ideas behind the ocean drive piece

Since I was a little kid, my family and I have always enjoyed going down to Miami Beach. Although I am too young to fully enjoy what Ocean Drive has to offer, I still love driving by at night and seeing all the sights. This project I had more of a concrete idea when I started. I wanted to show how lively the night life was and how the night life relates to a typical day life almost anywhere else. The whole point of the project was to take a place and exagerate reality.

I started off by drawing all of the hotels and night clubs. To make them look weird, I made them look slanted and all off centered to show the unrealistic nature of the street. Then I made a windy road to represent the actual ocean drive. The street doesn't actually look like I drew it. I wanted to show how long I felt the road was. This was the first time I discovered the paint markers. I love them!!!! I used the paint markers very seldom in this picture. I wanted the street and sky to pop off the paper, because I feel those are the most important aspects of my picture. The rest of the picture I used colored pencils. I tryed to use shading techniques with the colored pencils on the grass leading up to the street from the beach and on the far hotel building. I think the grass came out very good, but I wasn't that impressed with the building shading. Also I drew weird windows on all of the buildings for no real reason besides adding to the playful nature of the drawing.

If I could go back, I would fill in the buildings to make them look more real. Currently they are white and have no life. Just drawing them gray I feel would change the whole outlook of the picture. I felt this picture was well thought and I am impressed with this piece of artwork.