Drawing 1

My idea was a black and white charcoal portrait of me with a red background to make it pop. I got this idea from a picture of me in the night in the red light of my dad's car. I really liked it and thought it would make me feel more confident in myself. I started off by tracing my small sketch onto a big grey sheet of paper. After that I started working on coloring in the coat while making it also look realistic. I went over the coat many times over the days then shaded and highlighted it to make it look 3d. At this time I started on the hair in this drawing, it took 3 times going over it with charcoal to get it that black. Then I outlined it in white and added a few white lines through it and kinda dulled them so the hair would have a little dimension. The next challenge was the hand, But i eventually got it shaded and highlighted to where I wanted it. Last was the face, I started highlighting the eyes and certain parts of the face like the teeth,lips and nose. I colored in the eye brow then the ear. After I finished all of this there were marks on the outside of the paper so I took two permanent red markers and alternated colored in the background red. The artwork symbolizes me being confident in myself so when I look at it i can feel more confident. When the audience looks at it I want them to feel like it's  cool and confident looking. There were two areas I really struggled in, first is realism. I never have done it and the few times I have tried I have failed. I overcame it by just being persistent and looking at the photo very carefully.  The second one is charcoal, I had never used this before. But after struggling for days on the coat I finally figured it out. I would probably change the color of the hair. I think it looks cool like that but it's supposed to be me. I have brown hair and even though it looks good, I feel like it isn't when I look at the black hair. The style of art is realism. It's unique to my own personal style because I dont ever color in my drawings. I just leave them black and white and if I add color it's in the background like this drawing. I really love the pop of color in the back which makes the drawing stand out. I also love the coat. I think it looks super realistic and I'm really proud of how it turned out.

My idea was a snake active in motion, ready to strike. I got the idea from my love of snakes; they have always been one of my favorite animals. One day I was going through my pictures and saw a few from the zoo, and there was a snake ready to attack just like this one. So I decided I wanted to make a fierce looking snake that looked like it was popping off the page. I first went about practicing drawing the snake as to get it right, after a few minutes i was comfortable drawing the basic shape. Next I grabbed some white construction paper and sketched the snake body onto it then added a few details that could help later. I grabbed a  light colored pencil and colored the entire snake's body. After that I grabbed a basic green colored pencil and colored from a few centimeters to the right. I finally grabbed a dark green colored pencil and colored the right side of the snake. I went over all the colors with the light green in an effort to blend them smoothly. I then started with an even darker green and putting scales on, it was tedious but worth it. After I finished the snake body I moved my attention to its mouth. I layered on a white colored pencil, then grabbed a baby blue colored pencil and developed some texture onto it. Then i used a black in the inside and made it kinda fade into white. I usd a pink to give some highlights and add a tongue. I had finished the work and cut it out and glued it onto some black construction paper. I want the audience to look at this artwork and see how I see snakes, cool and powerful. I purposely made the eyes a bit bigger so it would look cuter and I cut out softer edges so it wasn't as rigid. I struggled with the mouth. I couldn't get it to look as realistic as I wanted it to be. But I just kept on trying and layering colors till it looked like it had depth and texture. I would change the part where the snake's body turns because it's a little bit bigger than the other parts and makes it look unbalanced. This is realistic art and it makes it unique to my style because I put most of my artworks behind a single color background so the highlight of the drawing is emphasized. I love the way the scales turned out they looked realistic and added more depth to the drawing.

My idea was a valley of purple flowers and mountains in the distance, with a hot air balloon floating gracefully over it. I first got the idea when I saw a picture with a field of flowers. I thought it was beautiful and wondered what it would look like above. So I came up with the idea of a hot air balloon, the mountains were added to give more depth. I also knew I wanted to make it a little abstract because the last 2 works I had done were more realistic which is not exactly my strong suit. I first opened a thick magazine full of prom ideas, I would cut out certain colors and patterns that I thought would work with it. I started with the field and glued on random shapes of green, sometimes cutting them to make it fit. I then placed a small layer of glue over the entire field. Next I did the same process with the blue, cutting and gluing over and over again. I once again put a thin layer of glue over it. I then cut out a yellow circle for the sun, and two pink clouds to contrast the blue sky. I glued them all and went to work with the mountains, cutting out the shapes and layering them. After that I trimmed the edges that were overlapping the paper. Then I cut out a red shape that kinda resembled a hot air balloon, layering all sorts of colors over it. The basket of it was added after and I grabbed a whiye colored pencil. I made the strings to attach the balloon and basket and then outlined everything. I then went to work on the flowers carefully layering purple markers over and over again to make them look like flowers. I used a bit of white colored pencil to put over it and lighten the purple. I put one more layer of glue on everything to seal everything in. I want to look at the bright colors and the pretty landscape and feel happy. It's meant to make people feel joy and think about having an adventure like that. The most difficult thing for me was finding the right pieces of magazine I needed. There would either be too little of a color or barely any of it at all. I actually had to grab another magazine for most of the green.  I would probably put more flowers on this artwork if I could start over. Since my first idea was the flowers and there aren't as many as I imagined. This is a semi abstract style, it has realistic elements but its bright colors and shapes make it abstract. I love the sheer amount of color that is popping out of it. I like to make contrasts and this is certainly one the black mountains are very different from the blue and pink skies, or the green and purple fields.

My original Idea was a grey flower against a grey background. But then It slowly evolved to a flower in a mason jar, Then from there It evolved into a room with windows and a countertop. I first got a grey marker and colored the white paper with it multiple times to get a good clean grey color. Then I got to work on the flower, an orchid. I drew the stem first and used a reference to carefully draw the flowers. Once I drew the outline of the flowers I went in and shaded them to make it more realistic. I cut it out and got to work on the mason jar. I cut that out too and lined up the stem to the jar and matched up the rest of the stem to the one in the jar. I glued those together and started working on the window. After getting the basic shapes and details I drew a background to the windows so it looks like you are looking out. Once I had all the components I glued them onto the grey piece of paper and it was finished. This artwork is supposed to show what life is like in a gray scale void of color. It's still beautiful but also dull. I used cut out pieces to make it look elevated and like you are actually looking from that view. I had a hard time getting the orchids to look realistic so I put my reference photo grayscale in a program so I can see where the shadows would be. If I was to make this over again I would have used a ruler for the windows because the lies are not straight at all. This is a realistic piece of art. I like to do slightly 3D art with layering of paper, so it's represented in this work. My favorite part of this work of art is how beautiful and relasic the flowers turned out.