My Q3 Art

If I learned anything in this quarter, it’s that drawing a bicycle is a lot harder than you might think. It’s not just about drawing the general shape of the bicycle, it’s about making sure all the parts are just right. I personally had the most trouble with drawing the breaks. Despite all that, I do believe my final bicycle drawing turned out pretty good. I gave my bike drawing the title, “La Bicicleta,” which means, “The Bicycle,” in Spanish, because I felt like it.

I also tried experimenting with shading. It was a little hard with a lead pencil and my tendency to press down on the paper, but I managed. The results of this can be seen in my shaded shapes and optical illusions. The key to creating a tunnel-like optical illusion like the ones I made is to master the shading. In order to create a realistic tunnel effect, you have to shade the top part lighter and the bottom part darker. I learned this when creating the square tunnel, and later practiced it in the rainbow circle tunnel.

For this quarter, I decided to try out a new strategy. Instead of making a rough copy in my sketchbook and a final copy later, I decided to make more than one version of the same picture to see if the second drawing would be an improved version of the first. True, I was basically doing the same thing, but I was showing the “rough draft” as well as the “final version.” I have noticed a definite difference between the two versions of one drawing. For example, I did not add any interesting details to my first mandala aside from the color because I wanted to get used to drawing a mandala first. In my second mandala, I decided to draw hearts and stars on the shapes. Also, my second eye looks more “open” than the first one. It is important to note that I did make multiple versions of the shaded shapes piece, but I was having technical difficulties and could only upload one.