Illustration Project #3 - Aesthetic and Emotional Response

The 3rd illustration project involved research. We read an article, and then were to portray our response visually. The idea wasn't to illustrate what happened in the article, but rather, how we felt about it.

My article, from the New York Times, was about a bill that was introduced in San Francisco, which would ban the sale of shark fins.  Shark fin is popular in chinese cuisine, being used in shark fin soup, which is seen as a status symbol.  San Francisco has a very large china town, so this is a big deal there. The elder chinese see this as an attack on their culture, while the younger say that it is a necessary step curb the brutal killing of sharks, which is greatly damaging their numbers as a species.

The more I sketched for this assignment, the more I saw myself on the side of the sharks. My illustration is a depiction of the chinese culture attacking and preying on the shark fins. We were allowed to use black and white, as well as one color. I used red as a symbol of China, and to represent brutality.

Red and Black India Ink

10" x 12"