Autumn Composition

Blank

Psychedelic

For this project I wanted to work on my scholastic concentration portfolio. I planned to continue my work in leaves, which I have many of already. Because I wanted to get multiple projects quickly, I decided to do a materials study: three different projects with the same compositions. Once I created my composition idea by taking leaves from outside and taping them to a surface. I used pencil first to recreate the composition in pure contour, then went over these lines in pen. I used the scanner to print my composition onto pieces of water color paper, all in different sizes.

My first project in the series I used my original pure contour work. I wanted to make it realistic to the coloring of the leaves. I used color pencils and to match the lines and patterns found on the actual leaves. I used burnishing and many layers to create the colors and texture that I wanted in my final piece. To fill the background, I used a grey watercolor wash, with some dark shades of grey under the leaves to add shadows and depth to the work.

My second project in the series I chose to study shadows by using only black and white. I took my first print and used a black pen and a stippling technique to create the shadows and patterns in the leaves. I chose to leave the background white to ensure the contrast with the leaves, but I chose to color in the border with black sharpie to strength the contrast even further.

My last project in the series is much more abstract. I used nontraditional colors with watercolor in the leaves. I mimicked some of the patterns found in the original leaves, but in general just played around with the watercolor's natural look. I let it bleed, and then went over all of the outlines in pen to add interesting movement in the piece. I did an outline around the entire composition and repeated this same movement creating waves of sorts in all of the white space.

Overall, I am happy with how these projects turned out. I think they are all so different that it is hard to tell that they are actually variations on one another, which I like. I think all three turned out about how I expect, though I think the abstract one could have been pushed a bit further.