sustained inv #4

The idea behind this piece was blood. I found the idea of blood as a living thing interesting, and I didn't know how to show that with my abstract forms. Normally we don't think of blood as "living", and that's why I thought it was so interesting, I wanted to push that idea of what is living. 

I started with just the hand as the idea and then came up with a background. I didn't want to fall into the trap that I always fall into, where I come up with a cool subject, and then fall short on the background. Or come up with a cooler one after I've already finished the piece. So I spent a long time on the background, layering like 4-6 layers of watered-down gouache (and then blown with a straw, picture below). I used primer to block out the arm + main blood piece. I used acrylic for the arm, colored pencil for the main blood, and then oil pastels for the smaller bloods. 

I wanted the oil pastel to look like dried/crusty blood, and overall be a little grittier than everything else, while the arm is much more naturalistic. The gouache is also supposed to represent stains/staining.