This prompt was such a fun one to work on. I love the way it came out, for the most part. However, there are a couple of changes that need to be made in order for it to look the way I want it to, but I’ll figure that out at a later time.

To create this piece, I began by cutting out a black cardstock paper that was the same size as the shadow box – it would serve as the backdrop to hold all the pieces together. I then took measurements of where I wanted the buildings to go and how large I wanted them to be. Then I cut out the buildings and decided where I wanted the windows to go.

I knew I wanted some of them to have their lights on, while others would have the lights off. For the ones that would have the lights on, I cut the black background and added semi-transparent paper to the back. I did the same to the section between the two big buildings, that would have the night sky showing through. The back never looks very pretty, but it definitely makes the visible part look wonderful.

The next step was to draw the graffiti art, which in this case would be an octopus. I used the main building as a reference and retraced it on a blue piece of maker, making sure to add where the windows would be too. I had to draw the window shapes to make sure I drew the octopus the best way possible, so that most of its body would not be cut out. This technique worked out great.

I then proceeded to color the buildings and color the octopus with markers and colored pencils. Once they looked the way I wanted them to look, I glued down the octopus.

The final steps consisted of coloring the sidewalk, gluing down the building walls, making two small buildings and gluing them to the exposed sky area, and I also made little shadows for some of the windows. And finally, I added a moon to the sky and pierced in little holes to create the illusion of stars.

I am so pleased with the way its coming along. The only thing I’m not pleased about is the way the light photographs. It is a lot brighter in the pictures than how it looks in real life. I prefer the more subdued look (i.e. the way it looks in person). I’ll have to figure something out.

Do you feel completely confident in the way you photograph your art?

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