Scholastics I

For this assignment, we were asked to create a work of that we would submit to the Scholastic Art and Writing competition. I decided to make one for the New York Life Special Award, as I recently lost one of my best friends and have been dealing with grief. I wanted to capture the feeling of grief in this piece as well as the feeling of hope. To do that, I painted the scene where Steel passed away and incorporated dark and light values to show the grief and the hope.

To start this project, I sketched out a view of the river and the banks/hills on the side. I used a layering technique to paint the water, trees, and grass, adding depth and form to the scene. Once I painted the rope swing, I did a wash of yellow watercolor on the right side of the painting coming down on the rope swing to show the hope that I have gained back since Steel passed away.

This project evolved a lot, as I originally was going to paint Steel flipping in the air, as well. However, I though that it would be more powerful to have just the rope swing with the sun beam on it rather than his body. Lastly, my next steps could be pushing the dark values even more, and adding yellow and white oil/chalk pastels to the sun beam to accentuate the light.