Clay Food Project

I Develop Art Making Skills:

Did you learn new techniques or processes as part of the work for this project?

            -For the clay food project, I chose to do blueberry muffins with a cup of tea for our "Breakfast Group". One technique I learned while actually transforming the clay to the object was how to make the clay piece evenly distributed on your wooden board. By using two rulers on either side of the board, you use the roller to evenly spread out the clay so not one side of the clay is flat while the other is thick. However, I learned most of the techniques when it came to painting the clay. First, using the wash on a clay piece was something new for me. I also discovered that the wash can become a much darker shade than what you would expect, so adding a lot of water to the paint was important. Next, when I started painting, I learned how to put in the highlights and shades on the cup and the blueberries on top of the muffins. With the cup, I added in black underneath the handle of the cup and underneath the cup itself where it sits on the saucer. Then I did the highlights on the side of the blueberries and a little on top of the handle of the cup. At the end, we also got to put the shiny, clear paint on top of our pieces to make it look glossy. Also with the muffins, I added in some yellow in random spots to make it look like the inside of the cooked bread. For this project, I mainly learned how to paint an object realistically.  

I Take Risks:

Did you try something that you weren’t sure about as part of this project?

         -The thing I wasn't sure about with doing this clay project was how to make it look realistic in terms of the shape and color. When I first started molding the clay, it took forever just to get the base of the saucer right. So I wasn't exactly sure about how I would make the saucer look realistic, since it wasn't flat like a plate. As you see in the picture above, I needed to even out the clay a lot more and add a smooth surface to the top in order for the cup to sit straight. Another thing I wasn't sure about was the choice of colors I should use for the muffins. Since the color of bread is a mix of some brown and yellow, getting the right shade for the muffin was hard. So I took a risk of painting the muffins with one solid brown color, and then added some yellow in random creases of the clay. I had never painted a clay piece with the focus of making it look realistic; in Art 1, I focused more on the designs and brightness of the colors, however, this project introduced me to some new risks, techniques, and processes that helped my clay food look more appealing.



I Reflect:

When did you step back and analyze you work during this project? 

          - My strengths of the clay project was that I attempted to correctly use highlights, shades, and overall color for the food. I liked how I added in the small bit of highlight on the sides of the blueberries. I also liked that I used a lighter shade of blue on top of the cup's handle to show its highlight. The shape of the muffins turned out good for me because it wasn't molded perfectly. Usually objects look more realistic when the shape of it isn't completely straight, curved, or flat. So I'm happy that the bottom part of the muffins weren't completely vertical, and by default, my finger impressions around the clay made it look more "not-perfect". The things I needed to improve on for the project was: painting, molding the cup/saucer, and to have a clean finish. With the painting part, I struggled especially with the cup, because the different shades of blue made it look like the cup itself was different colors, when actually I was trying to show shades and highlights. Also, I should've had a better understanding of what color to paint first, how long it should dry, and then what color can easily be painted on top. For example, when I was painting the rim of the saucer, which is white, I accidentally put black there before, which gave a grayish shade after I painted on top of it with white. With molding the cup/saucer, I should've improved on making the rim of the cup smoother, as well as the sides. Unlike the muffins where the uneven sides looked realistic, the cup is an actual solid object which should've had straight,smooth sides. Lastly, I could've improved on having a cleaner finish to the paint, since for me, it still looks a little unfinished with the painting and molding of the cup/saucer. 

Close-up Drawing

I Create Original Art:

How did you use your own unique ideas in your work?

             - For the drawing project, I chose to do an up-close look of jingle bells. Originally, I thought of coloring the bells the original color, which was a golden brown. However, I thought the repetition of one color would look unappealing; so, I chose to do a mix of bright, colorful colors for each jingle bells. In order for the bells to look more customized, I kept at least two bells of the same color, but in different areas of the paper. I also decided to do only a small portion of my reference picture (which was a collection of 100 bells on my leg). To make the drawing look more detailed in terms of texture and colors, I thought if I screenshot only a couple of bells bunched up together. What I really focused on was the bells being on top, on the bottom, and next to each other so it looked repetitive yet different with the shadings and highlights.  Another idea I chose was to have the bells take up the whole paper. The more crowded the bells looked, the more opportunities I had to focus on the different positions of the bells. So while referring back to my basic reference, I put in my own unique ideas of keeping the bells to face different directions, as well as adding my own choice of bright, contrasting colors. 


I Develop My Art Making Skills:

Did you gain skill with familiar materials?

          -The medium I chose for the drawing project was prisma colored pencils. I have previously used prisma colored pencils but not as effectively. In this drawing, I focused on the use of different shades of one color to produce a more realistic look of the bell. For example, for the blue colored bells, I used white, light blue, teal, turquoise, dark blue, violet, light purple, and black. For the purple colored bells, I used white, magenta, pink, violet, light purple, baby pink, and black. For the green colored bells, I used, white, sea-green, forest-green, neon-green,parrot-green, and black. And lastly for the orange colored bells, I used red, dark red, white, yellow, orange, red-orange, brown, and black. With the whites, I made 3 sections on the 3 sides of the bell for the highlighted section. I used the black for the bottom of the bells or next to the bells where the bells intersect and where the light is darker towards the bottom of the bell. I also used black for the inside of the bells where there's no color and light. The technique I learned specifically with prismacolors is how to blend two colors successfully. From the bottom of the bell, I had the darker shades and then gradually blended in the light colors in the middle of the bell where the rim is. I repeated the same process for each side of the bell where the highlight is the center. I colored in a circular motion towards the center for the sides of the bell, and for the bottom section I dragged the pencil back and forth in a roundish motion to make the bells look spherical. 

I Communicate Through My Work:

How is this artwork about who you are or what you like?

           - I personally like drawing realistic objects. With this unique idea of a close up drawing of jingle bells, I wanted to show how I liked things that look somewhat realistic; and in order for that to show, I added in the highlights and shades of the bells. I also get attracted to bright colors, especially when there's more than one color being used in a drawing. So I added in the light greens, pinks, oranges, and blues to the variation of the bells' colors. With Christmas coming soon, I thought maybe doing jingle bells will make sense for a theme, however I changed the typical "red and green" combination to be a combination of different shades of the primary colors we usually see. For example, I chose to do a brighter shade of green instead of using the normal forest-green we see during Christmas time. I also like working with colored pencils. Prismacolors are really attractive because you don't see the gaps of the paper when you color something, making the drawing look more realistic. So I prefer any realistic drawing of an object to have full color, variation, repetition, and shape. 

Drawings-11/9/14

1.) Did you learn any new techniques or processes as part of the work for this art project?

- I learned 3 new techniques for the drawings of the Dum-Dum, Jolly Rancher, and peppermint. The first one was in the colored pencil media, which was the drawing of the Dum-Dum. I liked that I learned how to highlight the creases of the wrapper. The value of the color was also very important in order to show a variation in the colors of the wrapper. It was also interesting to learn that in order to make something look cylindrical, you have to highlight the center with white, and then have the sides or corners a much darker shade to show that the object is rounded. However, with this exercise, I mostly focused on getting the details of the wrapper. The second technique I learned was the use of chalk. I never really enjoyed using chalk because of how messy it can get, but I discovered that the most important part about using this media, is how much pressure you put onto the chalk. Even if I had put slightly more pressure on the chalk, the drawing would look unrealistic because of of that one darker color. Something new I learned was that in chalk, you should try avoiding blending the colors. This can cause the drawing to look like a mix of colors without any proper highlights or shades. The peppermint was by far the hardest of them all. The last technique was the oil pastel drawing. When I first started drawing the Jolly Rancher, I couldn't figure out how to smooth out the pastel so it would look fully colored. But once I learned the process of dragging the oil pastel back and forth, which takes a very long time, I saw the color had automatically filled a nice, smooth texture onto the paper. I also liked the fact that the values of one color (for mine it was blue) could be so distinct with adding white to the darker blues. The one thing I would've worked on more though was the shape of the candy, and better use of darks and lights.

 2.) Did you use a source of inspiration and combine it with your own ideas to make it original?

- The sources of inspiration I had were the actual objects: Dum-Dum lollipop, Jolly Rancher, and a peppermint. I used these candies to help me draw the specific creases in the wrapper; however, I played around with the colors in all three of them. For example, the peppermint's original colors were obviously red and white, but I changed the idea to put two contrasting colors together: Red and Green.
For the Dum-Dum, I chose to do more orange on the sides, more red near the creases, and then white as the main color almost. And for the Jolly Rancher, I chose to put a lot more white on the top and bottom where most of the highlight should be. I also added some black in the creases of the yellow part of the wrapper to emphasize the deeper creases.
Having these objects in front of you is very helpful in terms of keeping up with the realistic look of the drawing; and also just to have a basic reference for colors, orientation, details, etc. of the object you're drawing.

3.) How would you analyze your work?

- I would say I need to improve a lot more on how to blend colors correctly, because I definitely feel like although the highlights and shades are there, it still doesn't look very realistic to me. Especially with chalk, the proper technique is very important in order to not have it look messy or too blended. For the Jolly Rancher, I feel I could have less white and more of the darker blue. The shape of the candy also should have been better sketched out. It was also difficult for me to properly color in and around the letters of the wrapper, so I would really work on outlining next time. For the Dum-Dum, I feel that I didn't give a good range of value for the orange. I tried putting the darker red in the crease, and a lighter orange next to it, but maybe adding some yellow and browns could have made it look more varied. I also feel I may have put too much white, probably because I was focused more on the white part of the wrapper and not the actual colors. But overall, I think I did good in drawing the basic object, and trying to include the creases and highlights of the objects. In the future however, I'll focus more on outlining, variation in colors, and better technique with whatever media I'm using. 

Blog-Style of a Famous Artist

Question: Did you find inspiration from another artist or culture?

(This was my reference painting)

---I took inspiration from the well-known artist, Winslow Homer. He was known for his realistic paintings of the seaside, lakes, oceans, or any sight of bodies of water. He kept his paintings very scenic and peaceful. So, for this style project I copied his kind of visual. I painted a lake with a sunset background; and to make the visual look like an actual place, I painted the lighthouse and a shelter on the right side of the painting. Homer was also known for his unique style of blending different colors together to make the visual bright and attractive. I used his style by blending a lot of yellow, orange, red, and pink together for the evening sky. For the reflection of the sky onto the water, I added more black to have it a lot darker than the sky; this made it look like there were little pools of water in the lake. Homer had most of his personal life spent near a lighthouse, so I decided to choose a painting where I could include a specific object/building that was special to the artist. 

Question: How did you respond to challenges that occurred as you worked?

----One problem I faced was painting the lighthouse. Initially, I had not sketched the lighthouse correctly and it turned out a little crooked and not exactly straight. After I discovered this problem, I had to cut off some of the right side of lighthouse and paint white over it in order to make the lighthouse look wider. Then, I painted more black on the left side border so it shifted to the center more. Another problem I faced was making sure I didn't blend the wrong colors together. A lot of the painting consisted of black, so it was important that I didn't mix the darker colors with the bright oranges and reds. Especially with sun, I didn't want my brush to have any other color but pure yellow on it. Another challenge was painting the rock, where the lighthouse/shelter stand on. I didn't want to make it pure black or pure gray because that's not part of Homer's style. Homer was into blending colors, so I decided to mix green, dark purple, black, and white together to create this "rocky" looking sediment for the rock. 

Question: Did you learn new techniques or processes as part of the work?

----One technique I learned was how before you start your painting, you have to add a tone wash across your canvas. This helps with areas of dark colors and areas of light colors throughout the painting. Since I had more black on the bottom half of the canvas, I figured more tone had to be painted there. I also learned the technique of blending/mixing paints to create random and unique colors. An example of this would be on the left side of the water, where you can see a tint of purple and blue. I also like how the purple in the sky really stood out because I painted the shaded purple on top and the tinted purple on the bottom, giving it somewhat of a contrast. Another technique that helped was sketching lightly on the canvas before actually painting. It helped especially with drawing the basic shapes and borders of the mountain in the background, the lighthouse, the rock, and the sun. 

Art 2: Prospective Project

How did you use your own unique ideas in your work?

     -For this perspective project, I wanted to use an object that was used in one point and also somewhat repeated. The main idea of the drawing is the rings being stacked on top of each other from a close-up view. I didn't repeat exactly one object, but I did draw three rings in one point perspective. My source of inspiration was my own rings that I wear all the time; using this as a reference, I stacked them in a way to be directed to one point. I also wanted to make this piece look realistic, so I wanted my reference to be a legitimate object and not a picture that I took or got from the internet.

Did you learn new techniques or processes as part of the work for this project?

- The main technique used in this project was value and shading. In order for such simple objects to look a little realistic value was necessary. I kept the light source on the right edges of the rings; that's where you can see the highlights. Then I focused on the darker value to be on the edges of rings, and especially when the rings would touch each other. Also, to make it look like the rings are stacked, drawing the shadows was really important. There was value in the shadows too, going from dark and fading into a lighter shade.

How did you respond to challenges that occurred as you worked?

- To make the piece look more interesting I had to think about what kind of a surface I had to put the rings on. It was difficult in the sense that I didn't really believe at first that anything would be very interesting to look at. My first idea was a table, but it didn't seem that people could tell it was just a regular table. Finally, I got the idea of a drawer, or some kind of a jewelry box. Then I started drawing the edges of the boxes in perspective, and thought of drawing a handle on the left edge. This way, with value and the handle, it would look like a jewelry box which looked much more interesting to me.

Art 1 Final Portfolio

Essay Questions: 

1.) How did you apply what you learned in Art 1 to successfully complete the Identity Project? Talk about your knowledge of materials and what you've learned about working with themes.
            - Firstly, my identity project was a sketch of Mahatma Gandhi using his own spinning wheel to make his clothes. In this sketch I decided just to use the basic skills I've learned throughout this course. Such as, value, perspective, and proportion. I learned that value is a skill that can really make your artwork look very realistic and appealing since it can also consist of highlights and darker shades vs. lighter shades. On the wooden piece where the spinning wheel is placed on top of is the area where I tried putting the most amount of value. I thought that the corners and especially wherever there were two things intersecting, was the area I would put a much darker shade. On the edges of the wooden piece, I put the highlight where light would reflect in real life. This made this piece of the work more realistic. Next, I used perspective. Since the spinning wheel was placed in an angle, I had to make sure each element of the wheel was facing towards a diagonal instead of a front profile. This was maybe the hardest part of this project, since the spinning wheel had to look symmetrical yet in an angle. I also made Gandhi sit in a diagonal position so it could correspond with the direction of the spinning wheel. Finally, I learned how to use proportion in the correct way. I mostly used proportion obviously for Gandhi's body. Based on an image I was referring off of, I saw how his head was rather larger at the top and got a little narrow towards the bottom. His ears were also noticeably pointing outwards, with the glasses resting on them. His physicality was an interesting part to draw since he had a skinny and bony structure. Although these were the main parts of the body, the smallest part, which were the hands took the longest time to draw. I wanted him to be seen as if he was holding a threading spindle that was coming off of the thread from the spinning wheel. I had to draw the thumb in front of the spindle's handles, and the rest of the fingers underneath like he was gripping onto the object. The fact that this was the smallest feature of the drawing was a challenge since I had to make the details of his hands to still look realistic.  All of these ideas and skills I learned in Art 1 so far, have really helped me in drawing objects and people in a complete different perspective, which eventually made my artwork look a lot more appealing. 

2.) What was your most successful project this semester? Describe the project and your work, then explain why you picked it. 
            - I believe my most successful project was the tea lamp (flower piece) and the zentangle. The zentangle was my first project in this class, and was luckily an area of art that I was most comfortable with. For that piece, I used dividing lines to separate the specific areas of where I would fill it with designs. This helped me a lot, especially since the paper was quite large. As I kept going with the intricate designs within the dividers, I didn't even notice when the whole paper got to be filled. Using lots of designs from my henna ideas, I used the technique of repetition. This was the main factor of this project that really caught people's attention. Although people thought that it's a paper filled with very different designs, it's actually just patterns that have been repeated randomly throughout the piece. For example, at the bottom of the paper, where there is the circle, I used the same pattern over and over again to fill up the circle. This gave a detailed effect since the pattern itself was so intricate. Doing this, I kept going on to fill the whole paper within a span of 3-4 days. I also learned to put value and emphasis onto the major lines of the art piece. 
         For my tea lamp, the medium I used was clay. That was my first time using clay to mold into something that was functional. I felt that the best part about this project was the painting of it more than the sculpting. I decided to use a lot of vibrant colors along with white to highlight some of the designs. I noticed the the clay piece was going from up to down towards the bottom center. Using this idea, I wanted to use a repetitive design that would get smaller and smaller as I was painting downwards. With the many options I had for colors, I used bright yellows, pinks, and reds. On the contrary, I also used a dark blue, a light blue, and a magenta color at the top. Since the clay piece was quite small, I had to really make the designs tiny in order for the detail of the painting to show. I also learned that layering colors on top of each other can also give an interesting effect. For example, on the border of the piece I drew petal-like designs that had white layered on top of it. I liked that part a lot just for the fact that it looked like actual petals. These two artworks are very special to me since I did my best while learning so many things throughout. 

3.) Do over - what was a project this semester you would change if you could? Describe the project and your work, including what you didn’t like about the work, then explain what you could have done differently to improve the result. 
        - If given the chance, I would definitely want to redo the block printing project. This was a project that I didn't really realize was going to be so difficult at first; therefore I took it as an easy project at first, later seeing that it affected my prints quite a bit. I think I should've known how to use the tools on the rubber pieces a lot better. I also was a little confused on what colors to put for the piece, since we needed 2 different colors. The matching of the first color and then the new color on top of it was the biggest challenge, since you didn't know how it was going to look after you peeled it off. If I had more time to practice and learn how to match up the colors then I would definitely would want to redo this project just because it looks so interesting in the end...if it turns out correctly! 

4.) What is a media that you enjoyed working with this semester? Write about what the media was, explain why you liked it and give examples of work you created with it.
           - I really enjoyed the stop motion app for the change project. I did a henna tattoo on someone's hand and took pictures of the design developing from the beginning to the end. I have done henna for a very long time now, but I never thought that I could make it look even more interesting through this type of media. The stop motion really made the design look like it was growing from a simple design to an intricate design. Seeing something that I'm so used to doing, now through a different perspective made the change project really interesting for me. The fact that it was something new and different made me want to choose this media, and then use it through a type of art that I'm so used to doing. 



Artwork and Reflection:

         - For my reflection I chose to redo one of the warm-ups, which was drawing a face. I feel like I did this better because I added a lot more value, especially in the hair and below the neck. I emphasized her eyes a lot more, with the highlight within the eyeball. Overall, I kept the features on her face very dark, with subtle detail within. For example, the lips have a dark outline, and then within the lips I drew lines to show the curve, or shape of the lips. I also changed her hairstyle, and position of the flower to make it be seen in a different perspective. I think the proportions of the first try were not as great, since the eyes were a lot larger than any other feature; so I made sure the nose wasn't too small, and the eyes didn't dominate the entire face. I tried to balance this with her hair to take up most of the forehead so the face wasn't awkwardly large. For the flower, I put more value that radiated from the center, as if there were two colors blending with together. Overall, I tried to focus more on value for this piece. 

Original                                                                                                       Redo

Artistic Behaviors - Blog 5

Artists Create Original Art:

Change Project: Henna tattoo (Original Art)

      For my first sculpture I used clay to make a tea lamp holder. It's also gives a flower effect because of its shape and designs. Using vibrant colors I painted the sculpture with yellow, dark blue, magenta, red, light blue, and white. This is original art for me because I used my own idea for its functional use and sculpted it based on my imagination. The designs I used for this piece are very small yet detailed. Using the colors I mentioned above, I tried using contrasting and complementary colors to make it look colorful. For example, I put the red and blue paint next to each other, and then white to highlight the contrast with small designs. I purposely kept the base color of the flower mustard yellow so it could give a somewhat general brightness to the piece. I wanted to fill the inside part of the flower, so I repeated a single line of design in layers pointing towards the bottom center of the tea lamp. I feel this idea really gave depth to the sculpture which is what attracted most people. Instead of giving the piece a simple profile, I painted a surrounding design so it would look complete.  I basically just used the red to paint petal - like designs; and then painted white in a smaller form on top of the red. This complemented the plain yellow base.

Tea lamp (flower sculpture)

Artists develop new art making skills

For my 2nd sculpture I made a teddy bear holding a heart out of clay. This was actually my first time sculpting something "unrealistic". Starting from the colors, to the shape, to the size, everything was based on making the sculpture look cute and appealing. Some of the new skills I learned through using clay were cross hatching to suck on separate parts, using water to moisten the clay every once in a while, and using the basic smoothing tools in order to finish the piece. My biggest challenge for the bear was making the parts of the body proportionate. I tried not to make the head too large and kept the feet of the bear show instead of all of the legs.Sculpting the arms was the most difficult though; the size and especially the shape was a new skill I learned. I figured out that firstly I have to cut a longer strand of clay in half so the sizes were equal. Then rolling it in a way where it's fatter at the ends where the "paws" of the bear are, and skinnier at the back where it attaches to the body. Although the main technique I used for this sculpture was the pinch pot idea. In order to make air not get trapped within the body of the sculpture I had to dig a hole at the bottom of the piece using one of the tools. I also did this on top of the "belly" of the bear where the head is attached to. 

Artists convey messages through their artwork:

For my last project I did a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi using his own spinning wheel. The history behind this portrait is that when the British were in control over India, the Indians were forced to buy the products the British made. In order to boycott with nonviolence, Gandhi encouraged everyone to create their own spinning wheel where they can make their own clothes instead of buying the British products which were too expensive for the common man. This portrait obviously shows the spinning wheel, which was built by him. Simplicity, independence, courage, and intelligence is what I tried conveying for the viewers. The quote on top reads: "I will not let anyone walk in my mind with their dirty feet", an original quote by Gandhi. I thought this suited this specific portrait because he was not allowing the British to take control of what he could or couldn't buy in his own country. The clothes I drew on him were very ordinary like how Gandhi was in his time. For people to recognize Gandhi I drew his glasses and simple clothes which he always wore. I worked mostly on the value for the portrait so it could look realistic; although the hardest and longest part of this sketch was drawing the spinning wheel. To firstly keep it in a sideways perspective yet still symmetrical was a challenge.  

Blog Post 4

- Artists Communicate Through Their Work:

I painted a picture of teeth biting onto a stem that has thorns on it. I also depicted my feeling through the blood coming from the thorn going into the lip. I chose this idea/visual because I wanted to express the feeling of pain. I mainly wanted to focus on the outside visual of really pretty lips, but then suddenly seeing blood to the pretty lips making it seem sad; I wanted to do this for the color project because it shows a contrast in the painting's effect. In other words it shows irony since the beautiful lips make you feel nice, yet the blood on the lips completely changes that feeling into shock. To really make the blood show a strong effect, I had to put a lot of paint on that one spot where the lip was hurt so it was obvious for the viewer. But in general, I basically just wanted to show how something so nice can turn ugly very quickly. As I explained before, pain was the feeling expressed since the blood ruins the beautiful effect of the luscious lips. 

-Artists Have a Global Awareness of Artmaking

Original painting: Francois Boucher

- For the style project, I took inspiration from the artist Francois Boucher. Francois Boucher was an artist who was born on September 29th, 1703. He was a French painter who was known to paint classical themes and decorative allegories. He was largely known to be a the biggest decorative artist of the 18th century. In the beginning of his art career, he was a lot on painting landscapes and nature, but eventually he started painting portraits. A lot of his paintings depicted passion and intimacy. I chose the painting of the Young Woman who is holding a little flower. The expression of this painting was very peaceful, innocent, and beautiful. I personally enjoy doing drawings which depict some kind of expression on the face of a woman. I had something new added onto this sketch, which was the hand holding onto the flower. It was interesting how I learned to draw this, since I only looked at the painting and pretty much copied the orientation of the hand and flower. Boucher's paintings also show a lot of realism which looks very organic. He painted a lot of human figures, which I like doing instead of abstract art. This is why Francois Boucher was my inspiration for the style project. 

-Artists Develop Art Making Skills

  For the style project, I was using the basic skills of how to draw realistic eyes, lips, and nose. I focused a lot on the eyes of the woman since that's where the feeling of "innocence" comes from. I made sure I kept the highlight in the eye which keeps the eye to look realistic. I also kept minimal detail for her make up since it could ruin the effect of what Boucher's painting gave, which was naturally beautiful.The nose was the feature that had more shading and highlight. The tip of the nose shows the highlight, while the surrounding of the nose has shading, as well as the top of the nose leading up to the eyebrows.  The lips just had a darker lining around the lips compared to the shading within. Something I did different was do some shading on the face of the drawing. I kept most of the shading on the cheeks and on the corner of her forehead. Even on the side of her arm, I did some light shading on the top. Her hair was the "decorative" part of the drawing, and so was the flower. So I did a lot of shading in the corners of where the hair was being pulled back; and for the flower I gave it color so it could be different from the normal black and white sketching. That's where I decided not to do much shading for the flower, since I was going to color it pink.

Blog Post 3-artistic behaviors

Artists Communicate Through their Art:

This was the original sketch I was referring off of.

-For the color project I painted a picture of a woman's lip biting the stem of a rose. The stem has thorns on it, and the thorns bite her lip, causing dripping blood. With this painting, I tried to communicate with the feeling of jealousy or hate. For me, I feel like letting out my anger through hurting myself allows my pain to release. This is depicted through the thorns from the stem which hurt her lips. I also felt that jealousy could be another perception of this expression. Jealousy tends to make people (girls especially :P) do something that causes even more pain for them. It can also make someone feel worthless and therefore punish themself for being who they are. Her way of putting the stem on her mouth, knowing that her lips will bleed, shows how she wants to feel the pain. That's why I chose to do an unexpected action for the focus of my painting. This made it easier for me to display the expression of my painting clearly.

Artists Develop Art Techniques

I learned through some of the warm-ups on how to sketch in comparison to what you see in real life; for example, the perspective of what you're looking at should be the same as what your drawing on your paper.

* the orange came from the chalk pastel that
smeared onto the sketch from another next page*

In the hand sketches I really focused on what I was looking at, almost like contour drawing where I just followed the object without taking the pencil off the paper. This helped me in getting a good base off of what I was trying to draw, and it turned out to look the same as my own hand! I had to add in some value to make the hand look somewhat realistic; along with the lines and curves which had to be in detail so it didn't look fake. What I did as something different was color behind the hand all black so the drawing could really pop out in contrast with the background. I also tried to focus on the orientation of the hand; since the position wasn't straight, I made it a little slanted so it was the same as how my own hand looked. These techniques really helped me in making the sketch look realistic. 

Artists Create Original Art

-For the land/sky project I wanted to have a difference in what art materials I used as well as what effect to give from the drawing. For the land project, I used oil pastels to burnish/blend the bright colors of the drawing. The concept of my land drawing was very simple, I tried to make it look peaceful by adding just colors that really stand out to you. For the trees, I enjoyed making the bushels of leaves look combined by swerving the oil pastels continuously. The trunk of the tree also had some value, because I wanted the details of the bark to be darker than the local color (brown). With the sky project, I had a choice of doing the night sky or a bright sky with the sun; I stuck with the night, since there's a lot of blending involved with it. The effect of the night sky is quite dark, and mysterious since the moon shines alone with dark clouds scattered randomly. The original aspect of these drawings were that I made these based on my own ideas/visuals.

Artists Communicate -3/12/14

Artistic Behaviors: Artists Communicate Through Work

This was a drawing I did just as something to do after finishing my project; a girl hiding behind a curtain with half of her face showing. In this sketch, I kept a very calm expression on her face to make it very pleasant yet expressive. I made her eyes look up, almost as if she's looking at someone right in front of her. The curtain was something new that I added so viewers could see that the girl was shy. For the features on the face, I really tried to highlight the makeup surrounding her eye so it could be the main focus of the picture. I used proportional lines to make the face centered and relative in comparison, along with value added to the inside of her eye to darken the pupil. I always keep some sort of caption to go along with what I want to express through my drawings; and I labeled her as "Too Shy...".

Artists Develop Art Making Skills-3/12/14

Artistic Behaviors- Artists develop art making skills:

Oil pastels were something new for me to learn since I hadn't used it as much before. Learning the way to color the local color, highlight, cast shadow, etc. was interesting to see because oil pastels since made the object look so realistic.  Although oil pastels are very messy, whenever I finished my project after using them, I felt like it payed off. One of the starting warm-ups was the apple that had to be colored with all the aspects of art (highlight, shadow, local color,etc.). This exercise helped me understand where to really press down hard on the pastel and when to be soft . Blending was also another technique that required not your finger, but a different color that could build onto your local color. The space project was something I had wanted to do for a long time with pastels, since they make art really stand out. I had drawn Buddha, inspired by the cover picture on my phone, where the features of his face was white, while the rest was pitch black. I had also taken a risk by covering the whole page with the darkest pastel (black) that could have easily been smeared on the white spaces.

Artists Create Original art - 3/12/14

Artistic Behaviors- Artists create original art 3/12/14

The two in one project was one of the new themes
 we had a couple of weeks ago. I had decided to do a tree combined with a woman. This was original art for me because I had no inspiration, it was more of just my own idea on taking these two visuals to make it look like one. The way I did this was basically make the trunk of the tree be a long dress for a woman. Her back was showing, with only a side profile. At first, I stuck with just showing her regular arms on the side of her hips, but as I kept working, I figured if I made her arms form into branches  it would really emphasize the tree effect. The part of this project that I got appreciated for was adding in the pink and green for the flowers and leaves on her arms (branches). I improvised my project gradually by making it have a contrast with color and adding the common similarities of both visuals. 

Artistic Behaviors 2/14

3.) Artist communicate through their artwork.-The drawing below is obviously not something we drew in class, but it was kept in my separate sketch book at home. I'm pretty sure I drew this a year ago. I usually tend to draw things that have some emotion spread through the face of the drawing. Like in this picture, it's actually a Muslim girl who has a broken heart. I had originally kept the caption of this drawing: "Silence for a woman is the sign of a broken heart". I portrayed this by first making the girl look away from the viewer to show she's looking out for something (figuratively). The frown on her face shows disappointment, and her hair being a tad bit messy shows her uneasiness. The shawl around her head is part of the dressing sense in the Muslim culture; as well as the little piece of jewelry hanging on the left side of her head. The way I personally communicated through this drawing was mainly through her expression.

-This was the original picture which I got somewhat of a reference off of. Since I was trying to express my own message, I purposely changed the orientation of her face.

Artistic Behaviors 2/14

2.) Artists develop art making skills- What I especially enjoyed doing in this class is learning the different ways of adding value to an art project. I wasn't exactly familiar with it, but I have learned that value can really make a difference in how a design can look. It is actually the interesting contrast that value brings that makes the design stand out to a viewer. I'm not someone who really works with color so much so I'm not as comfortable, but would love to be. I also really enjoyed drawing our warm-ups that included the hands, eyes, and lips. That helped me see proportion and value in what I drew.

-Here I used just regular colored pencils to color a practice zentangle.

-One of my favorite warm-ups was drawing the eye because facial features really have some different ways of making them look realistic. (For example the highlight in the pupil of the eye.)

 -This was entirely a practice on value. This helped see the "sphere" shape of the ball, and the cast shadow beneath it.