Sustained Investigation #15

louisiana pine snake

5''x7''

watercolor and micron pens on drawing paper

The Louisiana Pine snake is endangered due to deforestation of pine forests, mostly for agricultural reasons. In one part of the snake, I have a full grown pine forest and in the next part, I have the forest slowly degrading into a destructed forest. I haven't done any reptiles and I've always liked snakes, so I decided to do the Louisiana Pine snake because not many people know about them.

I used light green, dark green, siena brown, and dark brown watercolors (not name brand) and then outlined it with a Micron pen. I sketched the trees with pencil first, making sure it was really light because the watercolor doesn't cover it, and then went over the background with a light green. After that dried, I went in and added the trees and the boughs of the tree. For the head of the snake, I did a layer of brown first and then added the tree stumps and the scales. After everything had dried, I used the Micron pen to make it stand out more. I have a regular blue background because I wanted it to represent how there are no forests for the snakes to live in anymore; it's a blue sky unobstructed by trees, which is a reality for the snakes. I wanted to make it look like a tattoo at first, but couldn't get the shape of the snake right and the body of the snake was too small to fit any detail in. Then I wanted to do a coiled snake, but I was having massive issues with that too, so that was a no as well. If I could do more, I would try to add more detail to the head or in the forest.