sustained investigation #7

Moth Appreciation Society

8"x5"

This project was another portrait at a ¾ tilt with a Luna moth in the lower corner of the page. I took the photo of the moth this summer and the person was just someone who I came up with. I used a picture of my friend as a reference for the person but I changed a few things about the face.

I used oil pastels on a piece of discarded mat board. I used mostly blue for the face and used white to do highlights and lighten the blue. The background was straight red and the moth was done in green, white, and purple. I also used a little bit of yellow on the moth. The matboard was being recycled, but I saved it for a project. It has a cream finish on the face of the matboard and the back is white.

Color is the main element used in creating this piece. The different shades of the colors create depth and value and there is also just regular, unmixed red. I needed to do a project to catch up with the class, so I did this. It began with the face and then the moth. The background was a pattern I had been thinking about using for a while, and I decided to use it on this project. My next step with this project would be to make it bigger and add detail. This would mean doing a new project, but I think I will stick with the main idea of this project.