Hand: Just a hand holding cards between their thumb and pointer fingers. I am very proud of myself for being able to draw a hand and shade it realistically. I usually struggle when it comes to hands in art but this piece really helped me notice my own advancement.
Portrait: For the most part I feel I did well with the main focal points of a realistic portrait besides the eyes. I ended up using my own personal style which threw off the realistic aspect of the drawing.
Perspective: I don't draw buildings often but I am proud of how this came out. I was inspired by a picture of mediterranean architecture and decided to reference a cafe. I have always liked the use of perspective in art and tried to attempt at a building in 3 point perspective. I think I could do better with how I executed it but overall I am satisfied with my attempt.
My own style: A flower, side profile of a girl, and a doodle of a bird. My personal style is something that I want to expand upon. I enjoy more semi-realistic cartoon styles but feel that I could learn more realism or abstract.
Value Scale
Just a scale of light to dark values using artist pencils. Lighter values are called tints while darker ones are called shades. With artist pencils each one gives you softer or harder graphite to help achieve the value wanted. With normal graphite pencils all you do is press harder or softer to make the value darker or keep it light.
Sphere and Charcoal Shapes Drawing
These are thumbnail sketches I did to plan out my project.
In order to make sure my final was the best of my ability I did a draft on a smaller piece of paper.
I have a history of using just graphite pencils for my art, in fact it is what I am most comfortable with. The two objects included are my favorite book stood up and a small stuffed animal of Gigi from Kiki's Delivery Service. I like how I was able to draw the words from the pages of the book but the formatting of them is off compared to the original pages which I wish could have been fixed. However, I am proud that I had the patience to write out the two pages. I think I could have done better with creating different values in the sketch if I had used charcoal instead of pencils.
Composition Photos
Pictures taken using the rule of thirds and symmetry.
Pen + Ink Techniques
These are techniques I was taught to use when drawing with a pen and ink.
For the story itself it has to do with hidden danger and how you do not always know what could be coming for you. The onlooker can see the fox preparing to hunt the rabbit but in the background there is a hunter hiding behind a tree with a bow and arrow ready to hunt the rabbit as well.
These are the thumbnail sketches I did, they aren't anything like my final as I changed my idea.
This is the practice sketch I did before my final, I like it better than the final.
As someone that does not use pen and ink as a main material for art I am very proud of myself for being able to grasp the techniques used to create different values and textures.
I have used perspective before but I have never made a drawing to this scale using it. At first it can be difficult trying to place everything so that it fits my vision but in the end I was satisfied with my outcome. I still feel that I could have had better contrast in my values, if and when I do something like this again I will try to incorporate more contrast into the piece.
Watercolor Techniques
Watercolor Practice Painting
I wanted to do something that had a foreground of trees and a background or water and mountains, I didn't focus much on detail and only the main shapes.
I wanted to focus more on the details of the mountains, trees, and water. I made sure to make the shapes have more value so I could better plan for my final.
This final has fully rendered mountains, trees, and waterm along with more details like cattails and a bird that were not included in my previous drafts. I tried to make the sunlight from the sun reflect onto the water and parts of the mountains. I had to make sure that things in the foreground were larger than things in the background in order to give the illusion of the different layers in the landscape. I could work on my lighting and keeping in highlights but for one of my first big watercolor pieces I am satisfied with how I did.
I've only ever done printmaking once and this unit in class gave me the opportunity to improve my skills. With the theme for the assignment my mind jumped to the more basic parts of fantasy; the big towers, forests, mythological creatures, ect. I didn't want to do something super easy, I needed to have something that would take time and help me learn how to control my precision. I chose the tower due to all the stones and texture of wooden boards, it gave me just that chance to try to be as exact as I could when carving. I wanted the tower to be the only thing printed to it meant I had to go around the lines I had sketched onto the block, which was difficult- however I love how the empty space looks where there are balconies. If I were to carve a print again I would try to be less shakey with my lines to get a cleaner look when it is printed in ink.
The design I chose was inspired by something I saw online. I have always had a sort of fear for clowns so I decided to choose something close to it in order to take in that fear and make it something I liked. This is how I ended up choosing a jester costume to be the base of the container and the lid to be the ruffle neck piece including the jester head wearing the hat.
I love how the glaze turned out on this piece, though i wish that the buttons on the shirt had stayed yellow. The buttons not being yellow was my fault, however for not being careful with the blue glaze. I want to attempt recreating this piece in the future once I have grasped a better idea on how to work with clay and paint it neater.
Guided Acrylic Practice
Personal Acrylic Painting
The memory theme for this unit immediately led me to when my family got our two most recent kittens. It was so sweet getting to see them as babies and now they are all grown up at a little over two years old. I remember going to my uncle's house a few weeks after the cat he was fostering gave birth and seeing her three kittens. You could hold them in your hands perfectly- and that's what I wanted to draw. The sketches were pictures I had in my phone, and ultimately I chose the sketch where my mom was holding one of the baby girls, now named Roxi. The other sketches were of our other cat, Remi. My uncle ended up adopting both the foster and her third baby, their names are Miss Bell and Meg. I have never really painted people before and that was the most challenging part. Acrylic painting is my favorite medium but it isnt my best so I was worried about the painting not turning out how I wanted it to but overall I am very proud of how it turned out and want to continue to try and develop my painting skills.