Sustained Investigation #9

Artist Statement:

This was my ninth Sustained Investigation project. My guiding question for this specific piece was "How does human air pollution impact animals, particularly, birds?" To show this, I wanted to paint a bird flying through the sky, accompanied by some airplanes (polluters) and have the bird itself smoking or looking like it had been polluted. I also chose to paint a warbler, which is one species of bird particularly impacted by pollution based on some quick research.

The materials I used for this project were acrylic paint and charcoal. I used acrylic paint to paint the bird and the background. I wanted to use it for bright colors and a clean texture, to show a more untouched and unpolluted atmosphere. I then used charcoal to contrast this, with its very gritty texture, by having the clouds represent the damaging pollution. 

To accurately depict the bird (a Yellow Warbler), I used an online reference photo. I created the background and the bird very brightly, again, to contrast the "smog cloud." I also referenced photos of airplanes from a bottom perspective and set them back in the background to pack in the message. I only had charcoal pencils available to me when doing this, so I took them and rubbed them against a tortillan, then used the tortillan to apply it to the project to create a smudged texture for the pollution.