Q4 Project

The emancipation approximation is a series of paintings made by kara walker. I chose to recreate this particular painting which is a screen print of a woman with a bird leaving her mouth that is represented as a swan. The woman appears to be standing in a wet area with plants around it. The background of the painting is white along with the plants, and the women and swan are painted black. Throughout the Emancipation Approximation Kara Walker used the swan as a symbol which is based on the greek myth, Leda and the swan. The swan served as a way to portray a dirty/sexual statement. With the images of the women and the swans Kara Walker hoped to communicates the history of rape on female slaves by their masters. To create this painting I started out by sketching the image in my scrap book with just a pencil. After making the sketch, I drew another draft of the painting that would be transferred on to a canvas by tracing. To make the canvas, I cut a square from a canvas roll and stapled it. I then painted the full canvas with white paint. After the canvas dried, I transferred the drawing on to the canvas and began to paint. For the woman and swan I used black acrylic paint, I painted the background with white acrylic paint for a fresher look. To get a better texture of the acrylic paint, I used water with the paint brush. I am impressed at my ability to make remake the painting, considering the fact that there were many small areas that needed to be painted that could not interfere with the white paint.