Beautiful Oops

Artist Statement

For this project, we got to choose from a variety of small slips of paper that each had a different ink, Bloch on it. We examined the blotches until we found one that stood out to us, and that we could make artwork out of. I was immediately drawn to a Bloch that almost looked like a hummingbird head, with a small head and long beak. To make this project more meaningful, I decided to draw two hummingbirds approaching a rose of Sharon bush. I planted a beautiful rose of Sharon bush outside of a window in my house and watched over the summer as tiny ruby-throated hummingbirds flitted around it. 

For this project, we had the option to use any material we wanted. I started by sketching everything out lightly with a pencil. I drew two, up-close drawings of hummingbirds and roses. In the background, I drew birds out of the remaining splatters of ink. After I finalized my sketch, I went in with light gouache colors, including light blue for the sky, shades of green pink, and purple for the flowers, and greens, reds, yellows, blacks, and browns for the hummingbirds. After the gouache dried, I outlined everything in colored pencil, adding smaller details.

I went through a few processes while creating my work. In order to get the hummingbird to look realistic, I looked up hummingbirds, specifically ruby-throated hummingbirds that visit my house in the summer. I also went outside and took pictures of the few remaining flowers, buds, and leaves on the rose of Sharon bush. I usually go over my finished artwork with colored pencil or pen to make it pop, however, this time I used the pencil to outline, as well as add more detail that I couldn’t quite achieve with the gauche, such as the small feathers on the hummingbird, or lines in the petals of the flowers and leaves.