For my first assignment, I was tasked with creating a typography, spelling out the word "ChemVAS."I was asked to use symbols that represent either art or chemistry to make each letter. In class we are talking about value and density and how to portray that in your art. So I used one of the art tools on sketchpad to create dark and light circles and scatter them throughout the picture. The density is in the middle as the circles are evenly scattered around. 

The element I was assigned to create digital artwork for was Boron. For this project we had to use digital art platforms to create something that expresses or relates to the element you were given. To start, I did some research and learned more about Boron. Some things I took into consideration when creating my work were that Boron is an important nutrient in all greens. This is expressed in the bottom portion of my art. I had the element, born, on bottom that go into roots that sprout into a tree of vegetables. Another thing I learned was that Boron is a hard element to study on its own and is typically looked as a compound with carbon. I express this by having the symbol C upstage the symbol B on a stage. Being able to do this assignment online made it easier because I was able to draw on my iPad. 

This PBL was dedicated to symbols and culture. We looked at different symbols and learned about their meaning and what they represent. We then came up with our own symbols that had meanings behind them. The first symbol we came up with was made of "crystals" or hardened borax. We made a pipe cleaner sculpture then put it into hot water along with borax. When it cooled down it apperaed as crystals. We also learned how to make paper. With the paper that we made, we made any type of symbol we wanted. I made a globe with the paper that was suspened by string over fire made of tissue paper. This was to represent climate change and the consequences of the lack of care we have of the Earth. 

Our teacher asked us to look at the Principles of Design and create a unique drawing using some of them. For my drawing, I utilized the principle of emphasis. Since we had limited time to complete this assignment, I didn’t want to have to focus on the details of every building on the street. So I placed the building I wanted to add detail to further from the vanishing line. This allowed me to add certain details like the bright sign on top of the cover of the building. I also added things like windows. These details and the lack thereof from the buildings in the background display a contrast, which creates emphasis.

For the beginning of the first semester, we started off working with charcoal. To master drawing with charcoal, we had to learn about the importance of values and light vs dark. Over the unit, we completed multiple drawings using it. We were given reference images that we had to try and replicate or given objects we had to try and recreate.