Color Design

Artist Statement

The main theme of “Murmuration of Change” is to express the beauty and simplicity of a murmuration (a large group of birds in flight. I choose to use birds in the piece because I thought that they would be there the easiest way to use as many colors as possible. Also, the reason that there are both a Sun and a Moon in the piece, is because I love when art can be viewed both right side up and upside down. if you look closely, you will see that halfway through, the birds change direction so that they are then flying towards either the Sun or the Moon, whichever is closest. The title, murmuration of change, came from the idea of the collective and the power that the collective holds. These birds fly individuals and yet together they create this magnificent art that can swoop across the sky. The power that the individual holds in the collective to create change is quite powerful, and I want to showcase this in the natural world, in hopes that it would be a reflection of our societal world.

This piece was made using acrylic paint on a 22” by 17” stretched canvas. The assignment was to create a piece of artwork using 84 colors. This meant the 3 primary, 3, secondary, and 6 tertiary. Then, I was asked to create 3 tints and shades of each color. I chose to use a larger canvas because it would give me the most amount of space to make the gradiant change from blue to orange-red look realistic. it was helpful to be using this project because acrylic lets you paint over at once it's dried, so I could do as many layers as I needed. When you're trying to make a seamless change from one car to a next, it helps to be able to do as many coats as are needed.

I started off making this project with a completely different idea of how I would make it. I thought I would paint a forest with sunlight streaming through it. I had sketched out everything onto a canvas, And then I said about making my colors. I had the idea that if I made all my colors beforehand I would be able to see exactly what color I wanted to use right then and there, and it'll go much faster. This was not the case and when I started to paint, I found that it was very difficult to get the color sections right, without having them blend. So I started again, still thinking I would do the trees and the sunrise. this time I canvas was much smaller, and I thought this would be easier however it turns out it wasn't. Finally feeling a little exasperated and out of time, I completely revised my idea of what I would do. I started on a large canvas that was the same size as the first camps I had tried to paint on, however, it was stretched canvas which actually made it a lot easier. I had to remake most of my colors because at this point the head all but dried out. Once I finished the background, it was time to move on to the birds. This was difficult because I really wanted to get the shape accurate to what a murmuration of birds would actually look like. I looked up images of murmurations and picked out a couple of basic bird shapes that I would use in my piece. Then I started painting, first with some of my purples and then working my way across the color spectrum until I was done. I did the moon last the sun first. If I were to revise this work, which I have a feeling I will, I would like to add a lot more birds, and do another coat on the moon. I would also make the gradation from light blue to navy blue, much more smooth.