Beautiful Oops

Aztec Ink Explosion

India Ink drop, layered over with colored pencils. Watercolor was used for the base colors and background.  

9" x 6" 

To start this piece of art, I was given a piece of blank paper with a drop of India Ink near the center of it. The prompt given was to turn the ink drop into something new, with it still a little noticeable. The main idea of this art project was to help us artists learn that a mistake is fixable and can lead to a more unique and transformed final product.  

In the beginning, the India Ink drop was my starting point. I made a light sketch to lay out my ideas for this project. Next, I used classroom watercolor paints to create the rocks and background. It made the rocks look smoother and also was a quicker way to make a background for this, rather than colored pencils. I then used colored pencils for most of the rest of the project. I had to use white to lighten the original ink drop which became the big vase/jug that is exploding. Then, I used blue to make patterns on the jug. As I progressed through my work, I made ink dripping from the rocks. Also, with the colored pencil I made the ink explosion from the jug, and the river below. As a final touch, I used green and brown watercolor to make patterns on the rocks that look like ivy/moss. 

To give us an idea for our whole project, we were able to choose from several papers that had 1 or more ink drops on them. It took me several minutes until a vague idea popped into my head for my given prompt. I chose one specific paper. I didn't know how to continue with my project once I had made the vase. What would I do for a background, or around the starting point? I eventually decided on rocks with an ink river. Although the starting ink drop was less visible, it gave my project a small theme to work off of. I encountered several further mistakes along the road to creation. After using watercolor, my paper had not dried all the way. I tried erasing one part of my work, and the paper started coming to pieces in that spot. I had to dry off the paper all the way, and make some of it into the ink river. The spot that got messed up was on one of the rocks. It took a little while to make it less visible but eventually, it was hard to spot. For my overall product, I chose to use ink as a drawn component because the idea was able to be built off of the ink drop vase. I also chose to add rocks to make the drawing more natural looking. Nearing the end of the final creation, I was in a time crunch. I had to finish the background and final details with watercolor in the morning of school. The background was visibly rushed, and the details of ivy/moss. If I were to do this drawing again, I would've made both the centerpiece and the background cohesive pieces. I think that it is unclear what the main idea of this artwork is, and you can tell that the background is rushed. I wish that I had given myself more time to make details for the finishing touches and the background. I also think that the finished product needs something to give it more clarity, and the design was not thoroughly thought out.