The Artwork of Cassandra C. Moon

He remembered the time he had hooked one of a pair of marlin. The male fish always let the female fish feed first and the hooked fish, the female, made a wild, panic-stricken, despairing fight that soon exhausted her, and all the time the male had stayed with her...That was the saddest thing I ever saw with them, the old man thought. The boy was sad too and we begged her pardon and butchered her promptly.

When I viewed and analyzed Elizabeth Peyton’s works, the first thing I noticed was that all of her figures have a heavenly, ethereal quality about them. She tends to idealize and beautify the people she paints. Many of Ms. Peyton’s figures are slender and androgynous. Her male subjects possess feminine qualities, and her female subjects appear somewhat masculine. A large portion of the people Ms. Peyton depicts in her work are very fair skinned, so she uses a variety of light pastels for skin tones. These colors are usually juxtaposed with rich, vibrant colors, or muted primary tones. Ms. Peyton’s fluid brush strokes are clearly visible in her works. She layers washes of color to make her paintings less opaque and more translucent.

I really enjoyed working with a model, and I wanted to continue exploring human figure painting after our class sessions were over. I gravitated toward Elizabeth Peyton’s approach to the human figure because I like the style in which she idealizes her subjects. I was also drawn to her because her subjects are people who have influenced her life in some way. This includes close friends, celebrities, and historical figures. 

I chose to paint Oscar Isaac for my project because he is my favorite actor, and I enjoy listening to his music (he is also a talented guitarist and singer). Oscar is originally from Guatemala, but he immigrated to the United States with his family when he was very young. He went on to attend The Julliard School, and he is most well-known for his performance in the latest Star Wars trilogy. Of course, I don’t know Oscar personally, I often see glimpses of his personal life on social media. Although he has recently gained a lot of recognition and popularity from portraying Poe Dameron in Star Wars, Oscar is humble, and spending time with his wife and children is always his top priority.

Overall, I am very pleased with my final work for this project. I feel that I definitely succeeded in giving Oscar an idealized, heavenly appearance. I enjoyed mixing and using different skin tones to depict the lights and darks of his facial structure. However, I realize that this painting is rather opaque, while Ms. Peyton’s works are usually more transparent. If I was to rework this painting, I would like to mix my colors with more matte medium to make washes. I think this would definitely aid in imitating the fluidity of Ms. Peyton’s style and help to make my brush strokes more visible.

In the past, drawing and/or painting people has always been a challenge for me. I like paint as a medium for depicting people because it is very fluid, and the composition can move until I am satisfied with the results. I feel that there is a lot less pressure to make everything perfect, as I can always return to my work and make changes as necessary. In my opinion, there is something about drawing people that seems more concrete and permanent.

Overall, I am very happy with the paintings in this series. I am especially pleased with my in-class painting (“Allie”). I have always had difficulty drawing the human figure, but I feel that I learned a lot about representing people through this project. I really enjoyed working with a model, and my favorite part of the process was giving her legs solid form and dimension. The robe was a challenge for me because it encompassed many colors, and a wide variety of tones were present. In addition, I needed to find a way to represent their iridescence. In order to achieve this effect, I simplified the colorful shapes on the robe as much as possible and mixed different tints. Originally the background was very dark blue, but it seemed as if the model was disappearing into the dark cloth behind her. As I continued the painting, the parts that interested me the most were still the places where skin was exposed. I really wanted to make this aspect of the painting “pop” and come forward, so I mixed a minty green for the background color.

I first discovered this minty green when I was painting my self portraits. I began each self portrait by painting my face, and then my hair and shoulders. I painted the backgrounds last, but I also tried to integrate those colors with my own figure. I mostly used the background colors to indicate highlights/light areas on my hair and clothing. I completed my second self portrait after trying (and failing) to curl my very short hair! As silly as I looked, I thought that the half-curls and waves that I made would provide an interesting sense of movement in the work. I am content with my execution of these paintings as well, and I feel that they are some of my best self portraits to date. As a whole, I liked that painting the figure is never truly permanent, and that the composition could move about the page more freely than if I had drawn it instead.

Creating these two paintings definitely helped me learn more about the painting process. Making the underpainting and then beginning to fill it in with large areas of specific colors made tackling the large surface area much more manageable. I enjoyed seeing how each layer I added built on previous one(s) and gave each painting more dimension. 

I feel that my still life painting reflects the widest range of values. I am very happy with the appearance of the stuffed animals, but painting the fabric folds was a challenge for me. I made the darkest dark blue by mixing Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) and Alizarin Crimson Hue. I then made tints of this color to indicate light and dark spots on the fabric.

I like the composition of my landscape as well, but I mainly utilized medium and dark tones to paint it. When I was painting this work, I made a lot of half-moon marks using the biggest brush from the kit to depict the rippled movement of the water. I think this painting has a solid foundation, but adding more layers (half-moon marks) of lighter colors would make it more vibrant. This would also make the work seem more aquatic, as the water would have more of a reflective quality. This painting reminds me of notable works by Impressionist artists.

Throughout my life, I have cultivated two great interests: art and marine science. I am constantly drawn to both fields, so I strive to marry the two together. My drawings explore what it truly means to be a marine conservation artist. 

I prefer to draw traditionally, using tried and true materials. There is nothing that compares to the feeling of holding a pencil or an ink pen in my hand. I am deeply connected to my artistic media; just as human beings are an integral part of the natural world. 

I seek to inspire admiration for the world’s oceans and to highlight their fragile, uncertain future. The delicate balance between life and death is perpetuated by nature herself, but my goal is to emphasize the critical role of human beings in this cycle. As beautiful as our seas may be, it is our responsibility to ensure the health of our blue planet for generations to come.

Overall, I am very pleased with these drawings. I have enjoyed reading comics for as long as I can remember, and I feel that this project gave me a unique opportunity to immerse myself in some of my favorite fictional worlds. Escapism has always helped me to relax during stressful times; I am especially thankful for science fiction/fantasy content while social distancing at home. 

In the past, comics were made for a predominantly male audience, and most of the female superheroines were mainly used as sex symbols. Nowadays, the industry is more inclusive and appeals to many people from diverse backgrounds. Specifically, women in comics are empowered and tenacious, yet still retain their compassionate and intelligent qualities.

These are the traits that I hoped to communicate in my self portraits. I drew myself as Wonder Woman, Mera (from Aquaman), and Alita (from the Alita Battle Angel manga). I created each portrait by referencing selfies and images of the characters from my Pinterest board. I meshed myself with the characters by giving each one my facial structure and body type. All three superheroines had exaggerated body types, but I strived to draw an image that truly represented me/my proportions. To me, this series represents resilience in the face of trying times.

This series illustrates the verb ‘to ripstik’ (or ‘ripstiking,’ if you will). Overall, I am very pleased with all of the works that I made for this project. Before I even began testing this method of drawing, I had a ‘goal’ image in mind. In retrospect, all three pieces exceeded my expectations. Each one conveys a different energy depending upon the marks made. I know that even if I made a million of these drawings, no two would be the same. 

As I made each work, I always made sure to start in the same place. Most of the paint on my wheels was deposited at the place of origin and on the first few feet of paper, but I like how this allowed me to create a value gradient. I considered putting spots of paint down on the paper and then trying to ripstik through them, but this would have disrupted the tapering effect. 

The drawings were already very long, but part of me wished that I could have made them even longer. Since I was ripstiking inside, I had to exercise a certain degree of control. However, I wonder how this project would be different (or similar) if I did it outside. Each of my current pieces is an interesting combination of control and freedom; I was able to make any patterns that I wanted to, but I had to stay on the paper.

In my opinion, these drawings are reminiscent of a person’s EKG/vital signs. I think of the two cool color pieces as being the vital signs of the ocean, while the warm color pieces are that of the desert. If one had to ascribe representational meaning to each one, then the cool color drawings could be jellyfish and the warm color one could be a long twist of hair.

Overall, I am very happy with the work that I produced for this project. I have never drawn at such a large scale before, but I feel that doing so helped me to “loosen up” and take risks that I probably would not have if I drew on smaller paper. This feeling became the most apparent to me while I was making my wall-sized drawing. The combination of using charcoal and drawing on a large surface was very liberating, and I felt less pressured to make every detail perfect. 

While making my 18 x 24” sketches, I also enjoyed fusing realistic, more representative forms with geometric shapes. I have never done abstraction before, but this project was an interesting way to dabble into it. I liked drawing my four “macro” still life pieces, and I feel that looking closely at even the most ordinary items allows a larger margin for abstraction. For example, shadows, different tonal values, and details one might normally overlook become easier to observe. 

My biological illustration professor once told me that part of drawing is learning how to see. This project definitely opened my eyes to what I like to call the ‘worlds within worlds’ of everyday objects.

           I have always had a passion for creating works of art, but I have not had the chance to do so for academic purposes in a few years. One of my favorite aspects of the illustrative process is that the majority of the work is done by hand. It is extremely fulfilling and rewarding to craft an art piece entirely from one’s own artistic skills. I appreciate the fact that I am completely responsible for the final outcome of the project. Since beginning this course, I have decided to change my minor from Photography to Drawing and Painting. Unlike photography, pure illustration does not involve the use of machines or chemical processes to make and influence the final artwork.

One area in which I have definitely become more confident is my line work. When I first started the class, my contour lines were very light and sketch-like. I did not apply a significant amount of pressure, and I always chose an HB graphite pencil. The lines were hard to discern from the white background due to the fact that they were so thin and indistinct.

As I progressed through the course, I developed the ability to draw using stronger, more defined lines. Each time I drew in my sketchbook, I mentally reminded myself to draw with certainty. Initially, doing so felt strange. When I took art classes in middle school, I was taught to draw using gentle “sketch” lines. I still use this technique to establish the rough form of my subject, but I also remember to edit the composition by substituting more solid lines. This effectively increases the prominence of the sketch. Various pencil exercises gave me experience in applying more pressure when drawing.

These graphite activities also allowed me to practice using different grades of pencils to improve my pencil shading abilities. In the past, I did not truly consider my choice of pencil while sketching. Many of my drawings had a grayscale appearance due to their lack of contrast. Pencil sketches that I have completed for this class are a welcome advancement from my oldest works. After I gained a greater understanding of the grading scale, I was able to apply that knowledge to my drawings. I developed a habit of first using an HB pencil to sketch a basic contour. Once the contour was complete, I began shading with B and 2B pencils. I only used the 6B pencil for the darkest areas in my compositions. I added value to light areas by lightly applying HB or carefully shading them with a freshly sharpened 2H or 4H pencil. This gave many of my subjects a sharp, defined edge without implying a textured surface.

In addition to using a variety of pencil grades for the first time, this class was my first exposure to proper scaling. Prior to this point, I indicated the proportionality of a drawing based on visual estimation alone. I was surprised that the syllabus required a 14” × 17” sketchbook, as I had never drawn anything so sizable before. At the beginning of the course, drawing on such a vast expanse of paper was a bit intimidating. Sketches of my earliest subjects do not occupy whole pages as my later compositions do.

As I progressed through the class, I realized the benefits of drawing my subjects larger than they appear in reality. Doing so allowed me to account for minute details that may be overlooked if the subject(s) had been drawn using a true-to-life scale. I have grown much more comfortable with creating compositions that make use of all of the space on a single page. Scaling each individual part of a subject with a clear ruler is time-consuming, but it yields impressive results. In order to ensure maximum accuracy while scaling, I entered my measurements into a calculator and subsequently multiplied them by the chosen scale value to generate a new measurement.

Aside from fostering my personal growth as an artist, this course also heightened my awareness of the relationship between art and science. Illustration is a valuable way to convey scientific information for many reasons. It requires the illustrator to view the world through an objective lens in order to provide an accurate representation of a living subject. Art also gives scientists a unique opportunity to communicate their findings to the public in a way that is interesting and original. While there exist surprising similarities between these two fields, there are also differences that set them apart from one another.

Scientific illustration is based on the principle of reporting realistic and unbiased information. Scientific illustrators must be able to differentiate between what they see and what symbolic items they imagine to exist. This means that these artists have a keen eye for creating impartial records. In essence, an illustrator acts as a human camera, capturing only the image that lay before him/her/them.

Art also serves as a unique method that scientists may use to draw the attention of the public. Oftentimes, scientific subjects are complex. They can seem abstract to people who are unfamiliar with the scientific world, and this often leads to disinterest. Illustrations have the power to make scientific knowledge more accessible to the public. They provide a visual explanation of the processes that the Earth and its organisms undergo daily. When people have a greater understanding of scientific topics, they will be more likely to become interested themselves.

This was the primary goal that I aimed to achieve while sculpting my final creative piece. By creating a fish anatomy “puzzle,” I hoped to inspire people of many different age groups to take interest in the biology of fishes. My sculpture is modeled to look like a blue chromis (Chromis cyanea), an iridescent blue fish that lives in the Caribbean Sea. I made the external body from shades of blue and black Crayola ® Model Magic to provide a valid representation of the real fish. The internal organs do not reflect realistic pigments, but I chose these colors so that each part could be easily discerned from the others. All of the internal structures are removable, as are their tags. This interactive feature allows people to learn about bony fish anatomy in a way that simply feels like a game.

As the Earth’s human population continues to increase, so does the demand for safe, high quality seafood. It is for this reason that I chose to illustrate the process by which monomethylmercury accumulates in marine fish going up the food web. Monomethylmercury is a chemical compound that is extremely difficult for fish and humans to eliminate from their bodies. If living tissues are subjected to toxic concentrations of monomethylmercury, mercury poisoning can occur. Mercury poisoning adversely impacts the health and functionality of the brain, kidneys, lungs, and skin (Winner, 2010).

Mercury is initially released into the atmosphere as a result of anthropogenic air pollution. Sunlight converts elemental mercury (Hg) into ionized mercury (Hg2+), which precipitates down to Earth in the form of rain. The majority of the ionized mercury that enters the ocean is converted back to its elemental form and evaporates. However, the remaining amount of the substance attaches to particles of organic matter and sinks to the seafloor, where it is converted into toxic monomethylmercury (MMHg) (Winner, 2010).

All of the organisms that are depicted in the diagram are native to the Western Atlantic Ocean. The primary producers are the first to absorb monomethylmercury. They include several species of phytoplankton that dominate the southern Mid-Atlantic Bight. Research conducted by Makinen and Moisan (2012) reflects that Skeletonema costatum, Rhizosolenia spp., and Pseudo-nitzschia pungens are the most prevalent phytoplankton in this particular region. Phytoplankton contain 10,000 times more monomethylmercury than the surrounding seawater (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution [WHOI]). 

Primary consumers include two species of zooplankton, Oithona spp. and Temora longicornis. Paradis, Sirois, Castonguay, and Plourde (2012) found that these species are heavily preyed upon by small fish such as larval Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus). Bay anchovies (Anchoa mitchilli) were selected as the secondary consumers due to the fact that they serve as a link between the plankton community and higher order consumers. According to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (2015), “The species itself has no recreational or commercial value, [but] it fulfills a crucial role in the coastal food web.” Western Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) frequently feed on baitfish such as anchovy, and therefore serve as the tertiary consumers. T. thynnus is in turn consumed by the Atlantic shortfin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus), which is the quaternary consumer. Apex predators contain approximately 10,000,000 times more monomethylmercury than seawater (WHOI).