Remember...

Completion Date: 12-11-08
Time Taken: 18 hours
Medium(s):
+ 6 3/16" x 10" Illustration board
+ Darice 11x14" Tracing paper
+ Staedtler Mars technico pencil (4H Staedtler carbon lead 2mm)
+ Pelikan watercolors
+ Lefranc & Bourgeois gouache paint
+ Prismacolor markers
+ Prismacolor colored pencils
+ Prang colored pencils
+ Golden Gel Mediums (Soft Gel matte medium)
+ ZIG Millenium pens
+ Gelly Roll gel pen (White)
+ Adjusted and watermarked in Photoshop CS2
Music:
+ Remember - Josh Groban
+ Celtic Dream - Enigma
+ Fight of the Sickle Troops - Shigeru Umebayashi

Comment:
"And so I am the last, all that remains of a world once so green and full of life. Forced to extinction by ignorance and modernization, an irreversible damage wrought on such gentle beings. Now the planet lay in dischord and disrepair, a home to humans so cold and disconnected. It bring a great sadness to me seeing children born into a world without a single tree, without the creatures that used to call it home. Such a sorrowful place, bleak and dark; covered by shadowed clouds of viscous black smoke.

Rises of steel fracture what was once such a glorious horizon, testaments to the scientific and archietectural advancement of these sentient beings. What was the blue sky like so long ago..? What was the world when she was still young and untouched? I remember well, my sisters.. my brothers, the days of soft summer breezes and cool rains.

The life that flowed here in this once flourishing place.. Yet, it is no more. No longer is there sweet rain, but harsh acrid liquid that pelts down from a diseased atomosphere. Even stone has become nothing more than blackened shells that crumble at the slightest touch. What world is this that remains where even the very soil has turned into a memory? As time passes, what remains of nature fades...

In time, I too, shall be forgotten... though I am now. And when that day comes, who shall remember the Earth as she was? My bark and roots will turn to ash and my spirit shall disappear, but I will never forget what once was.

But... who will remember me...?"

Terrible scan is terrible. x.x I will try to get a better one tomorrow morning after class...
Anyway, this is my last project for the semester for Principles of Design and Color. We had a choice to take inspiration from the book(s) Einstein's Dream or Cradle to Cradle and create a project from such. Of course, I didn't have time to read the Einstein one so I was stuck with dry old Cradle to Cradle, really I hate that book. Anyway, my inspiration came from a specific line that talked about how the older generations (prior to modern times) thought the land an all on it was an infinite resource. However, as we see that today, it is not. We are slowly killing the planet and all of the wonderful things on it and in it. So depicted is the Tree Spirit (previous submission) sitting on the dying, blackened roots of her tree. Her expression is of calm sorrow, awaiting her inevitable death from the result of a society that stopped caring long ago. She laments on her life and the way the world once was. It is a sad truth shown, and one I hope we try to change.

As for the materials used for the piece, I tried something way different. Of course, I went with my general method of staining my board with watercolor (you can still see some of the splatters as dark spots in the sky), drawing my composition, and then coloring with marker and colored pencil. However, the spirit was not painted on. What did I do? Well I drew her on tracing paper and cut her out very carefully with an xacto knife, then I used the gel medium to "glue" her to the piece right were I wanted before putting another coat of medium on top of her. The sweet thing about gel medium and tracing paper is that it makes it dry even more transparent. From there I built her up with white colored pencil and gouache until I had the desired effect. The white gel pen was the final touch to give her the wisps of stray hair and some additional highlights.

I really enjoyed doing this piece, it was an expriement more than anything and it turned out a lot better than I thought even though I started over 3 times. x.x Anyway, enjoy! And as always all feedback is appreciated as well as CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM *hint*.

^{Artwork, Tree Spirit © 2008 P. Lolla (*souls-poison)
DO NOT USE WITHOUT PERMISSION!!! ARTWORK AND CHARACTER COPYRIGHT P. Lolla (*souls-poison); ALL RIGHTS RESERVED!!! DO NOT STEAL, ALTER, COPY, AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW!!!}