Mixed Media

I really enjoyed this mixed media project. I started out by trying to pick different Ideas from the fear/fantasy topic. I really liked the idea of Medusa so, that's what I decided to stick with. During this project I got the unique idea that I could use the photo transfer and layer it so it looked translucent. I decided that garden statues of people would fit the most with the topic Medusa because she turms people to stone. Then I decided to make a photo transfer of Medusa so that you could see her face on top of the statues. I combined all of these ideas to create my own original piece. I used the new technique of photo transferring with clear tape and water and I thought it worked quite well. It was hard to do at first but I got the hang of it after a while. I got better at collaging tissue paper and pictures together which is something that I thought I needed to work on. I took a step back several times throught this projects process because I wanted to make sure that when someone looked at this piece they would understand the story behind it. I tested the layering of photo transferring before I started the project so I was sure it would turn out how I wanted. Overall, I love this piece and thought I improved a lot when it came to skill and creativity. 

Sticky Situation Project

In this piece of artwork, I used my own unique ideas by adding salt to the acrylic paint to add texture. I also decided to make it look like the gummy worms were falling out of the bag onto the table. I used bright colors and tried to make the gummy worms look as realistic as possible. Some of the sources I used were similar to my piece of artwork, but I added the salt to make it my own. My table mates Sydney and Andrew helped me make this artwork better and told me where I needed to add highlights. Mrs. Rossi also helped me improve my art work and told me that the texture made the gummy worms look realistic. I often stepped back and looked at my painting and made sure it looked realistic and that the gummy worm colors were bright and shiny. I also added a shinier paint in the acrylic paint so that the gummy worms would look like they had a sheen to them. I didn't really consider the outcome of adding the salt onto the acrylic paint and so I often had to look back at my painting and make sure that it looked good. Overall, this painting turned out better than I expected it to be and I enjoyed doing it. 

Up Close and Personal

I used my unique ideas by using different sources and incorporating most of them in one picture. I changed the colors and sizes of the leaves. I didn't add much of a background because I wanted the main focus to be the flower. Instead of drawing the flower at a angle where you look at it straight on I decided to draw it from a side angle.

I didn't work on this project alone. I often asked for feedback from my table members and Mrs. Rossi. When I wasn't sure of what I would change I asked my table members for advice and what the would do. I used there feedback to improve my project and make it more appealing to the eye. My friend Sydney helped me pick where I should put the highlights in the flower along the leaves. She also taught me how to blend the color pencils more easily. 

I often looked back and observed my work during this project. I had to make sure that my values were correct and that the colors looked well blended. I realized that I had not distinguished the petals from eachother and that when you walked away from the picture the petals blended together. Looking back at my project helped me improve my drawing and also helped me improve as a artist. 

Colored Pencil/Oil Pastel Projects

My experience with this project was good. I enjoyed drawing each of these works but it was a little difficult. I had a problem with drawing the candy wrapper clear with chalk pastels because I couldn't visualize it and make it look realistic. I liked drawing the soda can with the oil pastels because it was very easy to work with and it was fun to work with different colors. Overall, I think I did pretty well with these projects. 

Scientific Project

Some of the design solutions to the scientific theme that I used were pencil and the shading technique. I used the resources that I printed off and created my own design. I drew four different pictures and each of these pictures contained a phone from a different decade. This project shows the transition of the phone throughout the years. The mini lessons that we did before this project helped me improve in my shadow and pencil work. Since I didn't use pen or charcoal in my artwork I felt like those mini lessons did not help me as much. Although they did not help me that much they did help me with the shading and working on highlighting in my artwork. I showed contrast in my artwork by showing the different phones throughout the years and how they have changed. I always showed contrast with the shading because it gets darker and lighter throughout the picture. I chose pencil as my medium in this work. I chose pencil because it was easier for me to work with during the mini lessons. I also chose it because I felt like I could make it look more real with the shading and highlights and also because I liked the way it looked better than the others. I used the shading technique in this artwork. I shaded it darker where the light was not hitting the object and vice versa in the places it was hitting. The only risk I was taking in this work is that I did four different drawings. At the beginning of this work I had to choose between drawing an eye or drawing the "timeline" of the phone. I chose the phone because there was more variation in the different drawings. Then I decided that I wanted to do four separate drawings and is started with different phone from different times showing the transition. I tried the different pen, pencil, and charcoal techniques on my sketches and decided that the pencil technique was the best for this drawing. Once I finished my final drawing I put them together in chronological order and in a square. I enjoyed this project but I had a hard time showing value because I didn't have the physical object in front of me so I had to create the value myself.