Final Project- April 15th

Research Project

Final Paper

When first thinking about the direction that I wanted my research project to go I asked myself questions like “What issues am I concerned with?” and “What are my interests when it comes to painting?”. I have always found myself to gravitate towards animals not only in my life but also in my art, so through asking myself these questions I was able to develop a starting point in my research by looking into animals and their environment. For the topic of research I chose to combine these two elements along with our relationship to them and the issues of harmful impacts we as humans may be negatively causing them. When it comes to our relationship with animals I feel that there are a lot of concerns and issues which need to be addressed which is why I also chose to incorporate how we humans are negatively impacting the animals and their environments. In general, I chose this as my topic for my research project because I have always had a love for all animals and enjoy incorporating them into my artwork whenever I get the chance and figured this would be the perfect opportunity to take this interest as well as bring awareness to these damaging issues.

My research initially started going back to the basics, I started looking into the different variations in appearances found within different species of animals, for example, the different colours and textures and why exactly they have these specific appearances, whether it be to signify their gender or for protection. After learning how some species use their appearances for protection within their environments, it led me to wanting to see the effects that we as humans have on the animals and their environments. Along with doing this research I also started to become interested in animals changing and evolving over time, and I actually discovered that I could combine my previous research with this new interest as I found out that some animals' evolution appearance have been due to the changing of their environments. When delving deeper into this thought/topic I wanted to see why their environments have been changing which is when I learned about issues that we as humans have caused on these animals' evolution, for example, rising temperatures due to climate change. When learning more about the effects climate change has caused certain environments I started researching specific species which have been directly affected by this growing issue, this is when I discovered the Tawny Owl, which I chose to use as my subject in my final project. When looking into the Tawny Owl I discovered that the evolution of the owls' appearances have evolved over time due to the rising temperatures, in that there are now many more brown tawny owls compared to white.

In my final project I wanted to represent my ideas through the Tawny Owl. I wanted to display how the issue of climate change is having direct and negative effects on the owls changing habitat and therefore also resulting with the owls having to change and evolve with it as well. In my final project I chose to create an acrylic painting on a 18 inch by 24 inch in canvas. I chose this medium because it is one that I have worked with a lot and knew I would be able to depict my ideas well in. In my painting I chose to present a Tawny Owl in its natural habitat within a forest. For the actual owl I chose to paint it grey rather than brown as I feel it better depicts the idea that the Grey Owls are becoming fewer and fewer due to the vulnerability in their rapidly changing environments. In my project I also decided to add the element of handprints within the trees of the forest, I chose to do this to not only represent how we as humans are causing these issues in their habitats but also how we still have a chance to reverse the damage we have done and continue to do. I wanted the handprints to be submerged within the trees as a way to show how we as humans are more connected to nature than we think, and how we are blind to how our actions are having direct negative effects on animals and their homes, and that rather we actually play a very important role. When thinking about materials I wanted to use I had initially wanted to add early elements such as bark, leaves etc, but quickly realized that it may not work the way I wanted it to. Rather than deciding to give up on using these materials, I decided to use them in a different way by taking leaves and pine needles and creating imprints of them onto my canvas with ink. Once I had applied the imprints to my final project I am actually glad that my original plan for the leaves did not work because I feel that by creating direct imprints it further enforces the same ideas as the handprints, in that, these earthly materials within the earth such as rocks, leaves, dirt etc. leave a large impact on our lives as humans and that overall we both, as humans and animals, play equally important roles in each others lives. When it came to wanting to add pieces of bark to my canvas I instead chose to create a bark-like border around my image. Although I could not actually add bark to my canvas I still wanted to add an element of texture to my piece which I did by applying molding paste to my bark border. I also decided to hot glue pieces of moss onto the bark border to not only add another element of texture but also to make the bark appear more realistic as to how I would see it outdoors in the forest.

Overall I am very happy with how my project turned out and feel it well represents the ideas and research I have been developing throughout the entire course. In general I wanted my theme for the project to represent my interest in animals as well as bringing awareness issues of climate change and to the animal's vulnerability while doing so.