A2 art - Ryugujo

...it's finished.

I spent so long on this! Twelve hours in total of solid work. Or maybe thirteen - I sort of dragged it out towards the end because I didn't want to finish.

For the uninitiated, A2 is the second half of the A-level public examinations, which determine...a lot. Immediately they determine whether or not certain universities accept you, and they can later be used to check your suitability for jobs. The idea of which terrifies me. And this project, along with the sketchbook that accompanies it, is 40% of my A2, which is 20% of my entire A-level course. SO, IMPORTANT.

This is 150 x 50 cm...or FIVE FEET TALL, as I keep telling people. I never do big artworks, so this is somewhat monumental for me.

ANYWAY. I've actually described the project in depth on previous uploads, so it's time to copypaste from them. Yay!

"The title I chose was "mythological creatures", and from that I somehow got to Ryugu-Jo, the underwater palace of the dragon king in Japanese folklore. It's mentioned in many stories, so I tried to include elements of them (subtle or no) in the final composition. See if you can find stuff from: Urashima Taro, My Lord Bag of Rice, The Happy Hunter and the Skillful Fisher, and The Jellyfish and the Monkey. It's like a game! Wow!

Anyway. To do this picture, I looked to the sumi-e (ink wash) style, and tried to work off that.

ALSO, IT'S HUGE. The largest artwork I've ever made before was a1 (wait, I once made a life drawing that was a0, but that wasn't of my own volition, so it doesn't count.), and this one is five feet tall. As tall as a very small person! Wow!"

"I'm uploading this on the eve of day three, meaning that now it's completely finished - I am so, so proud of it. It's the most impressive work I've ever done, I think. And I'm not just saying that because it's almost as tall as I am.

I just had the /most/ fun working on this intensively for three days - I was grinning like a lunatic the whole time.

This may have been because I was running on nothing but sugar. I had constant giant mugs of extremely sugary and strong Earl Grey. Mmm tea. And I brought in chocolate chip cookies. And had nothing much else.

Anyway, I had an AMAZING TIME which I documented.

I'll put up the full photo tomorrow morning! It's exciting! It has a turtle! And an illogical fisherman!"

My favourite areas:

the dragon;
the illogical fisherman;
shoals of fish drawn where I got bored;
TURTLE.

And tomorrow, I shall sign it. In Japanese. I figured out the kanji that approximate the sound of my name, and they read as "flower - sand - forest, storm - spirit". Which I quite like, I must say.

Oh, and FULLVIEW. IT'S WORTH IT.