Concentration

Anna Labbe

Franklin

FEBRUARY 5, 2018

This is my most recent art piece, Franklin. The objective of this project was to create a piece that followed our chosen concentration. Since my chosen concentration involves dinosaurs, I decided to include one in my work. However, this project is different than my other dinosaurs in the past because this dinosaur in particular has more personality than others. I decided to do this because my other dinosaurs so far have mostly just been oversactional drawings, and I wanted to make my dinosaurs a little more silly/fun that people can laugh at, other than one that people can just stare at.

I completed this project using watercolor paints and a pencil outline. I first used a reference photo of an astronaut taking his professional NASA photo, and used a reference photo of a tyrannosaurus rex to create a dinosaur taking his photo. I drew out the design, and then this time decided not to pair the watercolor painting with a black outline in pen. I decided not to do this because I've done it many times in the past, and I wanted to see what I could do without relying on the black outline to save me if I made a mistake. I decided to use watercolor paints on the painting because I wanted the colors to come out lighter, especially since there are many dark ones.

This project was inspired by not only my love for dinosaurs, but also by me wanting to give them more human attributes. I've seen many astronaut photos on the internet, and always joked about how awkward they looked, and something about them inspired me to replace the human with a scary, toothy t-rex who wanted his photo taken. I always like when animals, especially in movies, are put in humans' places, or do what they can do, so I wanted to see what it would be like if a dinosaur took the place of an astronaut. I really like this idea as a concentration, or as an influencer in projects for concentrations, so I think I'll keep it in my pocket and use it to keep giving me ideas and inspiration.

Anna Labbe

Reginald

FEBRUARY 15, 2018

This is my second concentration project, once again centered around dinosaurs. I really liked the process of making the portrait of the dinosaur astronaut, so I decided that I wanted to do it again, but with a different dinosaur in a different position. I like to think of the dinosaur types and what outfits/time periods they would fit in, and once I decided that I wanted to paint a raptor, I started to think of what type of job a raptor would have and what that would look like. Raptors are very serious, or at least look very serious and professional, and when I was looking at reference images I was reminded of a royal portrait from the 1800s. I decided on placing the raptor in an early naval uniform, similar to those of the British Navy.

Deciding on the colors was very easy, because when I was searching for uniforms, I discovered that a lot of them use a gold-yellow lining and accenting, and that would contrast well with a purple/magenta subject, so I made my raptor purple. I kept the suit navy blue because I didn't want it to take away from the yellow or the purple. I also decided on making the background a very monotone and brush-stroky tan because many portraits from the 1800s had expressionistic, neutral colored backgrounds.

Anna Labbe

Billy

MARCH 3, 2018

This is my third project in my concentration series. Since my concentration has been mostly throwing dinosaurs into time periods that I like, I decided to make this painting based off one of my favorite time periods ever, the wild west. I really liked the idea of recreating and drawing the clothing that they had back in that time, especially with the vests and bandanas and hats. When I looked up references online, I found that a lot of portraits of people living in the west mid-1800s were all sepia-toned. I was really inspired to make this the case with my painting because so far my portraits have been in real color, but I thought in order to really give off the old-western image, I should use the "colors" of the time.

I decided to use a spinosaurus in this image because to me, they give off a very serious and solemn vibe, much like the portraits I viewed from the wild west. I also thought that now would be an appropriate time to take my dinosaur portraits one step further by making the backgrounds actual scenes, rather than blank walls and colors. In this painting, I tried to make a canyon in the middle of a desert with some tumbleweed rolling around in the background. The dinosaur is also holding a rope/lasso, to tie in more with the western image.

One struggle that I had with this painting was painting with the dark watercolor brown. The lines and color came out very streaky in the end in the hat and the vest, where I used the darkest watercolors. I tried to cover them up multiple times and use less/more water, but they remained streaky. I know that this is a struggle that I will come across more in the future, so I am looking forward to learning how to correct those mistakes and prevent them from happening.

Anna Labbe

Dino Major and Minor

MARCH 21, 2018

This is my fourth concentration project, which is a little different from my other three. I decided to stray away from portraits for this project, because I found myself painting the same perspectives but not really trying anything new, other than new backgrounds, dinosaurs, and fashions. This is a watercolor and ink painting of dinosaur constellations.

To make this project, I first had to make the galaxy background. To do this, which was a long process, I started by taking light watercolor pink, red, purple, and blue. I blended them together lightly, and then added more and more layers over and over, which gradually gave me darker colors that started to blend together evenly and cleanly. This gave the background a galaxy look, yet with rich dark colors. Next, I added the stars, and I did this by taking white acrylic paint, watering it down a little, and taking a 3-inch paintbrush and brushing it against my hand over the painting to create little flecks of stars. In one area the stars are a little more translucent because I used to much water. Then, to create the dinosaurs, I drew out the basic outline of the dinosaur on a separate piece of white paper, cut it out like a stencil, and traced it with a white pen on the galaxy. I then took the central points of the dinosaur and created dotted white lines that represented the actual shape of the constellations between the stars.

This piece was inspired by dinosaurs and the night sky. The other night when I was in the backseat of my car driving home, I was looking out at the night sky and trying to pinpoint constellations in my head. Then I started thinking about how constellations are never really the exact shape of the object they are trying to portray, but rather an abstract representation. I haven't played with abstract dinosaurs yet, so I figured now might be the time, and I decided to make up some dinosaur constellations.

Anna Labbe

Annakylosaurus

MARCH 29, 2018

This is my fifth concentration project. It is a water color painting of me as a dinosaur! After making all of these portraits, I wanted to make one that connected with me/my life somehow, so I decided to make a portrait of me as a dinosaur. I chose my favorite dinosaur, the ankylosaurus, not only because it's my favorite dinosaur, but I feel like I can relate to it. I also chose to make my dino self orange, as I think orange/yellow is a good color that represents me. I also wanted a color that would contrast with a lot of the clothes I own and wear often, which are blue, purple, and pink tones. I also wear these overalls all the time, so I thought it might be a defining characteristic of me if my dino was wearing them.

One thing I struggled with in this project was creating a background. As of right now I still don't have a background for my dino, but I'm sure I will come up with one soon. My issue was that I didn't know if I wanted to do a landscape or an abstract background with a pattern. However, I made a scan of my dinosaur alone, and cut it out, and I might take some pictures of my dinosaur in my real-life environment as a fun little project!

Anna Labbe

Gertrude and Collin

APRIL 11, 2018

These drawings are my most recent concentration project. The longer dinosaur is Gertrude, a Mosasaurus, and the smaller one is Collin, a German Dinosaur. I really enjoyed doing my mechanical paradox project, Jeremy, with the toned paper and white and black pen, so I wanted to complete some more fossil studies for my concentration. One dinosaur that I really find interesting is the Mosasaurus, because of how large and powerful they are. They are unlike any other dinosaur, as they live underwater, and have very interesting anatomy with their long necks and their sea-monster-like fins. I also wanted to do a German Dinosaur because it is the most recent dinosaur to be found in full fossil form, so I wanted to do a drawing of a more recently-discovered and lesser known dinosaur. I completed this small drawings first by looking at reference images and sketching out the basic bones in pencil, and then traced over with black pen. I used black stipple pen to create shade markings, and then white stippling to make highlights. One struggle I had in this project was creating the stippling in the very, very, small bones because my white pen has a large tip, but I ended up just retracing over where I had marked over the black lines and correcting the stipple problems made with the white pen.