Final Summer Procrastination!

This is the last piece for the summer!!! I did this in water color and I still tried to follow a simplistic and stylistic technique.  I think maybe I'm simplifying it too much, but I'm still interested in the technique.  This would definitely look a lot better if I paid more attention and spent more time on the more technical and precise aspects of the building.  The paper is 9"x12" and the subject is an old Spanish castle at the beach.  I did this for the architectural assignment option.

Summer Photos

I'm definitely not a photographer, but here are my 24 photos for this past summer.

#4- Closet Space

For this piece I chose the assignment "Inside of a closet."  I'm going to a rodeo later today so I thought I'd do a western theme for this piece.  I draped my western show jacket over my guitar and placed my riding boots in front of it.  I tried to do another stylized piece in water color because its quick, easy, and doesn't take a lot of time.  I think this one looks absolutely terrible; probably because I didn't spend a lot of time on it because I completely forgot I had to do it.  Hopefully either before school starts or during the school year I can redo this piece because I think it has some serious potential, especially if I do it in more detail! This is a 9"x12" sheet of paper.

Getting Used to the Water- Summer Assignment #3

For this assignment I chose to use the prompt "Bathroom/Kitchen Counter."  I placed a bunch of jewelry on my bathroom faucet and painted it on a 9"x12" piece of paper in water color and pen.  I used the pen to outline the objects in a sort of "messy" way.  I tried to make this piece look like a professional kind of sloppy (if that can make any sense).  I'm not sure if I pulled it off all of the way with this piece, but I'm sure if I practiced more with the idea that I could do some cool pieces with the concept.  One thing I learned by doing this piece is that water will make pen ink run.  It should have been obvious earlier, but I wasn't thinking that far ahead when I was drawing the outlines.

Summer Assignment #2 and A Reminder of Why I Hate Pencil

The dimensions are 9x12 and the medium I used was pencil.  I'm glad I did this in pencil because it gave me an early reminder to never use pencil again.  I definitely am not a pencil artist.  I chose to do the assignment where you draw yourself in distortion and in pencil.  This gave me the idea to draw a close up of a plate and spoon that is rested on a glass, and then draw myself on the spoon.  The best part about this piece is that the crumbs on the plate were left from a piece of cake that I ate.

The First of Many AP Assignments

First, sorry for the horrible photo.  This is a 9"x12" oil painting of three eggs in a towel.  I haven't painted in a while and I've never painted a subject similar to this, which I feel is told by the final outcome.  I think I did well with the shading and texture of the towel, but capturing the smooth texture of the eggs was more difficult. I'm extremely excited to be starting AP art!

Having Withdrawals!!!!

Math Class Creations

I'm having severe withdrawals from art class and I had to indulge myself a little in math (don't worry, we had a free block that day!)  Surprisingly, the product isn't that bad! However, the lighting of my computer camera is very bad! I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL IB ART NEXT YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

End of the Semester Presentation

For the semester my theme was the eight stages of grief.  These stages include shock, denial, grief, pain, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Throughout my pieces I feel that I did a good job of expressing my concept. A problem that I kept dealing with while creating my artwork was dealing with proportions.  As I worked more and figured out my style I feel that my art continued to increase in quality.

Benchmark: Grief

The dimensions are 11"x17".  The materials used are charcoal and white and blue prisma colored pencils.  This is a drawing of  a soldier presenting a folded flag to a woman.  The woman is shown in three stages of movement: standing upright, mid-fall, and crouched on the floor.  The upright position of the woman is the least defined and intense, and as the woman gets closer to her last position she becomes for defined and intense.  The majority of the piece is done in black and white with different shades and highlights.  The only parts with color are the flag in the soldier's hands and the woman's hair and clothes. 

The influential artist for this project was William Kentridge.  He lived through the time of Aparthied and produced many famous "erasure drawings".

There are many things that could be improved in this piece.  I think that if I were to redo this project I would make the background less distracting and draw the people better.  This, in my opinion, is a bad drawing; aside from the concept this was not successful.  The experimenting in this drawing was unsuccessful.

Milestone: Anger

The dimensions of this piece are 11"x15".  The materials include yellow, red, and white watercolor.  This piece is a painting of a yelling woman from the neck up.  Her eyes are shut tight and her mouth is open.  The hair is being blown in the same direction her face is pointing (right to left) and is red, orange, and yellow. Red, orange, yellow, and white were the only colors used in the piece.

The artist that influenced me during the creation of this piece was Carne Griffiths.  He does very experimental watercolor portraitures.  His paintings inspired my to use the straw technique to get wilder movement in my painting.

Improvements that could be made in this piece include opening the mouth more widely to really make her look like she is screaming and adding more streaks of hair, especially on the top left side of her face.

This is my turning point piece because I got a feel for watercolor and experimenting and wanted to keep using some of the same ideas and techniques I discovered by doing this piece.

Quintessential: Acceptance

The dimensions of my last are 12"x24".  Materials used were charcoal, green, yellow, blue, black, brown, and white water color, and gold and blue interference paint.  The subject matter is a man crouching down and a little girl fading away.  The girl has her left hand on her father's shoulder whereas the other hand is stretched out and fading away with the rest of her body.  In the section where she is being faded there is interference paint.

 

This piece was inspired by Alex M. and her idea to use watercolor and charcoal.  The thing that had the most influence on this piece, however, was not inspired by a particular person but more of an event.  A life can be taken away as quickly as it is made, and this horrific truth was demonstrated by the events of Sandy Hook.  I take comfort in knowing that the children of Sandy Hook are wrapped in the arms of the Father. 

 

Improvements that could be made are making the woods in the back actually look like woods, making the little girl a little more proportional, and having amore gradual fade in some places.

I feel that this piece defines me most as an artist because it is technical enough to be good but still incorporates a lot of concept and is very dramatic.

 

 In conclusion, watercolor is a medium that I plan to keep using and getting better with, and I also plan to continue making dramatic and experimental pieces.

 

 

Saving the Best for Last

This is my final piece for the semester and also, in my opinion, my best.  I used charcoal, watercolor, and interference paint.  The dimensions are 12"x24".  Some challenges I faced while working on this project were my lack of experiencing using charcoal and pencil and trying to draw woods.  Instead of worying about the background too much I decided I would just make up for it by really making the people stand out.  I feel I successfully learned how to create shades and highlights with watercolor and I learned how to make interference and watercolor work together.  I don't feel I've created a new technique by mixing interference and water color or by having a person being blown away, but I feel like I explored something that hasn't really been explored much before.  I tried to use brighter colors on the people this time and not make them as pale as I have been making all of my other figures.  The last stage of my theme was acceptance.

Dabbling with Watercolor Portaits Again...

This is one of my least favorite pieces of the semester.  I used watercolor on watercolor paper and the dimensions are 10"x14".  Some successes were the shading in the shirt and the way the cross stands out.  This piece is also much more calm than some of my other, more dramatic, pieces and ideas.  Some problems were blurring the background and making a good skin color.  This is my attempt at the bargaining stage of my theme of grief.  I chose to paint a person praying so it would be as if he were bargaining with God.

Experimenting with Marbleized Paper and Such

                                                                  (Full Photo)

                                                                  (Detail Photo)
The materials used for this project are blue, burgandy, and black spray paint; white and black oil pastel; white and black acrylic, and bristol board.  The dimensions are 12"x16".  I succesfully made good looking marbleized paper and cutting them all up and placing them back together in a good design.  I had trouble drawing the eyes and defining the woman from the background.  The female figure is still slightly too camouflaged with the background.  However, defining a few of the lips helped bring forward teh shape and gave the piece a good focal point.  I also gave the different pieces of paper shadows to bridge it all together and give more depth to the piece.  Overall I like the end result, but if I were to do another project using the same technique I would use only Acrylic so the figure would stand out more and I would possibly incorporate larger areas of white with ink.