Painting #4: Visual Model

 

This week I began working on my next painting. For this assignment, we were instructed to create a composition based off of visual elements found in math and science books. I have probably spent more time researching and sketching for this painting than any other painting this semester. It took me a while to find any books with imagery that I found interesting, but after visiting the library I found a couple books to get me started. I found a couple on wildflowers, one about women in science, and one about medieval and early modern science. All of them had interesting imagery, but the last one had several images that I thought could be interesting together. One was a photo of a gothic astrolabe and the other was part of a Portolan chart (see images below). 

             

I thought both of these visuals had geometric elements that might be nice paired with something more organic. So I began browsing Instagram and found a photo of these beautiful golden metallic beetles. I hate bugs, but these are stunning. And they can't crawl on me if they are trapped in my painting, so I can come to terms with spending some time with these two. I feel like I should name them. If anyone is reading this, please comment with some name suggestions for these guys. 

Many sketches later, I finally came up with the composition at the top of the page and began painting as soon as possible. I have the shortest timeline for this painting assignment, so a big challenge will be to produce a quality piece with only half the amount of time that I am used to. This composition is a lot different from what I usually come up with, and I am excited to see how it turns out.