Childhood to Adulthood - Oct. 2016
Project Two
“Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.” - Dr. Seuss
Little Big Bear
Drawing and Painting: Prismacolor Pencils and Watercolor on Paper
Reflection
The transition from childhood to adulthood is the time in someone's life where they both lose the most and gain the most. For me, I feel as though I am losing everything I have ever known. I am losing simplicity. When you are a child, everything is simple. There's nothing to worry about. You have no major responsibilities or obligations. You're just a kid; free to have fun and do whatever you want, as long as you abide by the rules laid out by your parents. As an adult, this all changes. You have to go to college where EVERYTHING is stressful; classes, tests, homework, awkward social situations. But that isn't the really difficult part. At least for me, I'm probably still going to be living off of my parents while I'm still in school. But, after college, you have to get a job and be a part of the highly competitive labor market. You have to pay taxes. How do you even pay taxes? Why did nobody teach me this? This leads into the second point: you have to become more independent. Your parents aren't there anymore to hold your hand as you stumble into the 'unknown'. At this moment in my life, I haven't fully embraced the unknown, yet, I am standing at the threshold, separating what I know from what I don't. I am halfway done with high school, but in my eyes, I'm still a child, clinging onto the hands of my parents as they guide me to the path that I will end up walking for the rest of my life. I'm not an adult. I'm not ready to grow up.
There are a few different techniques that I tried during the creation of this piece. Whether I mastered them or failed at them is still up for debate. First, I used prismacolor pencils when coloring the teddy bear and the train. This allowed me to obtain a rich color lay down. Originally, I didn't plan on shading the train. I just planned on coloring it in solid colors but when I finished doing that, the train appeared extremely flat and I wasn't happy with it so I decided to add value in order to create dimension. I used black as well as darker shades of the colors I was using to add the value. I really like the way it turned out after I shaded it. The train became darker which was almost in contrast with the rest of the picture.
Secondly, I used watercolor to fill in the ground and the sky and it was a struggle for me. I am not a huge fan of painting, but I decided to challenge myself and use watercolors. For the sky I used dark blue, light blue, dark purple, and light purple to create a serene yet, at the same time, ominous background. For the ground I used light green and dark green, using the dark green to create more depth to the foreground. The watercolor was really hard to control. Every time it dried there would always be splotches where I used too much water and not enough paint. I fixed most of those spots when I was adding the finishing touches to my piece, though. I think I did a good job blending the different shades of blue and purple as well as the shades of green. Conclusively, I got the effect that I desired, even though I might not have been the best combining water and color.
There are a few different techniques that I tried during the creation of this piece. Whether I mastered them or failed at them is still up for debate. First, I used prismacolor pencils when coloring the teddy bear and the train. This allowed me to obtain a rich color lay down. Originally, I didn't plan on shading the train. I just planned on coloring it in solid colors but when I finished doing that, the train appeared extremely flat and I wasn't happy with it so I decided to add value in order to create dimension. I used black as well as darker shades of the colors I was using to add the value. I really like the way it turned out after I shaded it. The train became darker which was almost in contrast with the rest of the picture.
Secondly, I used watercolor to fill in the ground and the sky and it was a struggle for me. I am not a huge fan of painting, but I decided to challenge myself and use watercolors. For the sky I used dark blue, light blue, dark purple, and light purple to create a serene yet, at the same time, ominous background. For the ground I used light green and dark green, using the dark green to create more depth to the foreground. The watercolor was really hard to control. Every time it dried there would always be splotches where I used too much water and not enough paint. I fixed most of those spots when I was adding the finishing touches to my piece, though. I think I did a good job blending the different shades of blue and purple as well as the shades of green. Conclusively, I got the effect that I desired, even though I might not have been the best combining water and color.
There are two main artists that I used as inspiration for this piece, both of them being children's story book illustrators. Not only did I take inspiration from the stylistic elements of their artwork, I also was inspired by the stories being told through their art. The first artist is Peggy Fortnum, the original illustrator of the Paddington Bear books written by Michael Bond. Paddington Bear is a Peruvian bear that goes to the city, searching for a new home. He is originally found in Paddington station; a train station. This is what inspired me to draw a train and a bear (especially a bear with a suitcase).
The second artist is Barbara Firth, the illustrator of many book written by Martin Waddell, featuring the characters of Big Bear and Little Bear. The main book that I used for my inspiration is called Sleep Tight Little Bear. I have a plethora of children's books at my home and when I was looking through them to try and find some inspiration for my Childhood to Adulthood piece, I came across Sleep Tight Little Bear which happened to be one of my favorites when I was younger. When I read the book again, not only did I find inspiration from Firth's adorable bear drawings, I also found inspiration from the book's message.
"One day Little Bear discovers a new cave that's the perfect size just for him. He plays in it all day, eats supper there, and with Big Bear's permission, even gets ready to spend the night. But when the big moon shines overhead and he's lying there all by himself, he suddenly realizes that Big Bear might be getting lonely back in the Bear Cave. Perhaps its time to go home!" - Synopsis of Sleep Tight Little Bear
Little bear wanted to be an adult. He wanted to feel independent. But once he was in his own cave, living by himself, he got lonely. He missed Big Bear so he decided to go back to the Bear Cave. when I become an "official" adult, I think I'll be like Little Bear. Originally, I will be excited to leave home and live in my own place, but after a little while, I will want to go back home to my family.
In my piece, the train symbolizes my home. At age 18 (the number of the train) I am leaving home and beginning my journey into the unknown. Therefore the bear represents me. The bear is holding a blue blanket because, as a child, my parents realized that I absolutely HATED the color pink, so they would always buy me the blue blankets and the blue teddy bears.
There are many different decisions that I made during the creation of this piece that I originally didn't plan on making. In my original drawing, the bear was getting off a bus at a bus stop. The setting I was thinking of was a very busy city. This would represent that melancholy an craziness that the transition into adulthood entails. Also, there would be many different arrow signs with sayings such as "somewhere" , "anywhere", "nowhere", and "everywhere" to display the ambiguousness of the future. In the end, I decided not to do a bus and a city scene, but rather a train traveling through the middle of no-mans-land. Why? The emptiness of the foreground and background represents how that, as I grow older, I feel more alone because I am forced to become independent. It also represents the uncertainty that this transition from childhood to adulthood brings. You never know where you are going to go when you become an adult. Sure, you might have plans. You might even have your whole life mapped out, but that doesn't mean that everything will go exactly according to plan. Life is a series of twists and turns. There is no way to know exactly what your future looks like. Well...unless you're a psychic.
I also decided to add a 3D element to my piece. Instead of drawing the smoke coming out of the train, to fit with the theme of teddy bears, I decided to use teddy bear stuffing. I was going to buy a small bag of stuffing from Michaels but my mom decided to cut open one of my dogs ruined chew toys and got the stuffing from there. Thanks, mom. I think that the stuffing as smoke turned at really well. It's also sort of grotesque, considering that stuffing is what teddy bears are made out of. Did I purposely do that?
Lastly, I decided to put glitter on my piece. It was a last minute decision. First I drew blocks of wood as the cargo on the train but I didn't like them so I decided to cover it with glitter which was a challenge. First of all, I got glitter everywhere. When I was getting ready for school the next morning I kept finding stray specks of glitter dotted all over my forehead and arms. Wait. Sorry. Just found some more glitter on my keyboard. Secondly, I had a useless glue stick. I don't know how many times I had to re-glue all of the glitter on because only 1/6 stuck to the paper the first time. It also didn't turn out like I wanted it to. It doesn't look like cargo, it just looks like it is a part of the train. Is it on the outside? Am I looking at the inside of the train? Honestly, who knows. Well, I think it still looks pretty cool.
If I could do something over, I would probably would have added more detail to the foreground and background, rather than just painting them with watercolors. In the background, I would have added stars and a moon and maybe some trees, flowers, and grass in the foreground. Because I started working on my project a little later than I should have, I didn't have time to add a lot of detail into those areas because I was mainly focusing on the train. I feel like if I added more detail, it would have tied the piece together.
There are many different decisions that I made during the creation of this piece that I originally didn't plan on making. In my original drawing, the bear was getting off a bus at a bus stop. The setting I was thinking of was a very busy city. This would represent that melancholy an craziness that the transition into adulthood entails. Also, there would be many different arrow signs with sayings such as "somewhere" , "anywhere", "nowhere", and "everywhere" to display the ambiguousness of the future. In the end, I decided not to do a bus and a city scene, but rather a train traveling through the middle of no-mans-land. Why? The emptiness of the foreground and background represents how that, as I grow older, I feel more alone because I am forced to become independent. It also represents the uncertainty that this transition from childhood to adulthood brings. You never know where you are going to go when you become an adult. Sure, you might have plans. You might even have your whole life mapped out, but that doesn't mean that everything will go exactly according to plan. Life is a series of twists and turns. There is no way to know exactly what your future looks like. Well...unless you're a psychic.
I also decided to add a 3D element to my piece. Instead of drawing the smoke coming out of the train, to fit with the theme of teddy bears, I decided to use teddy bear stuffing. I was going to buy a small bag of stuffing from Michaels but my mom decided to cut open one of my dogs ruined chew toys and got the stuffing from there. Thanks, mom. I think that the stuffing as smoke turned at really well. It's also sort of grotesque, considering that stuffing is what teddy bears are made out of. Did I purposely do that?
Lastly, I decided to put glitter on my piece. It was a last minute decision. First I drew blocks of wood as the cargo on the train but I didn't like them so I decided to cover it with glitter which was a challenge. First of all, I got glitter everywhere. When I was getting ready for school the next morning I kept finding stray specks of glitter dotted all over my forehead and arms. Wait. Sorry. Just found some more glitter on my keyboard. Secondly, I had a useless glue stick. I don't know how many times I had to re-glue all of the glitter on because only 1/6 stuck to the paper the first time. It also didn't turn out like I wanted it to. It doesn't look like cargo, it just looks like it is a part of the train. Is it on the outside? Am I looking at the inside of the train? Honestly, who knows. Well, I think it still looks pretty cool.
If I could do something over, I would probably would have added more detail to the foreground and background, rather than just painting them with watercolors. In the background, I would have added stars and a moon and maybe some trees, flowers, and grass in the foreground. Because I started working on my project a little later than I should have, I didn't have time to add a lot of detail into those areas because I was mainly focusing on the train. I feel like if I added more detail, it would have tied the piece together.