putting all the elements together wasn't that hard but making them blend seamlessly was. Getting the shading to blend through different areas so that it looked connected and not like a jigsaw was the challenging part.
starting out I had the proportions very wonky and I had to go back and fix it to fit the proportion of everything else, shading the face was difficult trying to get it dark enough but not excessively dark in the wrong places, so it was challenging but fun at the same time.
Did you use a source for inspiration, then combine it with your own ideas to make it original? I used various pictures of the Glass Wing Butterfly to understand the different angles and how they look at those angles so I could draw multiple and then infer where the light would be hitting them and how that would react with other elements.
Did you try something that you weren’t sure about as part of this project? I tried to do a flower that I haven't drawn before and it was difficult because the flowers are really small and getting gradients were challenging I really had to layer the colors to get the proper shape and gradient. When did you step back and analyze you work during this project? I had multiple butterflies and some flowers but the paper still looked so empty and I had fun drawing the flowers so I did more of them at various angles and curves with different colors so it became more dynamic and colorful, it helped to liven the scene and ground it. finding the right angles to draw the butterflies was difficult because I wanted to fill the space but I worked out a good composite that made me happy so I ran with it.
Did you pick a material or technique that was new or different over something that was familiar?
I haven't tried to show transparency very much before, it's hard to achieve but what I did was try to blend out some white to give it the sheen and then adding back in some streaks of white that are visible with cellophane that's been twisted and stretched. Did you gain skill with familiar materials?
I've worked with chalk pastels before but this was a good refresher for how to blend and mix, chalk isn't easy to work with because it gets everywhere and the blending can be hard to get right so it helped to get the feel of it again. it was fun working with Prisma colors because I haven't used them before and I think I could really like them it's a lot easier to blend without smudging everything.
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Lauren RotaArchives
May 2016
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