Planning I am participating in Bigfoot Skate shop's art gallery. The artists get blank skateboards and have to make a design off of the theme. The theme is bug and insects. The first thing that came to mind was the monarch butterfly because over this summer I heard a lot about them and there struggles surviving. The number of Monarch butterfly's that make it back to the southern parts of the country to overwintering sites has decreased the past 20 years.
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Monarch.
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ProcessThis first things I did was sanded the skateboards just to get the finish on the boards off. Then I lined the skateboards up together and did a quick free hand sketch of a monarch. I used pencil. I then went in and made it cleaner and more precise.
I did this project through Bigfoot before and the last time I only did one board. I used oil paints and it was a mess. Oil paints got on everything I owned. How? I don't know. So I experimented with acrylic paints before decided my medium. Acrylic is not easy to give a gradient too. So I decided to use oils for this even though it gets everywhere. It is what looks the best. Oil paint experimentation.
In my oil paint experimentation, the yellow and brown shades were practice towards the gradient I want to achieve on the wing. The orange is the base color I wanted to use throughout the whole wing. I used my dark orange color to create a base color. I then went it with a bright yellow to create my gradient. I used a googled picture of a monarch to compare as I was painting. Once I finished the color of the wing with oils, I waited for it to dry so I could add onto the board. The last time I used the oils with a skateboard it did not turn out well and it was messy. So I only painted one board so I could see if it would turn out correctly. It took about a week to completely dry. It turned out great. I don't have a ton of experience on oil paints. But, for the black of the butterfly I wanted to use acrylic because it would dry quicker. Unsure of how the oils would reacted I only painted a small part and waited for it to dry. It dried in a day and worked out great.
I appreciate how Da Vinci diagrams out his drawing and the vintage look his drawing now have. As well as connecting this piece to my IB Environmentals class, I wanted to diagram the monarch on this piece. I have a set of alphabet stamps that look similar to Lucian Bernhard's font Bernhard Modern.
Typeface Bernhard Modern Bt.
Once, realizing the acrylic over oil was a success then, I did the same to the other side. For now, I am making them symmetrical. So I painted an outline on the wings and some inner wing detail. I left some orange visible of the upper part of the wing. I painted in the body in solid black and added the antennae.
After finishing the based of the monarchs, I like how it looks but, it is not very realistic. which isn't always a bad thing but, if I am going to add the anatomy then it probably should look more realistic.
After adding the white spots onto the black areas of the monarch, it started to come together more. The white acrylic paint dried and I looked up an anatomy diagram to view the scientific names of the parts of a monarch butterfly. I chose parts I think are important and used the stamps to put them on the board. I also picked parts on how spread out I could put the words apart from one another. |
Da Vinci's drawing of muscles and skeleton.
I started to look at Leonardo Da Vinci's drawings of inventions and anatomy. He maps out every aspect of what he is examining. I also like the run down like faded look that all of Leonardo's drawings have now.
I also thought about my environmental class and some of the reasons why the monarch butterfly's population could be declining. Kraken skateboard. 2015.
Acrylic paint experimentation.
The left board is the pencil sketch of the outline of the butterfly. The right is with the dried oil paints and acrylic paint layered on top. Now that I know that the oil paints dry well and the acrylic layer correctly, I began to do the same thing to the other side. As I was waiting for that side to dry, I began to experiment with my letter stamps.
I wanted to use these stamps to give my piece a vintage tone. I was worried about if the ink would stick to the wood of the skateboard though. I experimented on a piece of paper and listed the anatomy of the monarch I wanted to feature. I'm not sure if I liked the ink shown that outlines the boarder of the stamp. But it helps emphasis the connected to Lucian Bernhard and all of his hand made designs.
After adding the stamps, I felt like there was still a lot of empty space on the board. Lots of skateboard brands add there name/logo somewhere on the board. I decided to write ¨MONARCH" at the bottom of each board in a tattoo like font. The board is representative of the importants of monarchs so, I thought a simple monarch would be appropriate.
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Artist Inspiration
My artist inspiration is Lucian Bernhard. A graphic designer from Germany. He uses his own types faces to his work and all of his work is hand made. His work has strong uses of hierarchy and follow the traditional design aspects. His works are primarily for companies and brands. So, the title is usually bold and just of the brand name. That connects to my piece by the monarch title at the bottom. I also use white as Bernhard did by helping the viewer go across the piece. His pieces are realistic but, also not realistic which I tried to achieve in my piece.
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Reflection
The piece was a success mostly. My original intention was for this piece to look more vintage. I wanted it to have a older feel to it. The oil paints for the oranges were very vivid and bright which contrasts my original intention. Also I wanted to use more of the stamps and ink to fill up more space but, the stamps and wood do not work well together. The ink bleeds on the wood and does not make a clean stamp. An unrelated struggle in this project was that I have cats. I didn´t think having a cat would be a struggle in an art project but, cat hair gets everywhere. When spraying my finish on the piece cat hair stuck to the board and I could not get it off.
ACT Questions
- Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect on your art work.
Lucian Bernhard has very clear cut designs. He uses few colors to create intracit things. I wanted to use few colors but, create a good design. His forms of heirarchy for design is something I try to interpret into my work.
- What is the overall approach the author has reguarding the topic of your research?
- What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, while you research your inspiration?
While researching monarchs, I learned a lot about the struggles monarch butterflies are having. I was unaware that monarchs populations were declining at such a fast rate. Also, researching Lucian Bernhard, I learned a lot about how design was create in the 1900's.
- What was the centeral idea or theme around your inspirational work?
The theme was the struggle monarch butterflies are having. The idea was to bring attention to the monarchs.
Lucian Bernhard has very clear cut designs. He uses few colors to create intracit things. I wanted to use few colors but, create a good design. His forms of heirarchy for design is something I try to interpret into my work.
- What is the overall approach the author has reguarding the topic of your research?
- What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, while you research your inspiration?
While researching monarchs, I learned a lot about the struggles monarch butterflies are having. I was unaware that monarchs populations were declining at such a fast rate. Also, researching Lucian Bernhard, I learned a lot about how design was create in the 1900's.
- What was the centeral idea or theme around your inspirational work?
The theme was the struggle monarch butterflies are having. The idea was to bring attention to the monarchs.