Inclusion Project

For this project the goal was to create a submission for the Maine Disabilities Council in response to the idea of inclusion. Given that we completed this project last year, I was able to draw on my previous drawing for inspiration. This year with more time I decided to draw dogs. I feel like dogs are happy animals and most everyone seems to love and relate to them.

I started off with a blind dog and then drew one with wheels for front legs, I then drew another dog laid out in the background. This dog does not have any physical disabilities, but then again you can not see all disabilities. I like the composition of this piece, particularly the proportion of the blind dog (the one on the right) to the other two dogs. After sketching the dogs out, I went over the lines with a sharpie. Knowing that I needed to add color, I opted for this "patchwork" pattern with brush pens. I picked out light pink, lavender, orange, yellow, and dark blue because they looked well together. I purposefully did not include green because I knew I was going to use that color in the background for contrast. After coloring in the dogs, I used a fine point pen to create a pattern in where the disabilities of the dog would be. I thought it added contrast to the big sections of color in the dogs. I outlined my border and because I like playing with the border, I added another border inside of that. I filled the space inside the inner border with green pure pigment watercolor.

I like this piece. I think it's more abstract than I normally work, but overall is true to my style with the fine point pen, watercolor, and double border. Looking at it now, I should probably go over the green background again to clean up the splotchiness. I might even add text to make the message crystal clear.