2D Art 4, 5, 6

This semester 2D Art 4, 5, & 6 focused on creating independent series of their choosing. These series were meant to guide their understanding of their selected theme and experimentation.

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Students Arranged Alphabetically By Last Name.

Serena Bernal

I have never been a painter; painting was a very far-off idea for me as I’ve always been a very pencil and paper type of artist. Something that I have consistently loved in my art journey is emphasis of strokes whether it be through lines, patterns, or coloring techniques. So, I decided to combine them. I felt that, if I combined something that seemed so out of my league with something that I loved, I would enjoy being out of my comfort zone. I did love it. I reached new heights with this series, finding a love for painting and an underlying talent for it, and simultaneously finding a new love for working with fluorescent colors. I did encounter burnouts. I encountered myself overthinking future parts of certain processes when making this series, but that didn’t stop me from completing what I never thought I could.

Savanna Blackbird

The series utilizes three mediums. One for each piece. Colored pencil, digital painting, and embroidery. Each answering the question of “can we be friends with the stars” in a different way. One exploring a new relationship with the stars, yet to figure out how it will go. One that took a turn for the worse. And one with someone that desperately needs to have friendship with the stars. The series as a whole is an attempt to loosely explore escapism and what it means to different people.

Mia Bodanske

For my three-piece inquiry series, I asked, “How can I use forced perspective to create a visually intriguing image?” For each segment, I created aesthetic scenes using bold colors, intense angels, textures, patterns, and close detail. Not only would this attempt to place the viewer in the scene and make them feel like it’s coming toward/ away from them, but it would also attempt to both show the subject matter from a point of view that is interesting, and keep the viewer looking for more detail. Throughout this series, I focused on trying new materials or techniques I have never considered before; in the first piece, I used oil pastel for the first time. I discovered this material is often difficult to manage, but with the right technique, can create a product that looks amazing. in the second piece, I started collaging for the first time, and for the third I used mixed media for texturing. By doing so, I can grow my artistic abilities and find new outlets to articulate project ideas that are often hard to bring to fruition. Overall I am very happy with this inquiry series and plan to continue using the things I learned from it in the future.

Julia Counterman

For this series, I wanted to research the question “How does the passage of time affect the lifestyle of humans and the environment around them?” I chose this topic because I procrastinate a lot and have bad time management skills. I often think about how we as humans affect our environment and our society as time passes. Humans change rapidly in ways we don’t realize until it’s already happened. We change our norms and expectations, we change our trends, we change what we like and dislike. This is a part of human nature. The environment changes much slower than we do. Trees take decades to fully grow, and some can take almost a full century. We often don’t notice these environmental changes because of how slowly they occur. I decided to show my answer to this question by showing the growth of a tree. I chose an oak tree at random, but they take 30-40 years to grow and live for 100-300 years. I decided the tree needed to stay the same for the entire series to connect the pieces, and it should be at different stages of life to show the growth. I chose to draw these pieces digitally because I wanted to learn Photoshop and Illustrator, and I wanted to be able to experiment with different techniques I haven’t tried before.

I set my first piece in medieval times. This showed the sprouting beginning of the tree, hence the title Beginning. I included the castle wall to have an interesting perspective and to properly show the tree sapling. The path around the sapling shows that the tree is in the middle of a courtyard. Not the entire castle has been properly built, and so the courtyard is empty. After my first piece was done, I moved onto my second one. This one, Observing, is set in more modern times. I drew this piece so the viewer appeared to be inside a house, looking out at a park. I did this because I wanted to have a similar perspective to the previous piece. I also thought that this would make it more clear that the tree is in a small park. I added the bench and the fence around the tree for this reason as well. With this piece done, I moved onto my final drawing. I was drawing my thumbnails for this piece when I realized I could make it into a mini comic. I decided to go with that idea, as it was one I had never tried before. I set this piece in the future, when aliens have come to Earth. The alien is abducting the tree to study it, and a cow happened to be nearby. I did the same process as the previous pieces for this one. I felt as though having this piece in a comic made it easier to tell the story. I also thought that this made it easier to tell that it took place in the future. This piece is called Capturing because the alien is capturing the tree and cow. The tree is fully grown at this point.

I started my first piece in Illustrator, but I found it difficult to work with. After I finished my final sketch, I switched to Photoshop. The project went much smoother after the change. I planned my colors after I finished my sketch, which is something I don’t usually do. I did the lineart and flat colors next. Then I added shading and texture. While doing the shading, I had trouble blending the colors. I had limited knowledge of brushes in Photoshop, so I had to look up different options. I ended up blurring it and leaving it alone. I had similar struggles with the texture on the grass. For my second piece, I used Photoshop again since I felt more comfortable using it after my previous project. I did the same stuff, starting with the sketch, then planning colors, and so on. I chose to make this piece at nighttime to test out how adding different colors in clipping layers would affect the colors underneath them. I added highlights to the grass and tree to add texture. For the curtain on the left, I wanted to experiment with layer opacity. When I originally sketched this piece, the tree was too far to the right, making the bench the focal point. I moved the placement around so the tree was closer to being in the center. At one point during my final piece, I decided that my canvas size was too small. I learned how to adjust the size of the canvas without losing the rest of my progress. Then I had to fix some of the coloring. I also played around with layer filters and clipping masks again.

Lauren Draeger

For this series, I wanted to explore how borderline personality disorder (BPD) effects the way I think and live. For the “Life” piece, I wanted to showcase the chronic emptiness. This is one of the worst symptoms and I wanted to show how helpless I feel because this disorder was predetermined by both genetics and the environment I was born into. The flames in the background show the anger and frustration I feel for feeling empty all the time. I also incorporated yelling to show more anger and also a sneak peak into the verbal abuse I experienced in my childhood. For my second piece, “Life”, I wanted to show how I trapped I feel in my thoughts. The racing thoughts and black and white thinking are severe for me. I feel trapped because I can’t communicate, can’t escape the thoughts, and relationships cause a lot of issues surrounding abandonment so I either stay in abusive relationships or avoid getting close to people. I focused on blues, whites, reds, and blacks to symbolize the black and white thinking that causes me to act irrationally. The outcomes of my actions lead me to feel even more trapped and hopeless so that it’s a never-ending cycle. The “Death” piece is about how I perceive death. I put myself into a lot of different life-threatening situations because of the hollowness I feel inside. The closer I get to death, the more invincible I feel. I continue to return to these situations because it alleviates the weight of sadness I feel. In these moments, I feel free and I wanted to show that by painting a happy skeleton about to drive off a cliff. Some of my biggest challenges in this series included following my idea, coming up with an idea that I enjoy, and narrowing down what I want each piece to mean. I get very excited about my ideas but when they don’t turn out the way I wanted them to, I start over or include something that has nothing to do with my theme. Being able to take a step back every once in a while was an important skill I learned this semester. Overall, I am happy with how my series turned out. I’m proud of all of the effort I put into these pieces and I think I developed my voice a little more after experimenting with different mediums.

Francisco Ortiz

Gamakage, Dafeon, Vatrapi

I am a fan of Pokémon so I wanted to make some original ones. I veered a bit from the cartoon style, actually I veered a lot, but I still had fun and liked to research. Frogs around the world, these creatures I created are based on frogs and mythology based on specific regions of the world that I intended to make my original Pokémon. The first piece is called Gamakage based in Japan, frogs are beings of luck and fortune, and also portrayed to fight away demons from humans, although he is the personification of “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” which he became by descending to earth and directly causing harm and chaos. The second piece is called Dafeon based on Egyptian mythology and frogs in Egypt represent fertility so using graphite powder as water for the background was perfect as water brings life even though it doesn’t look like water crashing on a rock. The final piece is called Vatrapi who is based in Greece took inspiration from Zeus and has Zeus’ trademark lightning bolt that he throws. I wanted this one to look like a bipedal frog with thumbs rather than a humanoid one. I even added the Greek word “κεραυνός” which means “thunderbolt” on the spear he is holding.

Rey Salmeron

For this series, I went with the theme of ´´What would a planet with different merged species look like?´´, typically portraying it through clothes designed after animals or animals/people/plants mixed together to from different combinations (for example, cactus bunnies or an owl cape). I specifically chose such an open topic so that I wouldn't get bored or too trapped in what I could and couldn't draw. I always started off by planning what I wanted to do by looking up animals and plants that would fit the environment I wanted to put them in. After planning, I would experiment by testing out making different colors on a scrap piece of paper. I usually did this to test skin tones or mushroom colors. I can definitely see growth in the linework department as it gets more and more neat/visible. I mainly connected with others when I was given feedback (for example, the teacher pointing out that the angle was off of my third piece). I used feedback such as that to improve. I went back to fix any mistakes I made (except for the third piece I did but that was intentionally messy). I noticed that the feel of tempera is awful and I will never be using it again unless I want a specific color (but I doubt it). Overall, the series was quite fun. If I had to do anything differently for another series, I would choose a topic I'm more interested in as well as work on time management. I rushed the second one a bit and I feel as though a lot could be better if I spent more time on the series.

Jose Segarra

For my series I decided to do 3 drawings that show a story of me. In the three drawings it each will show parts of my life. In the first piece I did a drawing on a situation I've gone through that had changed me. I made the drawing with colored pencils and it was my first try at actually drawing something with colored pencils. My second drawing is about things that have been said to me by people in my life so I made it seem kinda dark and I admit it didn't come out so well but it was my first time using charcoal and acrylic paint. My last drawing is one that shows how I sorta am now after I moved on from the past. I drew all the things I like or love and I used color pencil and some charcoal and this is where it shows the most improvement from all of my drawings. The third is also my Favorite of them all.

Laron Slottke

Overall this year has been bumpy and unrestful for a lot of people; including me. I knew coming into this class that I wanted to start to gear myself towards the future because whenever you are in a rough patch you can only go up from there. I wanted to make a story about me to get my emotions out and also let you guys into my world and see how I’ve grown as a person. I also wanted to do a lot more anime-looking characters and stories and try to figure out my own style for the future as well. I would say a lot more but I’m gonna keep myself here because these art pieces should explain the rest.

Ysabelle Valeriano

For this series, I wanted to explore photorealism and pop art through city views. I’ve never attempted to try those art styles so everything about this was a challenge at first. My first piece started off as just photorealism and that was good practice for showing perspective with the city views. Because after that one, my second idea was easier to do because I wanted to add color to that one to practice pop art. To do that, I had to take my picture, edit it in photoshop to add different colors to help with figuring out what colors I wanted to use and where. After all that, I used a mini projector to help get every detail of my photo onto paper and colored it. For the third piece, I wanted to try a different style of pop art other than just the different colors all together in one piece. I ended up doing the Milwaukee skyline, I drew it in 4 different boxes in different positions and with 4 different colors for every 2 of the boxes. Overall, the easiest part was coming up with ideas for each of the series but I realized that even though I had ideas, I had to still come up with a plan for taking reference photos, when I’m going to start drawing my idea out, and when I’m going to add color or make any changes.

Kalia Vang

In my series of watercolor paintings, I wanted to create a piece that’ll showcase mood but also shed light onto important subject matters. I decided to create two paintings of two women who were attacked. In front of the blue painting, we have Noriko Nasu. She was attacked by a man who filled a sock with rocks. In front of the green background, we have Xiao Zhen Xie. She was attacked in San Francisco by a man and she defended herself against him by using a stick. I experimented a lot with different colors and what colors would complement one another, as well as using different brushes for different effects. I also used palette knives and acrylic paint to help accentuate the main focus, the two women. I took loads of risks throughout the process, sometimes I would just paint an idea I had on the final papers and it would end up looking great. I also improved on my shading, especially with paint and creating the fine lines subtle, but also made sure they stood out. I also kept going back to look at my reference images to add or defuse any fine lines I was missing. Overall, I now know a variety of different techniques to use in the future with watercolor, as well as improving a lot on blending and portrait making. I’m proud of the pieces I’ve created and hopefully, this will lead the audience to think deeper about my images.

Matt Wimmer

The main thing I has focused on with this series was drawing my bodies better, which is why I figured I’d draw anatomy to help me better my skill in that department. So it was nice to start this off with the main goal of bettering something I was struggling with. Plus I wanted to improve upon other factors, like coloring. Especially with paint, I usually have a hard time with it.