Flatlined

Project 10

INQUIRY: In what ways are humans impacting the environment?

Size: 28.4(w) x 37.9(h) inches

Date of Completion: March 4, 2022

Ideas: depict the cruelty that many fish face from the fishing industry

Materials: used iPad and Adobe Fresco

Process: used asymmetrical balance to evoke feelings of tension, movement and energy crushing the fish

Inspiration

War Propaganda Art

"Sticks & Stones"

"Raw Deal"

Propagandas are often used to push an agenda and influence people's opinion on a specific cause or politics. They were most commonly seen during WWII to encourage enlistment, donations or to villainize the enemy, although many were exaggerated or selective with the truths they include to manipulate the audience. The other thing that sticks out with these propaganda posters is their art, which is often a straight to the point simple presentation with a light/bright background accompanied by a message.

I wanted to use the art style of these posters as an inspiration for my tenth project because I feel that they are visually pleasing to look at and create a sense of urgency for action. However, I wanted to do this without using text so my message has to be more apparent through visualization. One thing I would like to prevent doing is to to make my artwork biased because it is not fair to put out a false narrative.

The

Planning

For my tenth project, I wanted to surround my piece on the topic regarding overfishing, more specifically issues concerning with the fishing industry and recreational fishing since they contribute to the majority of loss in the marine ecosystem. However, I wanted to stray away from just drawing a mass amount of fish being caught in a net or anything that is commonly attached to overfishing, but instead use other means to represent them.

I did a few sketches that I thought was unique such as a low angle of a fish being violently reeled in by a ominous figure above water, fish in bowls that overlook a body of water to point out the irony and an abstract piece showing fish being reeled in. I also brainstormed by doodling fish and some other ideas, but none of them really encompasses the mood or feeling I wanted to convey. So I went to watch videos documenting the atrocities of overfishing to improve my understanding of the situation. I saw how many of them weren't kill mercifully, but caused to suffocate on the deck and some were thrown back into the ocean due to not meeting the quality standards, even though they were dead or on the verge of death.

This was when I got the idea to illustrate a fish, on the brink of death, suffocating. However, my inquiry asks how humans affect the environment so I decided to add a leg that's doing the suffocating by stepping on the fish's gill even though the fish is clearly going to die on its own. This addition not only establishes the oppressor and the oppressed, but shows the cruelty that's present in mankind.

The

Experimentation

In order to show that the fish is valuable in terms of it being a living organism, I wanted its body to be rich with color to show how beautiful it is. I wanted to stick with the brush I've been using, which is the soft pastel so I decided to experiment on how to blend them. One approach I used was to overlap different colors on top of each other and the other was to spread the hues out individually and just blend the sides. After doing this I discovered that the former dulls out the color since the stacking of different hues interfere with each other, but on the other hand, the latter makes for a vibrant mixture since the colors are given individual space to shine.

My second experiment was to test the flow of the brush, which changes the amount of pastel being used. Instead of going for the extreme numerical ends, I tried going for numbers in the middle. From a quick sketch I did, I definitely want to avoid going for anything lower than 40 because it makes the brush inconsistent since the pressure changes the amount of pastel dramatically, but a range from 40 to 80 is perfect because I can lightly stroke the brush, yet the color will still pour in evenly.

Method 2

Method 1

The

Process

My main objective with this piece is to essentially capture the ill treatment of fish and somehow encourage the viewers to take action or be more involved with issues concerning the environment and animals. I didn't really know how to do this through using visual means alone at first, but I wanted to create a sense of helplessness from the fish and send a message saying how "we can't survive without you, therefore need your involvement". This was why I decided to add bite marks on the feet to show signs of resistance from the dying fish to show that it gave all it got for survival, but ultimately, it is up to us to decide their fate.

After I thought that I had finished the artwork, something about it didn't feel right and I realized that it was due to the absence of scales on the fish. Based on pictures I found online of generic scales, I decided to draw a grid or lines on the body to match its dimension with the intention of using it as the base for when I do the individual scale. However, after doing exactly this, the product (bottom left) didn't look as well as I had in mind, but I thought that the base itself was perfect for the scales. I tried both white and black lines to see which looked better and it was undoubtedly the white. Since the white was too bold, I changed the blend mode to soft light so that it fits more seamlessly with the rest.

The

Reflection

I'm pretty proud of this project, not only because of the final product, but also the behind the scenes, especially the way I dealt with complications. I limited myself by not allowing myself to use text to convey my message and I feel that I was able to creatively come up with a solution for it, for which I described in the process section. With this piece, I think that I've come a long way in terms of shading and utilizing reference images to correctly do so. This improvement can be seen on the leg where I tried replicating the shadows and highlights that I saw on my own feet as well as possible. For the fish, I used a new approach to coloring by spreading different hues in different areas instead of coloring the body in one color and then adding the other hues on top. You might be wondering what difference this makes, but doing this prevents the different colors from overlapping and interfering with each other's qualities. My favorite part to work on was definitely the leg since it was really fun to see the process of the shading on the toes and heel which transformed it from flat to a bit more three dimensional. One thing I'm insecure about is the mushed eye that's leaking blood since it doesn't seem to be as graphic as I want. Overall, I'd consider this a solid piece.