Earth Vs Fiction

  For this piece i wanted to look at the basic landscape of Earth and compare it to another world. This was inspired by stories like Wizard of Oz, especially how in the film begins in black and white then turns into colour when in Oz. I wanted to look into this comparison and create my own.
    I painted the page brown first then using a mix of blue acrylic paints roughly painted a river. I added white, letting the colours mix so it looked more alive in every paint stroke. Next i put blobs of green paint on the page before mixing it in with beaded acrylic gel. I made it quite thick and let the beads group up to create friction like a wild, grassy field.
    I really like the rough paint strokes in the paintings as it adds to the bare, unruliness that sums up most creatures that habitat the Earth. I also like the lack of representation of what is actually on Earth; there is plenty of beautiful landscapes that are quite breathtaking and so much that is unbelievable. I considered adding in mountains and other feature but decided against it as not every inch of the world is blessed with these views. I wanted a close up of the ground and wanted to mimic this on the next page but make it unrealistic therefore more interesting and fantastic that viewers would want to explore that land instead of our own. However, i think i need to look into composition more and maybe try a different viewpoint. It would probably look better if added some rocks or something that makes the land look dryer to get my point across more clearly.

   On the next page i became more experimental to see what i could create. I think the land was heavily inspired by the idea of Mars with the hot colours and metallic river. Mars carries the name of the Roman God of War. I feel the colour red also identifies with the Romans capes and the metalic river is similar to their metal armour. Altogether it is very powerful and looks destructive like a God. It's definitely more eye catching than the Earth land when viewed next to each other, also has more features to look at and explore when viewing.
     I painted the page red then stuck down little pieces of polystyrene. I covered these with paint too. I wanted to build the paint up so it looked more like a hill in the ground but didn't have enough paint or a chance to think of a different way to create it. I also glued down some thread, some quite screwed up and some more loose. Using a piece of wallpaper i printed some yellow on the red land to add more detail to catch the viewer's eye as they look further into it. I also wanted to make the land look less block like, i should have mixed some lighter or darker shades into the red to improve this. Using a bottle lid, i mixed the paints blue and white to get a unique look. This little detail i quite like and would like to try using in another piece, for instance creating a whole image using bottle lids with different mixed colours on the insides. It also kind of looks like Earth from a far away space view as if the viewer is look back on where they came from. Even on this page the red land is more intriguing compared to the bottle lid.
     I poured some Opaque black and gold paints, letting them mix. I like the movement of the paints especially with the direction around the bottle lid. It reminds of the chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that was very appealing but also powerful and dangerous. The colours don't explicitly mix together but instead just invade each other's space which is an interesting relationship. Lastly i put some different stones that i bought from a museum in a plastic sheet and stuck it on the page with a ribbon wrapped around it. Originally i was going to stick the stones on the page but didn't want to overcrowd it. The group of stones stand out as a landmark on the page but don't distract from the bigger picture.
     To develop this i would recreate the two pages on a bigger canvas but have the lands gradually merge together in the middle to show the change from reality to fantasy. I would also focus on the background more to create a more realistic dimensions with the grounds using shadows and 3D areas that stand out more as hills.