My original intention for my first piece was to convey the fear of arachnophobia and I wanted to incorporate this fear in an abstract style. I composed my idea so there was an abstracted figure who is like a sort of “spider keeper”. I had spider legs extend over him and wrapped around him to make it seem like he controlled them. Originally, I planned to just do an arm with spiders crawling up it, but after much consideration, I came to the conclusion that this was too cliche, so that is when I developed my final aforementioned idea. My biggest struggle when executing this was removing the masking fluid I used on my paper. As I began to attempt to peel it away, it began to peel my paper away and left a “shredded” texture to the surface of the paper. I tried to work through this by making it seem intentional and just shaded over it with darker black watercolor. I think I am most proud of the level of texture I was able to incorporate in the spider legs. Although it took a long time to do each individual hair stroke, I think it turned out really nice and really added emphasis to the “creepy” feel of the piece. I definitely need to practice with my watercolor application and pushing my values. It was really a challenge to work in a monochromatic color scheme. I think my application of the paint was a little patchy in some areas and uneven, but this was also due to the debacle with the masking fluid peeling my paper. I learned through the process of this piece that you can easily make a composition more interesting by simply transforming the way you look at it. By implementing the abstract style, I was able to have more freedom in the looseness of the piece why still including more refined aspects, such as the texture or the hair. I feel I have finally been able to find a way to implement my personal style in a less cliche way and how to convey the fears in more scary ways very simplistically.
Wow! I think you portrayed the creepy feeling you were going for very well! I like that you kept it simple with just black and white; it really dramaticized those certain emotions of dread and fear. I hadn’t noticed this before, but looking up close I can see your development of texture in the hairiness of the spider legs. It gives me the chills just looking at it. I might suggest just considering what facial expression you choose for the man, because he is the central focus in this piece. By the shape of his mouth, he looks like he’s smiling. Maybe if you had him either screaming, or even had his mouth obscured somehow, like as if the spider was taking control of his body, or holding him captive; I feel that might also enforce a deeper emotion to the piece as well, like people who have arachnophobia feel trapped, and/or can’t escape their own fear.