2D Core Project 2: “Mushroom Triptych”

I immediately knew after receiving this assignment that I wanted to do a piece on the topic of deforestation. Looking at some of the nature / forest scenes in the initial keynote presentation, I decided that I wanted to go that route and work with some more natural imagery. One of my biggest struggles with this project was trying to figure out a way to accurately depict a sense of encroaching evil in the forest—one both toxic and parasitic (the human-impact on global deforestation). I first tried having it dripping down from the sky in my initial sketches, but inevitably decided to have it coming from the far-most right panel. I chose to do this because when looking at triptychs, the average (western) viewer will read it from left to right: first glancing at the calm, village scene depicting mushroom people performing their daily activities, then further towards the right, where chaos ensues.

This was my first large-scale watercolor (or any form of painting for that matter), so it took me a tremendously long time to complete. After doing my initial sketches, I transferred them over to watercolor paper through the use of tracing paper. Once on the watercolor paper, I inked over all of the lines with micron and began to fill in the colors. One thing that helped me much more than I had initially thought was a character sheet I decided to create while halfway through my sketches. This provided as a very useful point of reference when coloring all of the individual mushroom people.

The final pieces are each 11″ x 14″.

 

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