WhatchamaDRAWit

The main idea that drove my artwork to completion was the prompt that was to draw a rowboat floating on top of a mountain. But, along the way other ideas became apparent to me. In this drawing, I wanted to prove to people that two completely separate ideas can be creatively combined to produce a final product. 

My artwork was produced using multiple materials. First, I outlined my first draft with graphite on the blank sheet of paper. This gave me a rough idea of where to use the watercolors, and where to use the colored pencils. Second, I went over with a light watercolor in the background following my graphite sketch. I was planning to use this for the sky color, and a basic layered color to start with on the mountain. Lastly, and what took the longest was going over the entire page with the Prismacolor Premier colored pencils. When I was using the pencils, I slowly started layering over and over again to create blended textures and colors. Since the page was so big, it would have taken too much time to keep layering over the colors for everything. For the sky, I ended up blending 2-3 colors to create a gradient-looking sunset/sunrise. 

At the start of my artwork creation, I didn't know what to do. I was deciding whether to make the boat float in the air or to incorporate the idea of it floating on water, still over a mountain. Could the mountain be underwater? I ended up deciding to make the row boat float on a wave that blended into the sky. This idea is able to bring movement to my artwork. People usually start at the top of the paper, and they eventually are brought down to look at the mountain. About halfway through producing my work, I needed something else to connect both the mountain and row boat drawings. I thought about it for a while, and I made up my mind to use an anchor. The mountain isn't underwater, but the rowboat is physically anchored on it. The anchor line goes through the water, and out into the sky. This idea that was eventually incorporated also presented movement in my final product. The colors I used in the sky were chosen because they give the artwork a peaceful and calming element. It also stands out and gives the artwork a unique color palette. Finally, I decided to add several birds. The birds show that there is actually sky that is both around the mountain, and above the water. This project at the start of the year gave me room to experiment with creativity and incorporate different ideas into one piece of artwork.