Sustained Investigation #6

Artist's Statement:

Jillian Wight

Medsker

AP Art and Design 

22 November 2022

With this piece, I wanted to illustrate an Aesop’s fable from a book I had growing up.  I chose “The Fox and The Grapes,” partly because I remembered it well and partly because the moral stood out to me.  The fable is about a fox who sees grapes hanging from a branch and thinks they look delicious.  When the fox tries to jump up and reach the grapes, he cannot.  He walks away, muttering that he never wanted the grapes anyways, they are probably sour.  The moral is that "there are many who pretend to despise and belittle that which is beyond their reach."  I wanted to portray this scene not quite literally, but as my older self, with an element of context from my life today.  I made the figure a person, not a fox, to suggest this perspective.

I used felt-tip pens to create this work.  I liked the amount of control they would give me, because I hoped to create a very vivid facial expression.  I used red tones because I wanted to utilize the contentious connotations of the color.

I experimented a bit with the lights and darks in this piece.  When I finished, I thought the grapes and the figure got lost in the background.  I added dark purples and browns to pull out some shadows, and I think the subjects really pop.

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