Quarter 4 Advanced Art Reflection

The first project we did this quarter was figure drawing. With a regular mechanical pencil on white 8.5 x 11 paper, I sketched 8 figures from a useful reference image site. I then chose one of the sketches to draw on large paper. I think that the final product is kind of atrocious proportionally, but I am proud of it because I never do full figure drawings. I think this project really showcases how much I need to do more of it. The second project we did this quarter was line drawings. I really liked this project. I did 6 bust portraits in different colored pens on white 8.5 x 11 paper, using continuous lines. The final product looked better with some drawings than others, but I think that the overall effect was very cool.

The third project we did this quarter was digital drawings. I made two of them using google draw. For each drawing, I used a combination of lines of my own creation and pre-made shapes. I personally like the more geometric one I made better. The fourth project we did this quarter was an illusion of space drawing. I used pencil on  white 8.5 x 11 paper. To make the illusion of space, I made a vanishing point and made all the lines go into it. I liked the cool surreal world I made with my drawing.

The fifth project we did this quarter was a texture drawing. Before my final drawing, I used a website to practice many different textures I could create with my pencil. Then, I used pencil on white 8.5 x 11 paper to make a drawing of vegetables, showcasing what I had learned about texture. The sixth project we did this quarter was value drawings. These were very fun because I had a lot of freedom with what I did. I did some fun doodles with a number of different mediums on white 8.5 x 11 paper. The seventh project of this quarter and the final project of the year was an elements of art drawing. I used color, value, line, space, and shape to make a really cool drawing. It was really fun to combine all the skills I learned to create something of my own.

Quarter 3 Advanced Art Reflection

The first project we did this quarter was a large scale drawing of a bicycle. My bicycle was done with pencil on paper. It took awhile to get the proportions of the bike, but after that it was easy to shade. The drawing came out a little messier than I would have like, and I didn’t really enjoy drawing the bike because I find working in pencil frustrating.

The second project we did this quarter was the optical illusion. This was a favorite of mine. The materials I used were paper, markers, and colored pencils. I first sketched out the illusion in pencil, colored in alternating sections with black markers, and then colored in the remaining sections with all different colored pencils. I really like the effect that I got in the end.

The third project we did this quarter was shading practice. The materials used were pencil and paper. The first thing I did was draw shapes and split them into sections to indicate transitions in shading. Then I shaded, changing the strength I used to press down on the paper. I learned a lot about how weight affects color with this project, and I think it turned out.

The fourth project we did this quarter was the eye drawing. The materials used on the eye were pencil and paper. I sketched the eye from a photo of mine. I then shaded, paying close attention to value and texture. I had the most trouble getting the shine on the eye right, and I don’t think it looks quite right. Otherwise, I really do think it looks like my eye, and I’m proud of the end product.

The last project we did this quarter was the mandala, and it was my favorite by far. I really felt like I could be creative with it. The materials I used were pencil, pen, paper, and colored pencil. I first drew a circle, then sectioned it off like a pizza. Then I drew a smaller circle in the middle, and drew from there. After I drew with pencil, I traced with pen and colored in with colored pencils. I’m really proud of the end product.

Final Artist’s Statement

The first project we were given this quarter was to do ten blind contour drawings. I did these in pencil on copy paper. It was really challenging for me to keep my eyes off the paper when I was drawing and really feel it out as far as spacing and texture. I had never done blind contour drawings so it was really strange getting used to it, but once I did, it was really fun. The second part of our first project was coloring in our blind contour drawings. I had a really good time with it, and I spent way longer than I should’ve filling everything in. I used colored pencil on certain paintings and marker on others. Both looked great but I liked the effect of the markers better. I used a lot of colors in every picture, but for each one, I liked to stick with a specific palette. One tiny annoyance with adding color to the drawings was that the pencil would smudge and mix with the color.

The second project we were given this quarter was to paint anything we wanted. I decided to paint a beachscape because I promised my classmate Thea that I would make her one to hang on her wall. My paint of choice was watercolor, and I got watercolor paper from home to use. I didn’t really use a reference. It took me about two class periods, and the only challenge I faced was trying to get the right color out of the murky watercolors in the pans. The third project we were given was to recreate a piece of art. I recreated two works by Henri Matisse, Goldfish and Portrait of Madame Matisse. I begun with Goldfish, and wanted to use oil pastels, but found that there weren’t many at school, so I worked on both projects at home. I really like the effect of the oil pastels in lieu of paint. My works are not exact copies of the paintings; I just kind of did a rough sketch and got to work. The only downside, in my opinion, to oil pastels is they can get very messing, and I did my best to try and make everything pretty clean.

My element is radon, and its atomic number is 86. Radon is colorless, odorless and tasteless. It is used to cure cancer and predict earthquakes. It was discovered in 1900 by Friedrich Ernst Dorn while he was studying radium, though it wasn’t called radon until 1923.

I chose this imagery to represent radon because when I looked up radon, the toxic/radioactive symbol came up a lot, so I decided to do a geometric twist on it, with a circle in the middle and curved shapes surrounding it. The process to make my print was extensive. FIrst, I had to research radon in order to come up with ideas for my print. I sketched a lot of very different things but eventually landed on my current design. Then I made a final 6 by 4 drawing of my print, and transferred it onto parchment paper. Then I carved my design into foam, and finally I rolled ink over it, pressed it onto paper, and cut it out.

If I were to do the print differently a second time, I would have made the lines I dug in thinner. Since I had such big wells, everytime I pressed down another piece of the part that was not supposed to get ink on it would be lifted up. When I actually printed it, There were crevices that should have been filled in that were not, or places that shouldn’t have had ink in them that had. I enjoyed the sketching of print ideas the most. I liked it because it was a very laid back class and we got to think really creatively about it.

I think my logo/stamp perfectly symbolizes me and who I am. The words I chose to inspire my piece were gay, kermit, lizard, drawing, long, creative, passionate, dramatic, opinionated, angry. Through each assignment, I refined my design till I finally decided for the focus of my stamp to be Kermit the Frog. I chose Kermit because he is a character I strongly relate to. The parallels between us are uncanny. My friends actually call me Kermit because they think I bear such a striking resemblance to him. He is constantly stressed like me, and he pursued a career in the arts. He specializes in yelling at people and having existential crises, and is featured in many spectacular memes. I originally wanted to include a pencil and paintbrush to represent my creative ability and artistic spirit felt the logo was too busy with them.

Negative space is the space in a piece of art that is not filled with objects. The easiest way to think think of it is blank space.

In my cut out, I found negative space through the things I was cutting out of the image. Since the things I was cutting out would appear as part of the background of my image, I knew that it would be negative space.

In art, negative space is just as important as positive space in making an image work for the viewer. The negative space around an object creates the silhouette of the object, and sometimes the negative space in a busy picture can be more interesting than the positive space.  

Negative space enhances drawings. If there is mostly positive space in a drawing, you can use negative space to break the pattern. If there is mostly negative space in a drawing, the positive space will become the focus. Negative space enhances drawings only if you use it wisely.

Printmaking is an ancient art form. Originated in China around 105 CE, the original method of printing was woodcuts, an example of relief printing. Relief printing is when you carve into a surface to create your image. The places where you carve will not be filled with ink, so they will create the negative space of your image. When you put ink on the surface and press it down to paper, you are able to see your image.

Printmaking spread all over the world, being used to create beautiful textiles in the middle ages. It continued to develop in Europe as artists such as Albrecht Düre continued to perfect the craft. It later spread to Japan, with artists creating unique woodcuts in the 14th and 15th centuries that inspired several famous impressionists. Printmaking is still widely used today, both as a fine art and commercially.

There are many forms of printmaking besides Relief. Intaglio printing is basically the opposite of relief printing. You create divots in a surface and fill those with ink, then press a piece of paper into them, so while the divots are negative space on relief, the divots are positive space in intaglio. Serigraph printing uses a stencil and a screen. The ink is pushed through the screen, covering everything except the part of the paper under the stencil. During Lithograph printing, the stone used with lithograph is drawn on with crayon. The stone is in turn washed with oil and water, and ink is placed upon it. The ink is attracted to the oliy crayon and washes off from the parts covered with water. The stone itself is never carved into. Intaglio, Relief, Serigraph, and Lithograph printing are just some of the many printing methods.

Printmaking is remarkable because, as an art form, it has stood the test of time. It is just as useful as it was in Ancient China, and has changed a lot since then. The most revolutionary thing about printmaking is that it gave people the ability to make almost perfect copies of something quickly and easily. That just wasn’t possible before. In China, it was used to copy scriptures for scholars, making it infinitely easier to study. In the middle ages, it made making textiles much faster and much easier. Printing is all about making art that you can copy, and that’s important. With printing, you can easily commercialize beautiful art and make it accessible to all kinds of people. Furthermore, without printing we wouldn’t have modern day books, newspapers, magazines, or any other forms of literature. It’s how it has helped us progress as a society.

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The image below is an Untitled Woodblock Print by Harry Bliss, Date Unknown.

http://www.flynncenter.org/performances-events/amy-e-tarrant-gallery/2012-3030-anniversary-print-project-detail.html

Description:

This woodcut print depicts Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders from shoulders up. He is in the bottom right corner and is staring out into the distance. In the background on the upper left corner is a house, surrounded by a field.

Analyzation:

The print exhibits the use of contrast by having Sanders appear lighter than the rest of the painting, highlighting him as the subject. The print also uses leading lines, the lines of grass in the field leading to a dark space behind Sanders. It also uses rule of thirds. Vertically, two thirds of the print are occupied by Sanders and the last third is occupied by the background, drawing the eye to both him and the house. Lastly, the print exhibits a frame within a frame, because you can see the outline of the print within the surface it was printed on.

Interpretation:

Since the print is very rough hewn and jagged around the edges, I believe that the artist was trying to convey Sander’s grassroots, pull yourself up by the bootstraps attitude. He believes that we as people have to do the hard work ourselves in order to start a revolution. This is also reflected in the supposed farmland background.

Judgement:

This print is aesthetically pleasing to me for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I can get behind the subject matter,  but that’s not important. I can appreciate the use of lights and darks, as it puts the focus on Sanders as the subject and basically lets everything else just be background. Similarly, the rule of thirds divides up the image evenly between main subject and background. I also think the hard, coarse lines really give it a handmade feel.

Voy a pintar mi mural en la pared en el lado de la casa de mis vecinos. Está ubicado directamente a través de mi casa, y se separan con nuestra entrada de coches. Ya pedí mis vecinos para solicitarlo. Es muy grande y plana. Está perfecta para un mural personal porque no es muy fácil para ver, entonces solo las personas en nuestra calle puede disfrutarlo. La ubicación también es muy conveniente para mi parque que está tan cerca a mi casa.

Mi mural es muy significativo para mi, y yo lo diseño y lo pinto sola. Mi mural va a incluir unos imágenes de los mujeres en mi calle, McCallum St. Sus nombres son Tara, Celeste, Hyacinth, Ms. Ethel, Renee, Zoana, Mary, Otter, Elliot, y Shelly. Voy a incluir la frase “Los Mujeres de McCallum St.” porque es el título del mural. Mi mural está inspirado de un otro mural en germantown: Los Mujeres de Germantown; no se quién lo creó pero quería pintar un homenaje a ese mural. El propósito de mi mural es reconocer los mujeres increíbles en mi vida, algo que representa los opiniones de mi comunidad. Ahora más que nunca, es importante hablar sobre el valor de mujeres, y apoderarlas.

Maren y Imani

Una Oda a Mujer Valiente.

Eres feliz, valiente, y revolucionaria.

Cuando te veo pienso en resiliencia y misterio.

Me haces pensar y cuestionar.

Through this project, I learned how to take constructive criticism, and some common elements of design. I also learned how to better critique someone’s slide. I made a lot of changes to my slide, but I think the essence of what I wanted to get across is still there. I kept my name really big because I  wanted it to pop. My name is a big part of my life so it seemed only fitting that the eye was drawn to it. Before, my slide was sort of all over the place, with things here in there with no real purpose except to convey my interests. I did not use my space effectively. My new slide is much simpler, with the text at the bottom and one interest of mine in each column following the rule of thirds. I tried to even out my spacing. The green and blue sections are used to draw your eyes to the text. They cut the page in thirds as well. Overall, I just wanted to make my design more purposeful the second time around. Research is very important when beginning a project. If you do not research, you will not be able to back up your opinions with facts. Research is about being prepared to show what you learned.

Before I created my slides, I researched the qualities of an effective slide as well as some common elements of design. There were many elements of design that I tried to include in my presentation.  For one, I tried to use contrast to make the text pop against the background. The bright yellow and white stand out from the darker, cooler green of the background. I also tried to incorporate bleeding. The goldfish, cat, and ice cream all bleed off the slide. I incorporated symmetry with the placement of the christmas lights and text. I used big text to really bring attention to the purpose of the slide, and so it was easy to understand. I wanted to have a lighter color palate so all the colors used are bright or pastels. Next time, I would try and use the rule of 3 more, as well as add more contrast between the pictures and the background. The slide looks kind of messy, so I will use my space more effectively next time.