Sustained Investigation #3

Artist Statement:

For this piece I wanted to show the dark themes that original fairy tales have. Today we are blind to these darker themes because of modern interpretations of these fairy tales, like Disney's interpretations, and censoring because people think that these ideas are harmful to developing children.

For materials I used black charcoal to give me a really deep and dark black, and I used a red chalk pastel for the red as it provided the same texture as charcoal. I first used a graphite pencil to sketch and plan out the drawing. I used blending stumps to smooth out the charcoal and chalk pastel and create shading.

The final design was my second interpretation, my first design (top left) showed a much happier and more magical theme that didn't sit right so I changed it to be darker and more menacing. I chose to do selective color to really draw the viewers attention and to display a sort of ignorance and unknowingness that Red Riding Hood has. The subject is off-center to provide movement to the piece because if it was centered, in my mind, the piece wouldn't be very interesting. I also wanted to make the feeling that the woods was inclosing arou nd Red Riding Hood almost swallowing her and drawing her in. I thibk this piece is my favorite one I have made this year because of how much thought and depth I have put into it. I might go back later to make the blacks more solid and add more branches.