After finishing my first artwork of the year, I am happy with how it turned out, but I still think there is room for improvement. I need to go back and add more details to the water at the bottom so that there is a clear difference between the sky and the water underneath the wave. Since I did add so much detail to the wave, I think that it will be necessary to add more detail to the water below so that there is more unity in the piece. I think that the top of the whale has great attention to detail and overall looks great, but the bottom half of the whale doesn’t feel like it has the same detailing. I think I should’ve started adding the trash higher up on the whale so that it was more obvious that it was the focus of the piece. In the future, I want to go in and add so trash above the whale and more on the bottom half of the whale. I also want to add detail to the trash as well so that it is uniform with the top half of the whale.

Despite these changes that I want to make, I think that I did well with my proportions of the whale’s body, which made it feel more realistic. On the areas of the piece where I did add detail, I think it added a lot of interest to the piece. I was very surprised by how well I painted the top of the whale and the wave simply because of the amount of time I spent adding minor details. This was my first time painting water to make it look realistic and I was happy with the results I received.