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.