Sustained Investigation #1

ARTIST STATEMENT

INTERPRET

The story of this is that this seahorse is swimming around in the ocean. This relates to my life because seahorses are my favorite animal, and my inquiry question for my sustained investigation was about marine life, which I am very interested in.

DESCRIBE MATERIALS

This piece was made using colored pencils on blue toned paper. After sketching the seahorse, I went right in with Prismacolor colored pencils and layered them to get depth in color. I also did a lot of burnishing and blending, and finally I used a white gel pen to add a few little details at the very end.

DESCRIBE PROCESS

This piece is part of my sustained investigation, to which my inquiry question was “how can I use colored pencils to emphasize the color and texture of marine life?”, so I experimented with color and texture primarily. I not only matched the colors as best as possible to that of a real seahorse, but also tried to showcase how vibrant these animals can be. I conveyed the texture of the seahorse by adding depth to shadows, and pronouncing the bumps on the fish, as well as adding spots with white gel pen overtop of the yellow. This project did not evolve throughout the process. I am very pleased with how this turned out, but if I were to take any next steps, my next steps would be to try to better convey the slight transparency of the seahorse’s snout.