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. 

Ceramics Project

The design element that was stressed during this project was the radial design. I put my radial design on the inside of the bowl in a circular motion. The hump mold was my technique that I used to shape my ceramic piece. My piece does serve a function and at home my family uses it to put snacks and food in. It is very useful when it comes to holding and storing objects. The medium of my ceramics project is white clay. During my project I learned the different techniques you use while making a ceramic piece and I learned many different tools that you can use to make your piece evem better. If I were to repeat my project I would make it neater and make the radial design look the more of the same shape. I did enjoy making the bowl because it was fun learning all of the different ways to make your piece even better. I liked how I made my edges scalloped and then put more of an edgy design on the bowl. This piece was made out of white clay. I used slip to smooth out the edges and fill in the cracks. My piece was 13 inches wide and 5 inches tall.
Pastel Still Life

I planned the composition of my project by setting up many different positions to set up the candy and then I took a picture. Once I took the picture I would look at it and decide which position I liked the best. A thumbnail sketch is a small sketch where you draw a small pencil sketch that gives you an idea of what your final piece of art work is going to look like. I used a thumbnail sketch to help me decide where and how I wanted to place my objects. The viewfinder helped me decide on my composition by giving me a visual of what the objects would look like if they were set in a certain place. I liked how I stacked the candy and had candy spilling out of one of the bags. This gave my pastel a more realistic look. To make my items appear three dimensional I created shadows under the items and I made creases in the candy wrappers because that is what the items looked like in person. I created a light source by having Mrs. Brokke turn off the lights and then she turned on the spotlights. I used different values and shadows to display the light sources in my project. Overall I really enjoyed doing this project even though working with the pastels was a little frustrating.
Acrylic Landscape Painting

The process to creating my acrylic painting started by setting up my paints. We put the colors blue, yellow, red, white and black into cups and hot glued them onto a piece of cardboard. The colors blue, yellow, and red were used because they are the primary colors. White and black were used because they can help me change the values in my painting. Mrs. Brokke instructed us to pick the color scheme that we wanted for pur painting. I chose analogous and used the colors orange and blue. Next we each had to go to the arts and craft store to buy a canvas for our painting. After buying our canvas we cut out pictures for ideas of what we wanted our painting to look like. I chose beach themed pictures because I knew that was the them that I wanted my painting to have. Once we found our pictures we created a drawing with pen to give us an idea of what all of our painting was going to look like. I drew the lines in my drawing in certain directions depending on which was I was going to stroke my brush so that the picture would look more like the painting. Since I had an idea of what my painting was going to look like I decided that I was ready to start painting so we started to set up everything. We started by setting up our easels with newspaper underneath, we got our paints and paint brushes out of the cabinet, we got a cup of water, and put on our smocks. My next step was to start the sky so I spent a couple of class periods making our sky as best as I could. The reason we started with the sky was because the sky is the background to our whole painting. After the sky I started to paint the back ground image which in my painting was a mountain. Everyone in our class had a different background image. The background image is the object that is the farthest away in the painting besides the sky. After I painted the back ground image I started painting the ocean which took up most of the canvas and after the ocean I painted the sand. Finally, I painted the palm tree because I need to add more to my painting to make it look more interesting and in the pictures I cut out of the magazines they all had a palm tree in it. I orgainized my painting by looking at the pictures I cut out and putting pieces of each picture into my painting. Atmospheric perspective gives the painting a realistic feel. The objects in the background are not as clear as the objects in the front. I created this atmospheric perspective by creating fog by using a sponge and white paint on top of the sky and I added orange to the dark blue of the mountain to make the blue more dull so the mountain would pop as much as the other objects. I created a light source by making a sun close to the middle and then deciding where the sun would shine the most and where the shadows and darker parts would be. My color scheme was analogous using the colors orange and blue. I used horizontal and vertical brush strokes. I did use value in my painting by added darker and lighter colors to create different values in my painting. In my ocean the value changed because I made waves in my water and used the darker blue color.
Reverse Tie-Dying

The process of the "reverse tie-dying" project was to first find a 100% cotton black shirt. After everyone bought their shirt we started to create the design we wanted our shirt to look like. I wanted my shirt to have an ongoing design so I started by putting a golf ball in the bottom corner of my shirt and then I kept tying the string around my shirt. Between the ties I skipped about two inches because I wanted some of my shirt to stay black and the rest to change colors. After everyone in my class finished creating their designs we started by putting our shirt into bleach. I watched my shirt change colors in the bleach and then when I decided that I liked the color that it was turning I took it out of the bleach and put it in the vinegar. The reason we put it in the vinegar is because we wanted to stop the bleach from changing the color my shirt was into an even lighter color. After squeezing the vinegar out of my shirt I put it into the water to clear out the extra bleach and vinegar left in the shirt. Once I was done I started to cut the strings off of the shirt and then I took the gold ball out of the bottom corner. I hung my shirt up on a hanger and left it out on the fence to dry. I loved the way my design looked and I was very impressed by the way it turned out.
Shoe Drawing

This drawing was one of my favorite pieces in my portfolio. This project did not take very long to create but it was still fun. We started out by taking off our shoes and setting them up in a way that we would want to draw them. Mrs. Brokke told us that we needed to make the shoe that was farther away lighter than the show that is closer to you. My cowboy boots had lots of detail but it was fun to create the design. We had to draw a table top so it did not look like our shoes were floating in the air. Overall this project turned out really good in my opinion and I really enjoyed drawing it.