Human Emulating Animal Attributes

Alex Colville (1920-2013, Canadian). (n.d.). Retrieved August 05, 2017, from http://www.thegreatcat.org/the-cat-in-art-and-photos-2/cats-in-art-20th-century/alex-colville-1920-2013-canadian/

     When I saw the description for the project I was slightly stumped and unsure of how I was going to portray this, but soon enough what I wanted to do became clear. For this piece, I'm planning on doing a human with feline mannerisms. From the moment I decided that this was my idea, I kept picturing the same pose; a cat prowling on top of a fence.

    Of course, a cat has many signature poses and though I wanted my human to prowl a fence I had to keep my options open, so drawing and sketching out each of my top ones was essential. Nonetheless, I still believe my favorite thumbnail sketch is in fact not one of my deciding figures, the human prowling, but the hissing human that's stiff in stature. I find it quite hilarious to look at and it was fun to draw.

    In this piece, I'm going to use watercolor and micron inking pens. I wanted a simpler piece to contrast with the other two and a concise conclusion to all three together. Although, using the micron pens may add too much unwanted detail I trust that I know what my final image should look like and I intend to keep it similar.

   I either aim to use the primary colors to imply the basic fundamentals of it and to make the picture easier to view or find ways to make the human's clothing make the person more feline-like. I'm most likely going to stick with the primary colors to exaggerate the simplicity of the image.

   

    During the creation of this piece, I did have to make several changes for it to be to my liking. One of those changes is the number of subjects present in the picture. Decidedly, I added two more humans to the mix because I wanted to convey more movement in the finished product. As you can tell, the product is not as simple as I described it beforehand, it contains more colors and detailing yet, the picture manifests this feeling of playfulness. Almost whimsy, but it still serves its purpose to display feline attributes. Additionally, the background is more elaborate than what I first intended it to be. Now it holds a wall full of vines, flowers, leaves, and butterflies. The butterflies were another unanticipated change but were incorporated to give the subjects a focal point to interact with.

    The difficulties I was faced with include water control, color saturation, and impatience. I struggled with water control because my hand tends to shake a lot so I would paint outside of the lines. Water control also connects with the color saturation problem. When too much water was in the color it was lighter than I wanted it to be, making it hard to make the color more vivid. Luckily, it wasn't too much of a problem except when I became a little impatient and tried to paint over it again when the paper was not dry enough. Of course, these issues were merely little obstacles that barely affected the end product.

    If I had the chance to alter or redo this piece in any way I would make it digital. This project could be a very entertaining cartoon-styled piece that could really help me explore my own art style and further develop my skills digitally. Specifically, I would make the details clearer and the anatomy on my subjects more accurate. Perhaps adding more shading and highlights would bring more realism to this picture. Other than that, I'm very pleased with how this picture turned out.

    This art project monumentally helped me in a numerous amount of ways that are hard to express fully through typed words on a page. During the beginning brainstorm process, I found myself laughing wholeheartedly at my stupid sketches of humans acting in animalistic natures. This alleviated the stress that was piling upon me during the last week of summer. At that point, art became a de-stressor and continued to soothe my anxiety throughout the rest of summer. This piece makes me think of simpler times when I was in my childhood. The method the colors are situated across the paper rekindles memories of playful and fun moments in my life. When my friends and I played games of "house" on a playground and collected plants to make into mud pies.  However, it also makes me think of the way I am now and the changes I underwent as I grew up. The nature of my art style reveals maturity and intelligence, almost like a cautious but devoted hand created a universe of reflection for my timeline. It's a curious thing to contemplate but it means something, and that's all I desire for my art to demonstrate.