Beautiful Oops

Artist Statement

In my piece, there is a butterfly, coving the words “Incredible est Creatura” that repeat over and over on the page. This means “Incredible Creature” in Latin. Also, along the wings, there are the words, “Beauty,” and “Life,” written in Arabic. I wanted to show, that this butterfly represented life in its most beautiful, incredible form. The reasons that I used Latin, was because I wanted to show that this was scientific, and that, scientifically, this creature was incredible, yet dead. I also wrote in Arabic, and this is because my great-grandmother was Arabic, so I wanted to explore, adding bits of my personal life into the piece. Also, I think that Arabic is really beautiful when written. Finally, I put the words “Extinci,” extinct in, because I wanted to make it clear that this creature was extinct. These ties back into my writing in Latin, because I thought that this would express that it was extinct because of human's interfered.

The materials I used were primarily Oil Pastel. I used this for almost all of the wings of the butterfly in the piece, and they take up most of the page. I used Charcoal and Graphite Pencil less, but they definitely took up space. The charcoal was what I used in the beginning, to make my first marks, and draw out what was going to be the spider web. Then I used Graphite pencil to write all of the words in the background. I then added Gel Pen over a few words in the background and then Sharpie over the word, Extincti. I also used a red colored pencil, but I found that the Sharpie worked much better.

When I started working with the ink blob, I noticed that it had lines going from the center out. I assumed this was just the way that the ink had hardened. I saw these, and they reminded me of a spider web, so that was what I started to make. But, I do not like drawing things that are mono-color or only use graphite of charcoal, so I used Oil Pastels and added some color. This also added a lot of texture to the piece, because with Oil Pastel I could make parts of it rough and bumpy, and at the same time, have parts that were really smooth. When I added the words, I put red around the word, “Extincti,” to add emphasis to the idea of the creature’s extinction. Finally, when I was designing the butterfly’s wings, I put a spiral-like swirl on each wing in about the same place. I hoped that this would create some balance between the two wings. Even though there is a lot of contrast between the two wings, one being primary, red/yellow, and the other being blue/green, I tried to make them have a few similar characteristics. My project started with the ink splot. From there it transformed into a spiderweb, then a butterfly. Near the end, I added the words in the background. My next steps could certainly be working with the Web in the middle of the piece more. I am not sure right now exactly what I would do with it, but I would like to make that more evolved. I know that I decided to keep it because I felt that there was some part of this animal that was still caught. It was caught in the web of humanity, and it was humanity that had made it become “Extinci.” Exploring this more is definitely something I would like to do.