For this piece, I chose to do a multimedia because I have never done that before. A big part of Indian culture is the languages that are spoken, so I wanted to do a piece that incorporated the language I speak, Tamil. I also wanted a piece that had peacocks because they are India's national bird. I have seen peacocks when I have visited India and I think their beauty is really representative of India. I wanted to create a piece that had both of these, so I decided to have a background of Tamil newspapers with a painted peacock on it.
I began by gluing down Tamil newspapers onto a canvas. After that I painted the peacock's head. It was hard to create the perfect blue that showed the richness of the bird, while still having value. After that, I moved on to the body and painted the layers of feathers on it. This was difficult to do because I wanted each layer to be distinctly visible, but still have other layers show through and blend together well. I had to use a lot of different colors and experiment with it a lot to get it the way I wanted. I then added flowers to the edges to frame the piece a little, and I am considering still adding washes to the background, but I'm not sure if it will distract from the peacock
Overall, I'm happy with the way the piece turned out, but if I were to do it again, there are a few things I'd like to change. First off, I wish I had chosen newspaper articles that were a little more meaningful to me because everything on the canvas is just random news and some of it actually kind of depressing which was not my intention, because I didn't really read it until after I made it. I also think the body of the peacock is too fat, but I don't really have a way to change it because I can't paint over it without hiding the background. This piece is not finished yet.
I began by gluing down Tamil newspapers onto a canvas. After that I painted the peacock's head. It was hard to create the perfect blue that showed the richness of the bird, while still having value. After that, I moved on to the body and painted the layers of feathers on it. This was difficult to do because I wanted each layer to be distinctly visible, but still have other layers show through and blend together well. I had to use a lot of different colors and experiment with it a lot to get it the way I wanted. I then added flowers to the edges to frame the piece a little, and I am considering still adding washes to the background, but I'm not sure if it will distract from the peacock
Overall, I'm happy with the way the piece turned out, but if I were to do it again, there are a few things I'd like to change. First off, I wish I had chosen newspaper articles that were a little more meaningful to me because everything on the canvas is just random news and some of it actually kind of depressing which was not my intention, because I didn't really read it until after I made it. I also think the body of the peacock is too fat, but I don't really have a way to change it because I can't paint over it without hiding the background. This piece is not finished yet.