Asdzani Ne-zhoni (Navajo for "Pretty Woman"), 2018 tempera, colored pencil and ink on 12x16 paper. Make offer

The principle I'm demonstrating is contrast. My painting uses contrast in at least three or four ways. The light yellow sky and sandy background contrast with the black and purple hair- yellow and purple are even complimentary colors. I also chose a cool turquoise for her face to contrast with the warms of the background and her clothing. This is also a reverse of diVinci, since he had a greenish background and warmer flesh tones. Another contrast is between the smooth, flat colors of the background, laid down with paint and the texture of her clothing, meant to appear like wool, which I drew mostly with colored pencils. A final contrast is between mine, meant to evoke both the Statue of Liberty and the Southwestern Native American, and the original, an European icon of a Florentine bride during the Renaissance.

I began with a light outline sketch of the Mona Lisa, then I looked at images of the Sonoran desert around the Superstition Mountains outside of my hometown of Phoenix. I roughed-in a vague landscape based on a photo I found on Instagram. Third, I painted in her face, neck and shoulders- once that dried, I drew shading around her featured with a charcoal pencil. Later, I found photos of Navajo women from old issues of Arizona Highways magazine to help me get ideas for colors and patterns for her clothing. Finally, I worked with marker, paint, ink, wash and colored pencils to add to the surface textures and details.

Since I painted this on the heels of having painted a larger piece of silhouetted cacti, it's obviously influenced by the styles and colors of where I grew up. I even wound up using Phoenix Suns' purple and orange along with the turquoise/teal and tans and yellows that dominated Phoenix's designs and aesthetics when I was growing up in the 1970's and 80's. I feel like many of the politics and incidents or racism may also have influenced the creation of this painting too; I'm not trying to make any controversial statement or anything- but I think it's evocative of both the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of both democracy and of hope to refugees, AND indigenous peoples and women. I didn't deliberately set out for this to be the case, but it's kinda turned out that way. Art is often a product of it's time.

Because I was so focused on the face and head when I began working on this, I ran out of room for the hands and arms. Last year, when I made a demo/example for this assignment, I deliberately wanted to not include the infamous smile. Since the principle I was demonstrating was emphasis, I tried to draw more attention to the hands and eyes.