Connection #6

The idea behind this work was to show how I am connected to my grandmother through more physical objects or even ideas rather than being literally with her. I remember when I was little, there were Ginkgo trees all up and down main street in Brunswick, and they would drop their leaves which would be scattered all across the sidewalks. When she would pick me up from school or we would be together, we would often go to brunswick to go gracery shopping and we would pick up and collect hundreds of little Ginkgo leaves that we thought were pretty colors or shapes. We would also often joke about how joke about the name and pronounciate it very dramatically. I wanted to show that connection with the Ginkgo leaves as a connection that I can still make. 

I used pen to make sure that I accentuated the lines on the leaves and so that my figure on the background would stand out, and be seen as the main focal point. I used a .02 micron pen because it was thin enough that I could get really thin and precise lines while still being able to cross hatch a little bit on my figure to show slight shadows. I used watercolor on the leaves so that it all blended together nicely, and so that I could easily blend the yellow and green together in different ratios so that each leaf looked just a little bit different. 

I started by looking at images of Ginkgo leaves as well as drawings of them to see how other people have captured the shape and the creases in them. I also noticed as I was looking at images, that like many other trees, the leaves were a very vibrant green during the summer, but as it turned to fall, the leaves became a more yellow color. After my grandmother and I would pick them off the ground, so they would usually be more yellow than green, but I wanted to make it as realistic as possible by adding a variety of colors. I then had to brainstorm how I was going to hang them. I originally wanted to just hand them from the top of a 2D piece of watercolor paper, and just let them float and dangle from the top. I had made a lot more leaves than I needed for that though, so I thought it could be cool if it was 3D. I ended up using a box that I found in my basment for some sparkling water and stitched through the leaves, tying them off. I poked the thread through the box then taped it down so that it would stay in place. I then painted on the kid and background with watercolor, gluing it in after it was dry.