Sustained Investigation #7

67 Javan Rhinoceroses

4x4

Pen & Marker

For this project I wanted to do something that had to do with the environment and climate change. At first I wasn't sure what I wanted to do so I just played around markers looking for an idea. I originally wanted to do something with fish and the problem plastic brings to an ecosystem I couldn't really figure out how I wanted to do this so I ditched the idea and moved on the endangered animals, I was looking at engaged animals and found that the Javan rhinoceros population consists of 67 Javan rhinoceros, due to poaching. I thought I would center my project around them.

I started this project by just sketching out a rhino, originally I wanted to do one major rhino and then I wanted to do 67 other rhinos filling in the back as a pattern, I started this but realized I didn't think that I could make them all fit so I ditched the idea and moved on to a second draft. For this one I wanted to do the rhino sitting in the water (something I learned they often do) but also to show there population 'sinking away'. As I worked on this I wasn't sure what I wanted the background to be so I kept working on adding some color to the rhino and trying to make some areas pop out more than others with color. Next, I needed to figure out a background so I decided to look at some famous artist. I really liked the work of Jasper Johns who works with bullseyes so I thought id do that as a background. I still wanted to bring in the idea of only 67 of them are left so I tried to make bullet holes but I realized that I wouldn't be able to fit 67 small bullet wholes on a 4x4 piece of paper so I decided to only do a few. Then I went in and added some bullseyes.

Overall, I like this project. I think that my idea was strong, I wanted to do the bullet to show like a target on the Javan rhinoceros and then the bullet to show them being taken out, also the rhino sitting in the water to show that there population is sinking into extinction. I thought that my idea was strong and I liked the way it was set up.