Sustained Investigation #13

city monkeys

14''x20''

watercolor, india ink, and magazine pieces on watercolor paper

Chimpanzees are being taken from the forests and brought to large cities to be sold as pets and street entertainment. In the background, I have cut outs of cities to represent all of the cities that the chimps are being taken to. I read an article in National Geographic about illegal wildlife trade and how it effects many species of monkeys, so I wanted to do a project that reflects that.

I first used Acorn to make a reference image. I took three images of chimpanzees, cut out the background and then placed them around each other with a white background. I then printed off the image and used it as a reference when I sketched everything out on the paper. The watercolor paper was a lot bigger than the printer paper, so it was a good experience to practice drawing on a larger scale from a reference image. After I sketched everything out, I used Dr. Ph. Martin's Black India Ink and the Sienna Brown for the eyes. I made sure that the black was really watered down so it would be the gray color I wanted for the face. It was kind of difficult to create different values with just straight black and water, but I figured it out fairly quickly. After the ink had dried, I went through a stack of National Geographic magazines and cut out all the images of cities that were in it. The hard part was fitting them around the chimps and I was left with some white spaces, so I used the blue Dr. Ph. Martin's watercolor to fill it in.

In the beginning, I was thinking that I was going to use text in the background, but decided to use something else because I use text so much. If I were to add something else, I would try to add more detail to the chimpanzees, maybe by going in with a small brush and adding more to the fur.