Sustained Investigation #3

Title: Mother Earth

Size: 5'' x 5.25 ''

Statement:

This piece shows a woman holding the world over her bully. Originally, I planned for the woman to be pregnant with the Earth, meaning her belly would actually be the world. However, when I added color the sketch, it looked strange so I changed it to be the woman holding the earth. I wanted to show the power in women as well as the immense work of pregnancy.

I sketched out the piece with graphite on card stock - like paper. I then colored in the woman and the earth with colored pencils. I originally planned on collaging the background with leaf - like material, but I realized that might make the image too busy. I decided to use ink to fill in the background with orange. I thought it looked too plain with just the range ink, so I dabbled yellow ink over the orange to create a background that looked a bit like fire. I have used orange backgrounds in all of my works so far and I think I might continue the trend with slight variations to tie them all together.

For my next works, I would like to get away from detail and work with big brush strokes and collage. I want to get myself away from focusing on detail and more on composition and highlight.