to a car. If the whole thing was upside down, it wouldn't be able to roll. If just the person was upside down, would the sit on the ceiling? I don't really like how flat the colors are, but overall I think the piece turned out well.