Sustained Investigation #1

REFLECTION ON WORK:

• I synthesize materials, processes, and ideas in your work in different ways/using different methods. I chose my materials and processes after coming up with my idea. I knew that the idea needed to come first, and the rest would follow after so that my idea was never limited by a material/process choice that I was set on. I ended up changing/adding materials and processes to my work so that it would better fit my idea. I chose acrylic paint as the base because I am most comfortable working with it, and fairly fast so that I would be able to finish the painting in the limited time that we had. I feel like I can cover a lot of space quickly with acrylics as well. It fits in with the idea because I was able to make a ton of different values and colors pretty quickly to represent the different subjects in the finished product. I chose watercolor pencils because of the high level of detail that I was able to achieve in also a limited amount of time. I liked working with these and I think they were great for my piece, especially layered with the acrylics. They were able to give me the whimsical and sort of odd look on the bees which is exactly what I was going for with my idea. I pasted the watercolors onto the canvas so that they would sort of clash with each other and stand out, as the bees and flowers are the centerpiece. 

• My piece shows evidence of practice by my color swatches and sketches. I did a lot of revision and experimentation, but also did have to practice getting the correct colors and drawing bees and von Frisch’s face, for example. I did all of these multiple times to get the final product that I liked. The piece shows experimentation with all of the layers of paint that I used. I redid the hills multiple times, tried out different bee configurations, tried out different textures with acrylics, and had to accustom myself to watercolor pencils for the first time! Finally, I revised many aspects of my work and guided my inquiry. I had to repaint the flowers and redraw the bees so that they didn’t portray the wrong message. 

• This piece will inform my work moving forward in many ways. For instance, I will be more open to using mixed media and also learning more techniques within each media. I also know now the amount of time it takes to do certain things, like the art journal, the canvas stretching, the painting, watercolor pencils, etc. This will all guide me to be better at time management. My next piece might involve another “fun fact” that I find interesting. For example, buffalos use voting to make decisions. I think that this is fun and already have a couple of ideas for how I could make it work. Composition-wise, I could either do a bunch of buffalos sitting around a voting box, or I could do one or two sliding their ballots into the box, which could also be funny. I like the style and slight humor of my first piece, so I want to keep that up as well!