Mini Projects

Blue Lotus

Brief Artist Statement

For our negative space project we were asked to take a photo of something with very obvious positive and negative space shapes. I chose a picture I took of lily pads floating on water, at the Gamble House. The lily pads were the positive space, and water was the negative. To create this image I started by dividing my image into a four square graph to separate the image and sketched each square separately onto large white toned drawing paper. After finishing my sketch I outlined my shapes with a thin black sharpie. With acrylic paint I painted an orange background for my negative space, and for the lily pads painted the background blue, being that they are contrasting colors. After painting my background I wanted to add a more interesting element by using a pattern. Using a ruler I drew a checkerboard pattern very lightly with pencil over my entire sketch. I painted the checkerboards on the negative space with black ink, and the checkers on the positive space with white ink.

I titled my piece Blue Lotus, because the lotus flower on top of the lily pads was my main focal point. The main elements of art I used were; space, shape, and color, and my most dominant principles of design were; emphasis, contrast, and pattern. Color was a large part of my project because I used two vibrant and contrasting colors, blue and orange. I did this so both my positive and negative space drew lots of attention, instead of having one of my spaces be more apparent. I tried to further this idea by also adding a checkerboard pattern over the entire sketch. To differentiate my negative and positive space I used two contrasting inks, black for my negative and white for positive.

The most challenging part of this project was finding a way to make it more interesting and how to draw focus to the flower. I drew focus to the flower by painting it a lighter blue than the rest of my positive space. I also used gesso for the checker print on the flower because it dries matte, whereas the white ink I used for the rest of the lily pads dried glossy. I don't draw too often or use paints, so I believe that I challenged myself and tried out new techniques throughout this process. I also believe that through these new techniques I grew as an artist and expanded my use and knowledge of mediums. I really enjoyed using ink and would like to continue this medium in upcoming projects.

Paper-Cut Portrait

I started the project by taking a selfie in over head lighting to project highlights and shadows onto my face. In Photoshop I then made the image black and white and through the filter gallery split up my photo into four layers, black (background) , grey (shadows), and white (highlight). With black ink I then made three different types of gradient mark making on white toned paper. With transfer paper I traced each layer of my face onto the back of my mark makings, and cut out the shapes with scissors and for the smaller pieces an X-acto knife. After having all layers cut out, I glued down the second darkest layer onto my background and darkest value of mark making and from there glued on the rest of my layers.

Eyes Portrait

The purpose of this assignment was to draw a self portrait, inspired by the charcoal drawings of Samantha Wall. To start off the project I drew a full face portrait from a selfie taken earlier, that focused on facial proportion and symmetry, following a Youtube tutorial. After drawing the image to the very left, I started on a new paper with an outline of my hair line and then shaded the inside of the outline with graphite, going from light to dark. I then sketched my eyes, using my original picture as a guide and added as many values and highlights as I could to make it the most realistic looking. I used a blender tool for my shadows and the edge of an eraser for the highlights.