Andrew Blundell
2-D Art
This was a very fun project to work on. I am kind of pleased with the result of this project, especially considering the stress of the last pencil drawing (See intro portfolio). It's a shame I decided I wanted to all of a sudden wear glasses as now I don't. I felt this project was very relaxing to work on, unlike most projects. *Acrylic* On a completely unrelated note, I don't really know why but when I put my self portrait in the mirror, it just looks even uglier. Just a thought.
This project was the bane of my entire existence. Not only did it take like 40000 hours, but it isn't even that good. At least I am done. I will say that I improved my abilities of acrylic, but that isn't saying much. I'm glad to say this is over, and I can move on to projects that I feel I can do better on. I will say that I really like how the left side of the right pretzel turned out, but I couldn't recreate that style.
The third project done was a more unique medium, being scratchboard. I had never used scratchboard in my life, so this was a good experience to have. While the idea of scratchboard is ok, and the textures made possible through it are cool, I really don't expect to be using it ever again because it takes toooo long. I don't believe I have ever taken that long on working on an art project, but unlike acrylic, this wasn't frustrating, just time consuming. I definitely made things better by making my subject the most gorgeous thing on planet Earth, that being my very own Blü. That may be one reason why I took so long; I did not want to mess him up. One fun thing that happened along the way is that I was scratching so much off, that if I touched the paper, it would all come off and just appear white. Luckily, I was able to reverse some of the damage with a black colored pencil. Not to mention, I literally got an average amount of 3 hours of sleep in one week because I wanted to turn this into a show.
At first, I was very unenthusiastic about my watercolor, and really just thought I would turn it in for a B- just to get it over with. This is probably something to do with the extensive line work that I needed to do, and then the finelining that took even longer. However, I ended up both enjoying the process of the painting, as well as the result. It was really unlike acrylic paint, as this had more layering involved, which would be harder to achieve with acrylic paint.
The final project that I did in this 2D Art class was a colored pencil drawing. If I'm honest, I wasn't crazy about the idea of drawing a form of transportation, and struggled to find a reference photo. Unfortunately for me, I found this picture of a boat, and was set on drawing it. I worked for a long time on the wood part of the boat, but when it got to the sails, it was the last week of school and I had 6 finals to study for, so I really just needed to finish. In terms of colored pencils, they are a very nice medium to work with, as it is very easy to control them, but it was also a very meticulous and slow process, so towards the end of the project, I became very unmotivated.
After taking this class, I must say, my interest in Art has definitely gone up. I think that this class allowed me to really see what I like and don't like in terms of mediums and their applications, and finished appearances. Graphite will always be a fun way to make art, but I do feel as though the things that can be done with it won't be as exciting as other mediums. Acrylic paint, as much as I hated the assignment in this class, was actually one of my favorite things to use. I think I was simply approaching the whole thing incorrectly, and Anthony Souza really helped me realize that. Scratch board is really the only thing we did this year that I wish we had done something different, because it was incredibly monotonous, and took me longer than any other project I had ever done in this class. Watercolor was a really fun project towards the end, because I was able to let go of the control I needed for pen work and buildings, and just paint in colors in trees and water, and it reminded me why I enjoyed this class, because I really needed it after my scratch art. Colored pencil was not so fun, but I still believe that I learned how to use colored pencils in an artistic way. This class was such a great class to start school with because I did not need to stress out about my GPA or tests, and I could just focus on making my work as best as I can. While I am sad to be leaving the 2D aspect, I am just as determined to work hard next year in 3D art.