La Mascarade de la Vie
"The Masquerade of Life"

[Thank-you to Ellie for translating that into French for me. ]

Right, I think it'd be a little more than obvious that full-freakin' view is much needed here. And. So here is the final compilation for my Semester One, Art Final, at school. You may or may not have noticed my posting installments of this piece over the past few days/week. All of those panels were created individually, and with varying amounts of effort and care. The criteria was pretty goddamn flexible. Basically, we were supposed to make our final with some sort of medium, and -- if possible -- convey some sort of message. Nice, eh.

My "theme" of sorts was something to the effect of: "We all go through life pretending to be someone we're not, lying to ourselves and others, changing ourselves and those around us; life is but a masquerade." (A nice theme to work with, no? ) I chose to use a different medium for every panel; oil pastels, coloured pencils, digital media, and ink/watercolour (although I had to make do with diluted acrylics).

Inspiration for the whole thing came heavily from Cirque du Soleil. Ever since I saw "Quidam" in April, I've been crazily obsessed and inspired by Cirque du Soleil and their beautiful, amazing, awe-inspiring work. Music, artistry, colour, themes --- everything, everything.

PANELS_
Individual panels can be seen here (full view, ja):
o1. Oil Pastels
o2. Coloured Pencils
o3. Digital Media
o4. Ink/Acrylics

CRITIQUE_
I don't believe I tried my best -- but then again, I never do. However, I put an incredible amount of work into this (errmm, over 15 hours total? :S I'm.. not actually sure. But ages.), and I'm pretty happy with the overall outcome. Things I would nitpick are:
+ the fact the digital panel seems so out of place, in regards to colour
+ how shoddy the first/oil pastels panel looks
+ & etc.

"Critique Discouraged" because I'm aware of most, if not all, my mistakes. And I've already handed my final in, so I wouldn't be able to make any changes now anyway. The original didn't have text at the bottom though, so tell me whether or not you think it should stay.

Umm, I had no idea which Category/Section to put this in.. because three panels are Traditional Media, but one is Digital. And I since I made them all individually, I had to scan them in individually, too - so I used Photoshop to make the black bg. :\ (The panels were actually mounted on black cover paper before I handed them in, but I didn't get a chance to scan the whole thing.) Feel free to tell me if it's in the wrong place -- and I'll move it straight away.

CREDIT_
Porfolio Series Water Soluble Oil Pastels 24
Artists Derwent Coloured Pencils 72
Torchon/touchon (sp to the max) & finger/s for smudging/blending
OpenCanvas3.03ePLUS
Adobe Photoshop CS 8
Wacom Intuos2 Tablet
Calligraphy pen
Black Indian Ink
Acrylics (diluted)
(see individual posts for more credit)


It's done.