Scholastics #5

For this project I was inspired by snakes and the way they move. One well known Greek Goddess that is associated with snakes is Medusa so I decided to do a watercolor painting of her. I started with a border, but I knew I eventually wanted to break it with the snakes so I allowed The head of the figure to take up the majority of the space. After I had sketched out the features of the face I went to sketching the snakes. I didn't want any snake to be like the other so I made them all different shapes and tried to create interesting negative space throughout the piece. After everything was correctly laid out, I went through and outlined it all in black pen. Next I had to decide what color the snakes were going to be. I went with green and brown because those are the colors that you would see in nature. Each snake has a different pattern and value of green and brown.

I believe the different values and shapes of the snakes give them and individual feeling and uniqueness. The aren't just Medusa's hair, they are living creatures. The negative space created by all the twisted and tangled snakes, make the piece more interesting and you try to follow the bodies of each one. I choose to color Medusa's eye a solid gold to represent the fact that she can turn whoever she looks at to stone.