Visualizing Ecology
Week 7 Watercolor Assignment
Due:  Wednesday, Week 8

Technical Assignment:

In your sketchbook, make six small studies of individual objects you plan to use in the painting assignment listed below.  In these studies, practice using different techniques we discussed in class  (layered washes, wet-into-wet, build up of brush strokes, and techniques for handling edges).  Label your studies to indicate which techniques you used and what you think of the results.

Expressive Assignment:

In Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan writes about our inborn and learned sense of desire and disgust that help to guide our food choices (p. 4).  These responses to different types of food are conditioned by our past experiences, powers of recognition, and the cultural taboos and rituals we learn growing up.  In contemporary society, we are constantly exposed to food packaging and advertising that promises to deliver all sorts of good things like happiness, security, romance, and good health.  As eco-artists, we can use these strategies to produce images to entice people to eat ethically.  Central to this is an appeal to the consumer’s sense of desire and disgust.

Create two still life paintings that address the same food (or meal) that is damaging to the environment and/or involves the unethical treatment of animals.   In the first painting, make the image create a sense of desire on the part of the viewer.  In the second painting make an image that diminishes this desire.  Use only images (no text) in your painting.  Try to paint most of the objects from life, but if this is impossible, parts of your image can come from photographs.

The paintings should be at least a quarter sheet of watercolor paper in size.