Scratchboard
I was looking at pictures for a scratch board idea and I saw one of a single cactus that incorporated a lot of patterns to show movement. I have a couple cacti in my room and thought that I could take my own pictures to for this project. I decided to do 3 cactus’ in my final composition. The texture I included in the cacti was from the spikes and repetition of those. I really like how the first cactus I did, the one on the left, turned out. I think the texture here is the strongest as the thorns go into each other and outside the cactus to provide texture. For this cactus I also had to ad shading for each spikes of thorns to show that they were coming out of the cactus. This provided the drawing dimension so that the final would not be flat. I tried to create balance by first doing a composition of three cacti, I also picked three different cacti so that the piece could contrast and the cacti would not get lost in one another. To include implied movement I just used a repetition of patterns in the background. My picture was zoomed in too far me to add a different element that was creating movement. I kind of wish I had a stronger idea for what I was doing with movement if I could change anything. I also thought that it would have been better if when I wanted to do cactus’, I could have done a single cactus out in a desert scene that would have allowed me more opportunities to create movement. Shading is all throughout my piece. I included shading in texture by making sure I added shading so that it would stand out, this involved me to used cross hatching. On the pots I also had to use a lot of shading to give them dimension. My light source was generally coming from the left onto the cacti. Overall I enjoyed scratch board and wouldn’t mind doing it again.
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Self-Portrait
I chose to to a kind of expression idea with my project. I used pencil to draw my face and the shading on my face and then colored pencil for the actual gum. My idea was that I was blowing bubbles with the gum and then suddenly started melting/turning into the gum. I had had the idea of my face melting at first but I wanted to make it a little more unique of an idea.
To achieve my ideas I wanted to use two different mediums to create contrast. I didn't want the gum getting forgotten in my final so I wanted to make it contrasting and stand out even though it is a small object in my piece. I was trying to portray shocked and surprised. This was hard to achieve because my face was trying to complete another action (blowing a bubble), while also trying to look surprised. I found that i had to get this expression from the eyebrows. I had originally thought that it would come from the shape and direction of the eyebrow. To show a shocked expression the eyebrow shape does matter but it was also the shading on the forehead that helped achieve this. I kind of rushed too much through this project. I wish I had had more time to fix it. When I had the original sketch before I started I struggled with the shape of the face. I think for one of my first self portraits I was a little too ambitious with the angle of the face. I made the my cheeks and jaw a little too large and pulled back. Along with this I think my eyes, nose, and mouth were too small for the face. I also wish that I had more time to study hair, I understood that it is more about shading than actual individual strands, but it was hard to accomplish that on my actual drawing. I liked the mixed medium and the bubble being the popping color, but the drips on the face didn't blend into the face as much as i wanted too. |
Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Proportion
In class we learned how to draw the features of the face and correct proportions. I was really surprised to learn how things were spaced out based on eye width. Even though while we were learning the correct placement of features it seemed weird, at the end everything fit with each other and wasn't as preposterous as I thought. I think the thing that most surprised me and the most beneficial thing I learned from this is how the neck actually comes down from the bottom of the ears. i had never learned that before and at first I thought it was too large but it actually made sense and looking at other pictures of people it made sense that the neck starts there.
I think I struggled with the eyes the most out of all the features. I have dark brown eyes and when looking at the picture of mine for the reference, it was hard to see the shading within the iris and pupil that we had learned. I understood that it is easier to see on a person who has blue or lighter eyes, but I felt like my sketch of just the eyes didn't look like my eyes. It was helpful to learn the direction of hair in the eyebrows and eyelashes because I had never fully grasped that. I think I generally understood the shading on the nose and mouth pretty well. My final sketch of myself I would say turned out pretty well and I think it looks like me. I think to make it better it's just a matter of shading darker and hitting my darker values, and again I feel like I need to work on my eyes. Moving on from these lessons I am most nervous to work with hair because I didn't really have time to practice and when i did try it for the first time t was confusing. |
Opacity
This was my first time dealing with chalk pastel when working with small details. I used the chalk pastel pencils to better help me make the fine details of the piece. I also used the chalk pastel paper, which I regret. It made my piece look messy and was overall very hard to control the pastels on the paper.
My original picture had my balloons in the kitchen, when I was taking it I forgot about my background and was more focused on lighting and composition. Since the balloons took up a majority of my piece, the hard execution of the pastels on the textured paper, and the complex opacity of the transparent balloon, I ultimately chose to go with a plain background. Instead of leaving it white, I tried to pick a color that I hadn't used a lot in the overall piece to let the balloons pop more. For the most part I stayed true to my photo. What I liked about my original photo was all the colors in it. The main see-through balloon had bright fun colors while the top balloon was mainly a shiny gold and the other balloon was purple. I did try not to use black as my shadows but I found it a little harder to experiment with the color when using the chalk pastels. I created contrast my allowing the balloons to be very different colors which allowed separate and not blend into each other. With the balloons being mainly 3 very different colors, I had a hard time choosing which color I was going to use for the background, but ended up using green. The balloon's themselves contrasted with one another, as well as the background. When I have used chalk pastel in the past, like with the candy, i really liked how the highlights of wrappers could be overlayed over the whole project at the end without establishing them beforehand with other mediums like colored pencil. When I look my picture and saw the clear balloon, chalk pastel appealed to me to get the highlights. As annoying as the text on the clear balloon was, it was my favorite to do because I really liked the end object. While I was working on it, I wasn't getting the results that I wanted but at the end I added the highlights that the plastic would make when folded and creased, which I felt really tied everything together. The hardest park for me was creating the different shades of colors in the balloons. The gold balloon had a lot of crinkles and folds that were reflecting off of each other which was hard to create in my final. I wanted a smooth overall feel, but the textured paper didn't allow that for me and created an unnecessary texture that just resulted in complications when blending. I haven't had the chance to mount my artwork. If I could choose a color I think I would just go with a black frame. I usually use white but when using the textured paper I think the color would get lost when using white. Before drawing class I had used chalk pastel in my previous art class to create a final piece. That chalk piece is one of my favorites because I enjoy blending with my finger when working with chalk and taking advantage of the bright colors that chalk pastel allows. For this project I felt like it was a completely different experience, which I would probably account most of that being from the textured paper. If I could do this again I would use a smoother paper. The texture didn't allow me to blend easily. I would also draw with bigger paper because in my past projects I was very zoomed in and dealing with a larger object as my focus. In this project I was dealing with very small details that weren't easy to create with chalk pastel. In the end I might have not done chalk pastel from the start. The picture that I was trying to create didn't have as many bright colors as I originally thought, which made it complicated to blend the colors I had to get different shades in small, tight spaces. |
Colored Pencil - Dum Dum
I really struggled with the Dum Dum. This wasn't my first time doing the dumdum but i can't remember being so frustrated with it the first time. I was not good at lightly adding the layers of color and didn't really get it. I dont understand how people get their drawings so smooth. i could never get mine to not be grainy. I ended up sorta giving up and adding color with hard pressure, which inst the right thing to do. I don't think I am going to continue using prisma, but I may try to practice again with them.
Chalk Pastel - Eggs |
I was nervous doing the eggs because I challenged myself with a picture where one of the eggs was head on and facing me. Getting the shadows and highlights correct to make it look like it was in the right direction was complicated at first but i kept going over and fixing everything. I really like how it turned out and my favorite part it the reflections and shadows on the eggs. I did the shadows last and it is hard to see here but i liked adding color into the shadow. I didn't think it was okay to do orange as my horizon, but i like the contrasting colors and like how it turned out. i am definitely a fan of chalk pastels over colored pencils
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Smarties
I really like how my smartie turned out. i was scared going into it because I didn't think my colors would turn out okay, but I am really happy with it. i started experimenting with the colors and trying to mix to create new ones. i also didn't use blacks and whites to always make my highlights, I used different shades of the color or different colors to add shadows or highlights. I was nervous about the wrapper and the overhanging wrapper, but i like how it turned out. Doing the wrapper last was satisfying because it looked good and looks like it wrapped around everything. i had some trouble with the right side but I wish i spent some more time on it and didn't really give up. Overall, I liked doing this and I learned that I like chalk pastels a lot more than the colored pencils.
- Describe the craftsmanship of your drawing. (Is it clear, clean edges, blended well, smudges, defined space, etc.)
- Are your values and shadows realistic? How many values did you include? How and why are values important?
- Is there a clear source of lighting?
- How important were the compositional sketches? Explain.
- How is your final drawing successful?
- Are the proportions, structure and perspective of the subject correct?
- Does the placement & grouping of objects create a pleasing arrangement (composition)?
- Is there a center of interest and is it well located?
- How well did you manage your time and resources throughout the process of creating this drawing? Do you see where you could improve in this area?
- What challenges did you encounter during this project and how did you overcome them?
- What have you learned drawing a still life?
Fabric Final
I used practiced including a wide range of values. I think i achieved this but it is evident that I still need to work on it. I worked on including my shadows and instead of a shadow being one value. In reality there are values in the shadow itself. I worked on that and felt like I achieved that from my practice drawings. I felt that the contour line drawings really helped me understand to draw what i am looking at and the small details. This also helped me to work on a section rather than doing outlines and then completing the whole thing. This really helped me hone in on the details of the values and not be overwhelmed when I am looking at a giant sheet of fabric.I found that I needed to shade my lightest values and then work my way to completely to the dark values. I increased my pressure to the hardest when I was working on the outlines and the where the deepest shadows would be. I tried to work on getting the grainy-ness of the pencil by smoothing my values. I fell like I need to work on this factor because i didn't really like how it turned out and could be smoother. Even though the fabric is smooth, it is important to know that there is still texture. There are folds which give the fabric more character and make it look more realistic. If I could do this again I would maybe make it bigger. I think that I also pay too much attention to my medium values so I need to work on getting darker and lighter in my highlights. I need to create variance in the different values and create a separation of those values so that they can all come across
Fabric Practice
Drawing the fabric was very challenging at first. It was a hard concept to understand he highlights and the shading on both sides to create the rounding of the fabric on the folds. i think my first pencil piece was my best out of the three. I like how my shading turned out on the whole piece. The colored pencil I feel could have been better, I think if I picked different colors to work with, I would have gotten a better outcome. I rushed a little bit for the colored paper practice and the charcoal, but the charcoal was very hard to work with. I think that is was hard because of how small of the space I was working with. I know a lot of people really love working with charcoal, but it has never really worked with me. I think I still have a long way to go on practicing my shading, but I will most likely use the pencil for my final fabric piece.
Ribbon
This is my ribbon studies with charcoal and prisma colored pencil. I liked working with the Prisma a little bit more than the charcoal. Even though it's more unforgiving and a little bit harder to apply, I felt like it went on smoother than the charcoal. I was a little confused on the shadows that the ribbon was creating on the table so I made the mistake of including that on the actual ribbon itself when I should have just taken it out. Even though it looks a little bit weird, I really liked doing this practice because I learned the affect values have on each other, I also really like the flow of the values in the ribbon.
Shape Studies
We did value studies using shapes arranged in an interesting way. i enjoyed practicing values this way but using the black blocks made the values very hard to see and I also had to imagine where they would be. By doing this I noticed that I tend to enjoy my mid tones more, I have trouble going darker with my values. My pencil marks can also clearly be seen, so as I move on i would like to improve on my blending and putting down pencil more smoothly.
Contour Room
We made contour line drawings of the portion of the room we were looking at. I found this to be very hard. When I did my practice, I noticed that I went to big and didn't have any room to go into more detail or create depth. When I got to my final, I changed places in the room and made my drawing smaller.
Did you use a fluid line? Explain how is this evident?
Yes, I used a fluid line. In my drawing my lines are not sketchy or varying in weight. My line weight is constant throughout and shows that my line was fluid. There is also not a spot where a shape is by itself, this can be noted by the posters or by the door handle. There is a random line that in real-life isn't there, but needs to be there to get to the middle of a shape without picking up my pen.
Explain how your knowledge and creating practice studies with contour line contributed to the success of your piece.
I had had previous knowledge of contour in my last art classes but going back to it felt like a new time all over again. I think doing the blind and modified practices really helped me in my method of contour. The practices taught me the importance of getting the small details of the image and not just the outline. The practices also helped me out because when I was looking at the object i tended not to look at my paper so i can keep an eye on where the tiny details where without switching between looking at the image and my paper. I think the blind contours contributed to this well. Also, doing my first practice room helped me to know that I messed up the first time and should have picked a bigger spot to focus on and to fill up the entire page.
Describe the difference in your contour line drawing to an outline drawing.
Outline is exactly what the word means, the outer line of the image. We have been doing outlines our entire life when we were young and was told to trace our hand for hand turkeys. Contour line drawing is the outline but more of the small details within that outline. Contour line is drawing everything you see within the object, not just the outline.
Explain how your interpretation of line is essential in capturing the look of the room.
Line is essential to capturing the look of my room because the room is originally made up of straight lines. The lines help create depth without having any actual shading. My interpretation was continuously going back over my lines and that can be seen throughout my drawing where and overlapping line can be found. I think that this only enhances the image because it shows the movement of the artist better. I noticed that everyone else's rooms looked completely different from each other, everyone had their own style. I could definitely tell my style from everyone else's, I'm not sure what it is about it but i notice I have a distinct way of drawing all my images.
What did you learn from completing this drawing? If you could recreate your piece what would you do differently to enhance the final outcome?
I learned in this project that the entire image is important. This is especially important in drawing because often a picture is made more with lines rather than in painting, where a picture is more composed to values. I learned that filling up the entire page is important and really getting into the small details is important for the final. In real life, objects are not just outlines. There are finer details that make an object what it is, and its important to include those in drawing to distinguish these finer details. When doing my final I did the blocks on the wall last, when doing the wall with the door, I started off good, but messed up my perspective really bad towards the top. I feel that the mess up is really distracting from my entire piece. if I were to redo this again, I would also want to focus more on my proportions. Sometimes i tend to mess up where things start and stop and the size of them , so I have to compensate and then fix something else which is straying from the real life picture. Overall, Ignoring the left wall, I like how the contour looks and almost how "busy" it makes the room, yet the lines are cohesiveness with each other.
Yes, I used a fluid line. In my drawing my lines are not sketchy or varying in weight. My line weight is constant throughout and shows that my line was fluid. There is also not a spot where a shape is by itself, this can be noted by the posters or by the door handle. There is a random line that in real-life isn't there, but needs to be there to get to the middle of a shape without picking up my pen.
Explain how your knowledge and creating practice studies with contour line contributed to the success of your piece.
I had had previous knowledge of contour in my last art classes but going back to it felt like a new time all over again. I think doing the blind and modified practices really helped me in my method of contour. The practices taught me the importance of getting the small details of the image and not just the outline. The practices also helped me out because when I was looking at the object i tended not to look at my paper so i can keep an eye on where the tiny details where without switching between looking at the image and my paper. I think the blind contours contributed to this well. Also, doing my first practice room helped me to know that I messed up the first time and should have picked a bigger spot to focus on and to fill up the entire page.
Describe the difference in your contour line drawing to an outline drawing.
Outline is exactly what the word means, the outer line of the image. We have been doing outlines our entire life when we were young and was told to trace our hand for hand turkeys. Contour line drawing is the outline but more of the small details within that outline. Contour line is drawing everything you see within the object, not just the outline.
Explain how your interpretation of line is essential in capturing the look of the room.
Line is essential to capturing the look of my room because the room is originally made up of straight lines. The lines help create depth without having any actual shading. My interpretation was continuously going back over my lines and that can be seen throughout my drawing where and overlapping line can be found. I think that this only enhances the image because it shows the movement of the artist better. I noticed that everyone else's rooms looked completely different from each other, everyone had their own style. I could definitely tell my style from everyone else's, I'm not sure what it is about it but i notice I have a distinct way of drawing all my images.
What did you learn from completing this drawing? If you could recreate your piece what would you do differently to enhance the final outcome?
I learned in this project that the entire image is important. This is especially important in drawing because often a picture is made more with lines rather than in painting, where a picture is more composed to values. I learned that filling up the entire page is important and really getting into the small details is important for the final. In real life, objects are not just outlines. There are finer details that make an object what it is, and its important to include those in drawing to distinguish these finer details. When doing my final I did the blocks on the wall last, when doing the wall with the door, I started off good, but messed up my perspective really bad towards the top. I feel that the mess up is really distracting from my entire piece. if I were to redo this again, I would also want to focus more on my proportions. Sometimes i tend to mess up where things start and stop and the size of them , so I have to compensate and then fix something else which is straying from the real life picture. Overall, Ignoring the left wall, I like how the contour looks and almost how "busy" it makes the room, yet the lines are cohesiveness with each other.
Blind and Modified Contour Hands
Contour Line is drawing with a continuous line. We started drawing our blind contours where we couldn't see what we were drawing. Then we drew our hands modified where we could see what we are drawing. Contour is hard to me because, one, its pen and you can't mess up, and two, you have to draw every detail and I had trouble keeping my eye on one place to work with when I wanted to jump to the next one. I continuously had to go backwards and retrace my line to go fix things. Lastly we did our backpack and that took awhile to draw every detail. I found myself getting lost a lot of the times. Overall, I really like the look of contour, it reminds me of Shel Silverstein books with the pen drawings inside.
First Hand Drawing
The first day of drawing class we drew our hand in an any interesting position. When I was doing this I had trouble accepting my lights and dark choices, my pencil lines are very noticable. I also have trouble with sizing my drawings and proportions. I really do like the way the hand turned out, but I can still see that I have a lot to improve on.