Sustained Investigation #8

pobres monitos (poor little monkeys)

7 ¼’’ x 8’’

Watercolor, sharpie pen

The Sumatran orangutan is critically endangered mostly due to habitat loss. I used a similar idea from the sustained investigation I did with the cheetah; I had isolated figures with selective color around them. The green bubble surrounding them is enclosing them while the rest of their forest is just black and white - meaning that it's gone. I think monkeys are interesting animals and orangutans are especially interesting to me, so I thought it would be fun to make a piece about them.

First, I used Acorn to compile several orangutan images into one. I erased all of the background around them so that they were on a white background. Next, I sketched them out on the paper and traced them with Sharpie pen. I haven't done any cartoons before, so this was a new experience. I used green, orange, and brown Crayola watercolors and Grass Green Dr. Ph Martin's ink. I then added the background with lots of leaves and jungle plants.

I used the lighter watercolors first, making sure to really blend them with the water to make them transparent. Then I used the darker greens to surround the orangutans. For the orangutans themselves, I used the brown and then layered on orange to make them pop. I was originally going to have them on a plain white background and also add a tree cutting machine, but decided to add the background to make it more complete. If I was going to do something else, I would add a little more detail to the orangutans.