‘The Bigger Picture’

 Life through a marble series

Acrylic & Watercolour paint, with permanent marker.

Although my theme is ‘Life Through A Marble’ I went off a little on a tangent with this one…

I found some old mountboard in my Dad’s attic, from the days that he used to be a picture framer… and one of those mountboards had a perfectly cut round (marble shape) in it.   I took it and decided that one way or another I would use it.

Then it got me thinking…. What if that was the only view you could see, yet there was so much more going on?

I decided that this would be my inspiration.

Using the hole as a template, I drew a cartoon style earth… and around that earth I drew destruction, despair, damage, and death.

Ice melts, trees dying, pollution, plastic in oceans, overuse of fossil fuel.

I showed the earth heating up and therefore melting.

Animals crying, flowers dying…. What have we done?

I painted the earth in bright metallic acrylic paint, with a shimmer so it looks vibrant and exciting.  Then I painted the background in water colours, quite washed out, so it looks drab and dull and lifeless.

I edged it all in a marker pen for a cartoon like quality.

I drew features on the earth so it either looked happy or sad, depending which way you viewed it.

 Once the drawing and painting was complete, I could lay the black mountboard on top with the hole cut out so you could only see the ‘happy face’ earth.  

Then I added the question…

“Can YOU see the bigger picture?”

Once the mountboard was flipped over then you saw a ‘sad face’ earth.

Then once you remove the black mountboard from the top, you see the whole picture….