#6 Colored Pencil Contest: Bows

When I first saw the reference, I was so excited to draw the detailed colorful bows. My goal was to make it look as much like the picture as possible. I left the image uncropped until the very end when i cropped a bit on the left side due to time restraints.

 This project was a good learning experience because with each bow, I got faster and better and drawing them. I started drawing while using a wide grid of 4x5. I wanted to stay true to my drawing schools so I strayed away from projecting the image. There ended up being a few minor issues with proportion but it was hard to notice with so much going on in the image.  I also had to get creative with some of the values and colors on the bows because I had a limited number of colored pencils (hopefully santa will bring me a set of Prisma Colors). When I was done with the entire project (after many many hours) I asked for a second opinion of anything I can improve. I was challenged to add a little more value to the shadows and the edges of the bows to make them pop.

Overall, I was very pleased with the end result after hours of work. For the Colored Pencil Magazine's monthly challenge, they awarded it with an honorable mention. 

#5 Turning something organic->mechanic

     At first I couldn't think of many concepts for turning something natural into something mechanical. As I sat down with my sketchbook and really thought about the topic, many ideas started to form. Many of the other people in the class were using animals as references so to be a little bit different, I took inspiration from Ciara's painting of sliced citris fruit and decided to do some sort of fruit. Another reason that I chose fruit was that I wanted to incorporate circuit boards into my peice by drawing circuit board leaves. Inspired by a dish my mother has, I sketched two pears and leaves. 

     After many doing colored pencil drawings, I decided to switch it up and use mostly pencil with a touch of colored pencil.

      I drew the pear sliced down the middle to reveal a mechanical interior. I strayed away from gears because most people in class were using them so I chose plumbing instead. Then I colored the exterior of the pears with their natural color. The most challenging part was creating depth because my reference was pumbing on a flat wall. Here is the result. 

    I drew the stems as wires and added a "plug" where the stem meeted the pears. After moving on to the circuit board leaves, the drawing seemed boring and empty. I was encouraged to add more leaves and pears in the background that were realistic/natural looking. It seemed to improve the composition and add depth to the piece. 

    I ended up liking it a lot more after I added the extra leaves. Making up concepts in my mind without a photo refererence is challenging for me so getting second opinions really help.

#4 A Moment in Time

For A Moment in Time, I thought of all of the pictures of me in the air pole vaulting.

 The picture I chose from Indoor Nationals had an busy background of lights and rafters. I wanted to "freeze time" in the picture so I decided to get rid of the busy background and go for something softer which put more empasis on the figure. I had a little bit of trouble making the water color look how i want it. I need to practice water color some. 

I did the body in stippling because there were a lot of highlights and shadows. The hardest part was getting the dark values to be dark with just tiny dots. I really liked using the pens with the very small tips because they made really tiny dots.

#3 Interesting Interior: Colored Pencils

For my interesting interior peice, I went with the food theme again. I chose to draw the inside of a takeout bag with a burger and fries. Because of all of the detail, I strayed away from paints and chose to draw it with colored pencils. It was pretty challenging to draw in the first place because of all of the lines and natural shapes. It took a while to get the values dark enough to look like the interior of the bag. Some of the brown paper was showing through so one of the last things I did to the drawing was to add some light blue to the bag to give it some dimension. I am pleased with the depth that I was able to create with the valued. It ended up turning out great! 

(I couldn't find the final picture, this is about half way done)

#2 Object: Oil Paints

I am always interested in drawing and painting food because of its interesting shapes and colors. Since I wanted to paint cupcakes with oils, I went to Fresh Market because they always have beautiful desserts. Instead of picking out a cupcake I was drawn to a raspberry bar cake with white icing. I bought it (along with some sushi as a backup project) to bring home to photograph. My dad helped me take pictures of the cake but it looked like a boring composition so I added a simple but beautiful teacup. This is the final photo reference. I chose to use purple as the background to make the whites and yellows pop. 

I enjoyed working with oils because i could get so many values out of the paints while keeping a smooth texture. The hardest part was getting all the details in. Using a very small brush allowed me to do a lot more clean lines and small details. My last step in painting was adding some final highlights. The hardest part of this painting was differentiating the icing in the cake from the actual cake. I did the best I could and pushed the values a little more than I was comfortable with.

 I am really proud of this painting and was excited to find out that it was put in the fair!

 

Oil Paint Apples

This is the first painting I have done with oil paints. I really like how smooth the paint is able to be applied and how easily the colors mixed. The highlights were also easy to apply with the opaque white and the colors were really bright. 

This apple was made with oils as well but I used a palette knife to apply the paint. It turned out better than I thought it would with using a palette knife but I still prefer the smooth texture of the other apple using the brushes. 

Overall, I am excited to use this new medium to paint this cake and teacup as my everyday object.

#1 Representative Reflection Piece

     Initially, I thought I would never come up with a concept for drawing a reflection that says something about myself. During that class period I thought and thought and could not come up with any ideas. Walking to homeroom that day, I saw the bus window reflection of the track. The stadium and track at Apex high holds so many memories for me from football games to powderpuff to countless track meets. The next day I took several pictures as references and this was my favorite. 

     The hardest part of drawing this was all of the lines. There were so many angles and straight lines that I had to draw to depict the bus. I discovered from this project that my strength is drawing more natural shapes and curved lines. I also had to strengthen a lot of colors that weren't there. For example, the trees in the back were almost black in the picture but I added more green to it in my drawing. I also used A LOT pf layers to make it easier to blend colors and to draw in details later.

I also struggled with blending the colors once I started adding dark colors. After I was done, I realized that one of my black pencils was a different brand than prisma color which made all of the dark areas hard to blend. Here is the finished result. It is not my favorite piece but I am pleased with it. I need to work on creating straight lines and being crisp with contrasting colors. 

Halle Show Project

"Off Toadin'" is the title of the final project.  

The finishing touches I added were adding value to the finished peice, adding bumps to the frog and deciding on the background. I was encouraged to leave the background as the plain brown paper to not take away from the focal point of the toad. I am proud of this peice and am glad to see it on display in the Halle Cultural Arts center. 

Parallel Project?

YAfter experiencing a rough patch of 'artist block' and being uninspired by any current events for the parallel project, I decided to use my time in class to make a peice for the Halle Cultural Center's art show. I looked for pictures that I took on my phone to draw for the show. I finally found a picture that had a story that I connected to personally to create in colored pencil. I chose colored pencil because I was inspired by some of the AP Student's projects and wanted to get better at the skill. Below is a photo of what I will be drawing. It is a picture of a friend I met outside. I like this picture because of the textures of the toad and the colors of the background.

Perspective Concept

Our group consists of Carrie, Alayna, Ashley, Elora, Jay, and Joseph. Theres a wide range of ideas and drawing styles which makes it a great group for our concept. We are going to use chalk to make a one point perspective peice on a brick wall outside of the courtyard. It will look like a free expression tunnel with graffiti and doodles. Here is a rough sketch of the concept: 

Time's Up on the Time Project

In a matter of a few minutes, I toasted 6 pieces of bread, pulling them out one by one to get the desired coloring. This project did not take a lot of time to make but it took a lot of precision to get the final product looking good.

 I am pleased with the result of this project. The layout shows the progression the peice of bread took over time in the three steps. One thing i would change is the color of the jelly which is too close to the background although this makes the bread seem to disappear throughout the steps. The dark jelly makes the peice look like the phases of the moon while red jelly would look more like conventional toast. 

Toast Takes Time

Making food takes time, so to use time as an element in my artwork, I will show the progression of the toast making process. This is a fairly original idea although step by step instructions on how to make food are popular. Also, I have seen videos of food eaten bite by bite. I will try my best to make the finished product look unique by combining these two things into one peice. Here is my sketch: 

I decided to make the peice using a new medium for myself of preparing food and photographing it. I will also use photoshop at the end to compile the images and adjust the final piece. I am not too familiar with using photoshop so I I will have to use my peers for guidance. It will be difficult to make the the slices of the bread toast evenly and gradually to show the element of time but if I can over come that, the peice will be really interating.

Appropriation Project: Final Snapshot

Artists Collaborate

Throughout this project, I used the help of other artists to help decide on composition and value tweaks. I experiemented with the shade of the background and the placement of the hills in order to make the unicorn stand out as much as possible. Also, the art teachers helped me crop the piece, and this is the result. 

Artists communicate through their work

This drawing reveals a little bit about my personality. If you talk to my friends, they will tell you that I am always making puns and corny jokes. I want this piece to encourage others to have more fun with their art.

Artists Reflect

Throughout the project I stopped many times to analyze what I was drawing. I frequently checked the pictures I was using to make the unicorn look like a real animal and make the hills look realistic.

Text in Art

I have always loved seeing 3D art installations in museums so i thought using text in an installation would be interesting. This sketch depicts my idea for an installation of 3D lips speaking in small letters of which are hanging from small strings. This peice is meerly an absract representation of speech and language.

Appropriation Project: Snapshot

Artists Think Creatively

When presented with examples of Appropriation in class, my mind immediately went to my Art I class. In my Art 1 class, my table became really good friends and we had lots of inside jokes. Inspired by a youtube video of a singing and dancing banana, the bananacorn was created. I sketched it the magical creature out just for laughs. 

I used this idea to branch off of for my appropriation project. I decided to make a uniCORN with a corn cobb horn instead of a banana horn for a play on the word itself. 

Artist Develop Art Making Skills and Take Risks

Although i stuck to a familiar medium for this project, there was still room to learn new things. I chose to use a 'fancier' brand of colored pencils than the standard crayola ones I normally use, which at first was a bit intimidating to me. These pencils were a little bit different to work with because they force me to use layers of color starting at the lightest value to acheive the desired hue. I was also able to blend colors using the blending pencil that is the same brand as the other pencils. 

Another new technique that I used was to was using tracing paper to decide the layout and composition of my piece. After trial and error i decided where i wanted my backround to fall into place and was able to begin shading the backround behind the unicorn. Overall, i took a risk trying to create the piece in a realistic manner despite the fact that it depicts a mystical creature.

'Tension'

When first presented with the word "tension" as the topic of the piece, I imagined the tension between two opposing animals. And specifically, a predator watching prey. This piece depicts a lion with a tense face waiting to attack its prey. I used color pencils as the medium.