Response to Political and Social Issues

For this project, I continued to work on my Scholastic submissions. This piece in particular falls under the response to social and political issues. I was really drawn to the Brett Kavanaugh Hearings. I watched some of the hearing live and then I watched the highlights after it was over. In short: President Trump picked Judge Brett Kavanaugh to be in the Supreme Court. A woman by the name of Christine Blasey Ford came forward and accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her back in high school. Conservatives believed that her accusation was a "hoax" and a conspiracy theory by the left side. There was a hearing, where both of Ford and Kavanaugh were quite upset. President Trump went on live television to then mock Ford and all victims of sexual assault and had the audacity to say "it is a very scary time for young men in America". Kavanaugh got sworn into the Supreme Court. As far as we would like to think we've come as a society with the #MeToo movement, men still have the upperhand in this country and women are mistrusted.

I originally wanted to depict Ford and Kavanaugh. I wanted Ford to be looking at Kavanaugh getting sworn in--a reminder of the pain she endured to only be mocked and to watch the man who assaulted her to be sworn into a high government position. I used pictures and the light table to trace their faces. I wanted the proportions to be accurate. I knew I wanted to create a piece that had thin and thick lines and was very simplistic. I then added Trump on top of the two figures because he literally is above these two. I created this composition and then experimented with doing a bigger one with Trump twice--so four figures total. I decided I liked the first composition better and ran with it. I made both the men's ties red for two reasons: 1. Republicans are red. 2. Red is a very striking color representing blood and power. I then filled in Ford's eyes as blue because her eyes are blue and I think it highlights her pain and represents tears. I used watercolor for the selective color--pure pigment watercolor. I wanted the color to be pigmented and bright. I went over what I had traced in fine point pen. I then added the text at the bottom that reads "It's a very scary time for young men in America"--relating back to what I discussed earlier. I left "young men" outlined because I wanted this contrast to show the irony of the whole saying.

Overall, this piece is good. I definitely think I could've activated the negative space. I liked using the light table and I like how the outlines of the figures. I like the idea I had for this project a lot and while the piece is very clean, I feel like I could've executed it better to make the message stronger.