Crab Migration creative process

I found this picture that my roommate at PROMYS took of our friends biking to the AMC theaters during the first week, from the perspective of her bike, so you can see the handles of her bike and my other friends looking back at her. I thought the composition was unconventional but the background was bland--it was gray and cloudy, everyone wore mundane outfits. I was initially planning on making the background a cityscape but I thought that was cliche and I didn't think that would stand out. My mom said, "How about you try playing around a little?". They say don't force your creativity but I needed a push to get my ideas out.

I found this digital piece called "Dreaming and Drowning". It was an atmospheric piece, mainly due to the orange/turquoise color scheme that brought out the dreamy underwater kind of mood. I wanted to play around with some colors on my iPad so I started with a line art sketch of the composition. I found this color generator on the internet and I used it to generate some color schemes. Thankfully it doesn't generate colors individually but cohesive color schemes. I can spend hours on that website. That's a problem I've had with color before--I could not decide which to use. I also realized that it's very important as an artist to be friends with photographers because I hate taking pictures or I'm just not used to it so I always forget. I realized that sometimes the stories people post on Instagram are perfect for reference photos. I found this peaceful picture of Bodega Bay. If you know me, you know that I adore the ocean because to me it's a symbol of freedom which is a concept I crave often. Stereotypical Cali beaches are like Malibu and Santa Barbara, filled with enthusiastic tourists. It doesn't feel like those beaches are my own if that makes any sense. Bodega Bay is like a Sonoma County thing. The sunset matched the vibe of this piece, so I started drawing in some of the background and I thought it fit together really well. Every person I've shown it to have liked it. I'm always scared to show people new creations because I'm usually very emotionally attached to new pieces and the criticism hits hard, but I'm getting better at taking it. These little girls are like they got their hair flying in the wind they got this Seashore they're like interacting with each other. My local art teacher said she loves it because there's a lot of movement in the piece.

I felt like I had to amp it up even more so I was looking through the pieces and I realized that a lot of the digital art ones are very fantastical because I feel like that's the point of doing digital art is that you're intentionally making it so that you have a medium for conveying magical settings. I thought about my personal experiences at Bodega and how we always go fishing for crabs. Right now I'm working on the details of this one Dungeness crab flying. My new art teacher said that it was monochromatic so I'm just adding in some purple and blue in the Dungeness crab just to liven up the atmosphere.