Reflection: 

I chose the Aster because I love how pretty the purple petals and yellow center look together. Asters are important to know about because in the winter they help to provide shelter for many small animals. One way we can help to protect asters is by letting them grow in fields and not cutting all of them. This will let the Asters continue to benefit the Royal River watershed. 

If a person were to find my tile in 2,000 years, they would be able to figure out that there were purple flowers that grew in dry fields. This hypothetical person might be able to read the writing on the back of my tile and figure out that asters need the sun to grow, that insects need asters to feed off of, and that birds hide under their petals and stems in the winter to stay protected. I might choose to paint an actual bird underneath the flower as opposed to just painting footprints. I would do this to make asters benefits to the watershed more apparent. 

The most interesting part of this project was painting the tile. I enjoyed painting the small details like the insects and snowflakes. I also enjoyed mixing the colors although it was a fairly tedious process. It was very satisfying to see all of my research and planning come together in my final piece. 

I chose to use a complementary color scheme. My color scheme consists of various shades of purple and yellow, as those are two complementary colors. I also used a small amount of black and white for the mandatory black-and-white pattern (bottom right). I chose a complementary color scheme because I wanted my tile to look semi realistic, but still have the yellow parts pop out from the rest of the piece. 

While working with Tim Christensen I found his insight helpful for figuring out which parts of Asters and their impact I wanted to use and how. Tim gave me the advice to think about what asters need to survive. This led me to end up using rays of sunlight to represent the sun giving asters nutrients.  

Planning: Back: