I thought forever about what my piece should be, and had a really difficult time coming up with something. I started a new project and then scrapped it every day. Finally it hit me. I decided to do a watercolor of a toad. I’ve settled on “The Valuable Toad” for my title because the simple sketch of the toad is made into something much more valuable when the watercolor is added. I really like the gold background because it brings out the beauty in the toad; a creature that is often considered ugly and warty. I was inspired by the illustrator of the Frog and Toad book series, as well as other children’s book illustrators who work with watercolor such as Brian Bowes and Amy Bates. For the theme of making something that is considered “ugly” into something valuable, I was also inspired by the photography of Joel-Peter Witkin, who photographs corpse parts into beautiful works of art. While I didn’t take from his art style, I tried to take from the principle of his artwork instead. I developed my art making skills with this project because I used a medium that was relatively new to me: watercolor. After this piece I feel a lot more used to watercolor paints and like I can manipulate them to create the different effects I want with ease. I also communicated through this work; I wanted to convey the message that even something as gross as a toad (personally I don’t think toads are gross but I know a lot of people who do) can be made into something beautiful and valuable. By selecting watercolor as my medium, I took a risk because I am a little unfamiliar with it. However I really think this risk worked out in my favor because I found out how much I really do enjoy using watercolor, and perhaps I will try to utilize it more often in the future. When coming up with the idea, I collaborated by showing my friend a picture of a toad that I caught over the summer. At this time I was still searching for a theme to draw, so I thought of drawing the toad, and it worked. I also collaborated and asked my peers for their thoughts on my piece while it was still in progress. I had to solve problems with this work because the original sketch I had made of the toad was on very thin paper, and I realized that watercolor doesn’t work very well on thin paper. So instead I solved this dilemma by just redrawing the toad on very thick paper, and the watercolor flowed so much more easily. I took several opportunities to reflect on my work at different stages, I added in tons of layers of gold, orange, and yellow to create a more interesting, three-dimensional effect to the background. Reflecting on your art is so important; it helps you think about what you could do differently to make the piece better and also what you can do in the future to improve your artwork. Having a global awareness is very important as well. My global awareness for this work is shown in the inspiration I received from the other artists and their techniques and ideas. I took from them but also made them my own. Overall, I ended up liking this piece a lot, even though it came out of a desperate attempt to think of an idea. I think that through this reflection I learned more about it, and it has become even more valuable that way. It has a new meaning to me.
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Authorjohanna carr Archives
May 2016
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