6: Mechanical Passion Vine

For my mechanical project I immediately thought of a passion vine because of how intricate and weirdly shaped they are. I did my project in pencil so that I could capture all the reflections of metal and show the contrast between the shadows and the light spots.  I used pictures of pipes, screw, nails, and metal plating as references so that I could really make the flower look like something you could physically hold. I also made sure to keep my light source toward the top right corner and had everything reflective point in that direction. The center of the flower has several different pieces that all look unique and so different from other flowers and I made sure to reflect that with the various different mechanical pieces I used. When I was shading, I would put a light layer of pencil down first to distinguish where I wanted the shadows and the gray areas. I then went back in with a darker pencil and greatly darkened the shadows so that they would really look like there was no light hitting that spot. After I put in the shadows, I go back in with a Knead- it eraser and take away some of the pencils so that my reflections are white and contrast with the other values. Throughout all my art classes, when I have drawn reflections, I have learned that they are the key to making metals or glass look realistic. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do in the background because it was too much empty space but at the same time I didn't want to take the focus away from the flower. I ended up putting in some cable cords that are the same as the ones that were a part of the flower which filled the space while complimenting the flower.

5: Self- Portrait

For my self- portrait I chose to draw myself from when I was little and found this picture of me in a swing. I really liked the composition and the colors throughout the image. I decided to draw this in Prismacolors so that I could capture all of the bright colors and textures. My favorite part of the drawing is the jacket because I really enjoyed drawing all the folds in the fabric and using the different pinks and purples for the various values. One section that was hard for me was the bark in the background because of the many lights and darks. The fact that it was slightly blurred also made it hard because I was trying to capture all the colors without taking away from me in the swing. The shoes were also difficult because the only values present were white and gray, it was hard to really make it look like shoes with only two values. The face was my hardest section to draw because I don't really like drawing facial features and it was hard to get all the proportions correct. Eventually I got the face sized right and now I really like it because it actually looks accurate to the picture. I also really enjoyed putting in all the highlights on the face, legs, shoes, and the jacket. I always love how simple splashes of white that represent the areas being light up by the sun make the drawing look so much more realistic. 

4: Pont Des Arts Lock Bridge

For my fourth project I chose I photo that I had taken while in Paris, France. I wanted to do it in pencil because I am more comfortable doing detail with it than some other mediums. I chose to use the theme metallic because I really like drawing and capturing reflections in the metal. I chose the picture of locks because it was one of the thing I dreamed of seeing even before I went to Paris. Couples go to the bridge and put a lock on the bridge to symbolize their love. I always thought it was a really romantic idea and wanted to capture that in my drawing. It was difficult to draw the initial shapes of the locks because of how many there were in the photo. I decided to start with the large lock towards the center and the locks near it since it had the least amount of locks overlapping it. The only real problem I had drawing it was the proportions because the paper wasn't the same proportions as the photo and when I finished some of the locks I had a lot of empty space which I just filled in with more locks from other photos.  I decided to color one if the locks with Prismacolors and use the bright pink in the photo to make the one lock stand out. In the photo, it is the most brightly colored lock and I wanted to keep that aspect in my drawing to draw attention to it.

2: Object Oil Painting

 For my object painting, which we had had to do in oils, I chose a picture of nail polish bottles. I then added a filter to the picture to alter the colors and make it look more abstract. I have never really liked oil paints both because of how thick the paint is and how much patience is required. I started by putting down the white paint to make the necks of the bottles stand out and then laid down the basic colors. On the red/ pink bottle I used a variety of reds and oranges to get the different colors throughout. On the purple bottle, I used dark and light paint to get the different purples in the glass. The orange bottle I found the       hardest because of the black around the edge of the bottle and the many reflecting colors in the glass. I decided to just try and paint it exactly as I saw it because it usually gets the best results. I am still not entirely finished because I need to add more detail to the other bottles so that the orange one doesn't look so out of place.

3: Interior Space

For my interior space project, I took a picture of the hanging shelves of shoes in my closet.  Then I enhanced the colors on the computer because I was doing it in watercolors and wanted to have bright colors to paint.  I like how each shoe that was in the picture was a completely different shape and had different colors. This was the first time I had used watercolors and I loved the results. For each color I layered the colors to make them brighter and more solid in color and in values. I really like how the red shoes in the center stand out because of the brightness of the watercolors. After I did the watercolors, I started drawing on top with pens to enhance the shapes and values. The watercolors made each shoe stand out with the colors and then the pens gave it value that completed the image. For the sneakers on the bottom shelf, they were originally black shoes, but Mrs. Rossi told me to try doing them in a different color so that there were more colors in the painting and they weren't just gray and black.The folds in the back of the shelves were hard to capture with the watercolors but once I did I really liked the results. However, when I did pen over the folds I added too much black and took away from the gracefulness and simplicity of the folds. That is one part I wish I had not done pen over or had at least done less.

Reflective Drawings

I did two of my summer projects in pencil and both were of reflective objects. I used to not like doing all the highlights because I didn't like the way it turned out but now since I have practiced highlights over and over again, its one of my go to project ideas. I learned that if ignore how I "think" how its supposed to look and just draw exactly what I see, then it turns out to look more accurate. I really liked these two pieces because in top one, the metal of the can has a lot of contrast and the reflections in the light bulb are windows. The bottom one is all glass bottles and jars, and I had a lot of fun drawing the lights and the darks while also capturing the warped look of things through the glass. I think my favorit part of that one is the jar in the back through the front jar because of the warped lines.

Oil Painted Apples

WITH BRUSH:

WITH PALETTE KNIFE:

For our practice pieces in oils I did two apples, one with a brush and the other with a palette knife. I definitely liked using a brush more than the palette knife because I felt like I had more control on where I wanted the paint. Oils were definitely different from mediums I have used in the past because of how long it takes to dry and I could go back in two or three days later and still blend more paint into the existing colors. But at the same time, the wet paint makes it tricky because no color I laid down stayed that color because it blended with others so it was hard to make bright highlights. All the whites on top of the red became pink and the yellow became orange. With the palette knife, I was laying down much thicker coats of paint which made it hard for me to keep the reds in the apple separate from the green in the background.

Artist Statement

I enjoy creating works of art because I love how I can capture moments or images in time.  Whether I am taking pictures of a gorgeous sunset or capturing a still life of reflective bottles in pencil, there is a beauty to both. Photography is my favorite medium because I see differently through a lens; the way light is refracted through the glass or how colors seem even more vibrant than what I see simply with my eyes. One of my favorite artists is M.C. Escher who creates amazing black and white illustrations that make me have to look twice because each image is warped or incorporates something that should be impossible.

I am inspired by my love and desire of traveling because I want to see places in the world that are both well known and unknown. I would like to experience the many different cultures and incorporate the variations of art styles into my own pieces.  Water droplets, cobblestone streets with terraces overhead, modern reflective buildings, or crumbling ancient ruins; they are all so different, yet each are a part of our world and have a story to tell. Fire vs. ice, modern vs. vintage, colorful vs. black and white; most think that you have to choose one or the other but my favorite part of art, and about life, is that we have so many variations and opposites that make our countries and cultures unique and interesting.

1: Paris in a Puddle

For this Prismacolor project I chose to do an Eiffel tower key chain I got while visiting Paris over the summer. To incorporate reflections I put it in a puddle and took at an angle that showed a really clear reflection. It was kind of hard to start because of how bright the metal was reflecting and I knew I wanted to capture that. I started with an outline of the tower and just worked my way up putting in the whites and then adding shadows of blue, purple, and pink. For the background, I laid down a layer of brown and green and layered whites and blacks over to capture to stone look. In the photo, only the center band of the picture was in focus so I used a blender pencil over the top and the bottom of the page to blur the stone. The chain was probably the hardest part for me because in my practice drawing I hadn't liked the way I had drawn it so it made me work even harder on it in the final piece. Now the chain is my favorite part because I love the highlights I put and the contrast.

Exploration Collage

For one of my summer projects, I chose to do a collage using pictures and postcards from my trip to Paris and London. I love to travel and I knew I wanted to depict that in my art pieces so I use things I had gotten from these different countries. I started with a background of plain newspaper and layered photos, postcards, stamps, and maps on top. I then decided to add red and pink tissue paper on top to provide more contrast and vibrant colors. I still wasn't all that happy with it so I wrote in black and white across it words that I thought described my personality and love of travel. I still feel like it is missing something so I will probably add more color or a larger image; something to draw your eye to on the canvas.

Final Lidded Vessel

Artist Makes Original Work:
I wanted to to an almost pyramid shape container and I used drip patterns because I have always liked the look of them. I wanted to do something different for the lid so I chose to make it out of cork.
Artists Take Risks:
I was worried about the drips and the cork because I wasn't sure if the drips would actually look realistic and I was worried about how well the cork would work, but I am really happy with how it turned out.

Scratch Board

Artists Make Original Work:
I decided to do an animal and I knew I wanted to do my dog, Tessa, so I found a picture of her on my phone and zoomed in just on her. I then did the sketch and began scratching the ink off, adding in lighter fur against the darker fur and highlights on her chin and collar. I also added the highlights in her eyes and on her nose.
Artists Take Risks:
I was a little apprehensive about doing my dog because I have not been the biggest fan of drawing animals in the past. However, I learned that animals actually easier on a scratch board because you can capture the look of fur easier and it enables you to put in more highlights versus drawing the darks.
Artists Develop Art Making Skills:
I really liked this project just because of how it was a completely new material and medium to use and I used to do scratchboards that already had the designs when I was little. My dad also used to do a lot of scratchboards when he was high school and college and his work was always amazing to see and hear about.

Graduation Mash-up

For the last day of photoshop we had to combine a piece of art with the theme of graduation so I took an abstract painting of people and added graduation caps and a banner.

Animated Painting

I decided to use one of Monet's paintings to animate and I did so by moving the two boats across the water (and across the painting) . I got rid of the boats by covering them with the patch tool so that I could put the boats back in where I wanted them to go on each layer.

Watch for Sharks

I wanted to use the caution sign and combine with something wacky and I thought of the Sharknado movie and thought I could use that and have the sign warning people of flying sharks.

Figure Drawing

Artists Develop Art making Skills:
This was a really good project because it combined charcoal with life- size figure drawing which are both tricky.  I have used charcoal on previous projects but I still enjoyed using it again and I liked how the project combined everything we have learned so far with folds, the face, and body proportions.
Artists Create Original Work:
This is original work because I drew my model by proper proportions and made sure to draw all the folds first and then started shading bit by bit. I saved the face for last and while I am not that happy with the face's proportions, I am pleased with the rest of the drawing.
Artists Reflect:
I drew the whole thing in pencil first making sure to get all the contour lines and folds from her t-shirt and jeans. I then went over the same lines lightly in charcoal, and followed those by shading. I was really happy with how I started with pencil because it allowed me to correct mistakes without it being noticeable before I finalized the lines in the darker charcoal medium.

Easter Island Bratz

For turning a pop icon into a sculpture, I picked Bratz and Easter Island. I first got rid of the original statues and replaced them with the Bratz.  I then took the Bratz and made them black and white with hue saturation. I then increased the color balance to more red and yellow so it would match the stone. I also overlayed a picture of stone on top so that they would look like they were actually made of stone.

Skull Drawing

Artists Create Original Work:
For this self portrait, we had to draw our own face over the skull picture and  I drew my proportions off but this only helped me realize for future drawings. This is original work because was drawing my own face and figuring out the different techniques as I went.
Artists Develop Art Making Skills:
I thought this was a really good practice to help us see wear the facial features are supposed to go and how the proportions look. I knew for future reference that the eyes are supposed to go lower down over the eye sockets and same with the nose.
Artists Reflect: 
 I did realize when I was drawing the face how important the facial features' proportions are because if they are off even a little bit, it doesn't look as good or as realistic. While I had initially thought that drawing over the skull was hard and a little creepy, I soon realized how much it helped me in that drawing and how it would help as reference for future portraits.

Skeleton Drawing

Artist Develop Art Making Skills:
I really enjoyed this project because it helped me see the proportions of the body and showed how the body is structured. It was also really good practice for me with shading and depth. Drawing the skull really helped me see where the eyes are compared to the head with the other facial features.
Artists Solve Problems:
I did draw the skeleton too large so the ankles and feet did not fit on the full page. I resolved this by simply attaching an additional sheet and continuing so I could still have the full skeleton.
Artists Take Risks:
When I first started, I had thought I had proportioned the skeleton out but I should have double checked my measurements because they were off and when I realized that I just continued and did not remeasure. Even though it still turned out relatively well proportion wise, I think I could have measure it out better.

Fast and Furious

For my movie poster, I took a movie poster for fast and Furious and replaced the car with Lightning McQueen from Cars.

Shredded Portrait

This project was kind of cool because of how it helped introduce us to using the mask tool but I really wasn't happy with the overall look. I also added a drop shadow on both the masked layers to help the look.

Literal Images

 

I did the honey dew, eyeball, and duckbill because I thought they would be cool to make them literal. Fo the honeydew, I cropped drops of honey out of pictures and lined them along the edge of the leaves by using the warp tool and the smudge tool. For the eyeball, I simply put the picture of the ball over the eye and overlayed the image on top so they combined. On the duck bill, I cropped the picture of the duck into the dollar and then wrote DUCK beneath the picture.

Floating Umbrellas

I found this picture of umbrellas in Portugal that are suspended over the street and though it would be fun to make the umbrellas floating out of the picture. I made the umbrellas cast a shadow on the wall so that they would actually look like they were against the wall.

Snake Lolipop

For my candy critter, I used a picture of a coiled snake, a gradient, and a stick to turn it into a lollipop. I used the gradient because of how the swirly lollipops are all different colors and thats what I wanted the snake to look like.

Scuplture Artist: Jessica Harrison

For my sculpture artist, I chose Jessica Harrison who has a PhD in sculpture and excels in representing the human body through silicon, clay, pencil, ink, and several other materials.  She tries to change the way people usually see the human body in art by showing the subconsciousness and the movement of the body inside and out. I chose Jessica Harrison when I first saw her porcelain figures that were covered in tattoos because of how she combined two things that you would never see together. I also really how shes not just a sculpture artist and works with pencil and ink as well as the many different sculpture materials.

 
 


http://www.jessicaharrison.co.uk/page3.htm
http://www.jessicaharrison.co.uk/page7.htm
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/tags/sculpture/

Lidded Jars

Artists Create Original Work: 
Even though we were all creating the same types of jars, they was still a lot of room to make our pieces are own through the designs on the jar and the type of handle we made for the lid. I didn't do any designs on my first two jars mainly because I was focused on the shape and the smoothness of the clay sides. I did however, make different handles by making one with a small round sphere and the other with a squarish arch.
Artists Develop Art Making Skills:
These little jars are a really good practice for me because They help with the developing of clay skills because of the different teqniques such as the cork as the inside and using the newspaper if we don't want it to stick.

Unconventional Material Project

Artists Create Original Work-

I had originally planned on putting almost a template on top of the foam board, my material, to create a sign look but I decide to instead paint through the template onto painted plywood so that would look even more like a sign. I sanded the edges a bit so that the color under the white background showed through and then I used the foam board to back the plywood and to give a sort of frame that could be used for hanging it. I really wanted to incorporate Paris because I am visiting the city this summer.

Artists Took Risks-
I wanted to give it the antique look by doing the color underneath that would only show through when I sanded the edges. I chose turquoise which i made with blue and yellow spray paint but I was kind of apprehensive because I wasn't sure how well the spray paint would work under the acrylic or if it wouldn't have the desired affect. 

Artists Solved Problems-
When I spray painted the letters and the Eiffel tower down onto the acrylic white paint, the images were unclean because of how some of the paint had leaked under and created splotches. I fixed this by going over the white spray paint with white acrylic and cleaned up the edges to give a straighter look. 

Relief Project

Artists Create Original Work:

I wanted to create the look of a silhouetted cityscape but combine it with my desire of traveling so I cut out monuments and famous landmarks for England, France, and Italy.  I decided to make the background a map to tie each of the places together and to complete the look. 

Artists Communicate Through Their Work:
I have many places, primarily in Europe, that I want to visit and because this summer I will actually be going to London and Paris, I seem to tie practically everything to my upcoming trip.  I wanted to show how each country is unique and has gorgeous landmarks and monuments that represent their history and beauty.
Artists Solve Problems:

When I was cutting out the tiny details of the monuments I did run into the problem of accidentally cutting something off or causing it to be too weak to stand up without drooping.  I figured out that if I glued a tiny strip on the back, it strengthened it so that it could stand up and still had all the important details. I also later added wire to the backs of the taller buildings.

Lightning Bulb

  I saw a picture of a light bulb and I immediately wanted to put lightning in the glass to kind represent the electricity.

Self- Portrait

Artists Develop Art Making Skills:
I definitely improved my knowledge and skill in different mediums because I used charcoal and I had only used charcoal a few times before and it was a big step to use it in a large self portrait. I also have never liked doing portraits and I had never had much luck with them in the past but I impressed myself with how much my portrait actually resembles me.
Artists Take Risks:
Coming back to the use of charcoal, I had only ever used it for small things such as warm- ups or class assignments and never for a major project. I figured out when and where to use a tortillion as to not take away from the piece but to help where needed.  I also used a soft paint brush to blend the charcoal in some areas because of how it helped increase the smoothness in the face where as a tortillion would have left faint streaks and would have been uneven.
Artists Reflect:
I had started a rough draft of the portrait by using griding and when I saw how it had already looked like me, it made me more determined to make the final piece some of my best work and I am really happy with the end result.

Hidden Identity

I did a cat with a mountain lion shadow because of how cute and harmless they look but they can still have a tough side. They both pounce and even though one is wild, they both have the same natural instincts.

Brand Name Swapping

For my brand swapping project I swapped Canon into the Nikon logo because of my love of photography and the fact that they are kind of rival companies.

Quick Figure Sketches

 
 Today we had to do quick figure sketches which are cool because it really helps me notice the different shapes of the body and gets me to focus on the proportions rather than detail.