Project 8: My Animal Lady

When I started this project I had been really frustrated with my recent art. The portrait I had made of Santiago wasn't looking right and the animation I had tried to do was taking forever and not looking too good. I also had this frustration in sculpture class so instead of working on our project at the time I started sketching. I came up with the idea of a lady who is so obsessed with animals that it consumed her... 

I was so happy with the idea that I took a large piece of paper home to work on it. I ended up going to a small trail in my neighborhood, sitting in the leaves and drawing her for a hour or two. I was really happy with it and outlined it right away

This is the first project I had been totally inspired by since My Fat Man, this project helped me lock on my concentration. The idea of a obsession literally taking over the body really inspired me. But I knew I wasn't done yet. I was really happy with the outline but I knew it needed color. I never really use colored pencils in my work but wanted the detail they create so I chose that as my medium. The drawing class that goes on at the same time as Art 4 had just recently completed animal works using prisma colors, so I asked one of them how she had used the prisma colors to make the illusion of fur. The best advice I got from this was to look at the direction of the hairs, this really helped my realism. I practiced this technique A LOT before starting and then began on my final. 

I was REALLY happy with my progress though this project took a lot of time and energy. I had to work on each animal individually 

Afterwords I worked in skin tones using peach colors and brown. I worked in details like pink skin around her wounds and small blue veins in her skin. Originally I wasn't going to make veins but made a accidental blue mark. It worked to my advantage though, just added another detail.

This is what she looks like now... I think I'll name her Tiere (animal in German). I'm not sure yet whether or not she is finished, I may or may not add a forest background. I have gotten comments where people have wanted me to put in a background and others wanted me to keep it this way so she is the main focus of the work. But for now I am really happy with what I accomplished.