Final Blog

1. How does the comparison of the two drawings show how you have grown as an artist during this class? Explain how this work shows the development of your art making skills.
When you compare the two drawings, you can see a large amount of growth in my artwork. During the entire semester, I was able to improve my artwork in many ways. One way I was able to improve my artwork was making the space seem 3 dimensional. Early in the semester, a lot of my artwork, like drawings of hands, were supposed to look 3 dimensional, but did not. Throughout the semester, I learned how to make my drawings seem more realistic. Another skill that I learned was adding fine detail to my artwork. I was able to improve this in multiple ways. When I drew my hand this time, I was able to look at my hand and see all the fine details. This used to be more of a challenge, because I was not able to translate the fine details that I could see into my artwork. This brings me to the second way I improved, being able to actually draw fine details and proportions.Throughout the semester, I got better at getting proportions correct, and making the details like shadows and curves in the hands seem more realistic.

2. How did you apply what you learned in Art 1 to successfully complete the Identity Project? Talk about your knowledge of materials and what you've learned about working with themes. 

During my time in Art 1, I learned a lot about making art. Art 1 helped me develop my skill in making art with pencil, and also helped teach me how to make an area look realistic. In this piece, I was able to make a space that looked realistic, even though I had nothing to base it off of. Since I was using pencil, I was able to apply all the skills I learned throughout the semester that used pencil. This includes things like shading, shadows, adding fine details, and much more. Throughout the semester we were given themes, and we were able to choose something that would fit the theme. During the semester I learned that when you are assigned the project, your best ideas are usually the ones that you get when you first hear about the project. I also learned that sometimes you can't do things exactly way you want them, so sometimes you do have to compromise with your vision and be able to change how you want it to look.

3. What was your most successful project this semester? Describe the project and your work, then explain why you picked it.
I feel that my most successful project was my Dark Side of the Moon piece. This was my first time working with oil pastels, and it turned out quite well. The bright colors of the rainbow and the triangle contrast well against the gray-scale of the moon and the space. Other than the sun and the earth, it is the only color in the piece, but the sun and the earth are much smaller, so the eye is drawn to the triangle and the rainbow. Using all the different colors for the rainbow also turned out well. While rest of the piece would stick to one or two colors, this used a large variety of colors. The multitude of colors also helped the colors seem to blend together. When I was doing the space for this piece, using white paper was very helpful. When I made the black of space, I realized that the white areas looked like stars, so I kept them. Due to all of these things adding up, and how good I think the final looked all together, I chose this piece.

 
7. What is a media that you enjoyed working with this semester? Write about what the media was, explain why you liked it and give examples of work you created with it.
I enjoyed working with the cardboard during this semester. Working with the cardboard allowed me to make one of my favorite pieces that I made during this class. Cardboard is a very interesting media to work with, because mistakes cannot be reverted, and you only have one way to change the way it looks. Due to how simplistic cardboard is, it makes it look very easy to reach your vision for the artwork. I was only able to create one piece with this media, (shown above) which I feel turned out very well.

8. In some of the projects you worked on this year you had a lot of choice about what direction to take and what materials to use. Explain your thoughts on how effective this was (or if it was not) for you.
I believe that being allowed to choose what direction to take helped me grow a large amount during this year. Being able to choose where you want to go with a project allows you to be more creative in your artwork, and usually allows all the people in the class to make art that is very different from one another. It allows you to express yourself through your artwork, which is an essential part of art. If the themes were too strict, everyone would have to make very similar artwork, and would not be able to make unique pieces that stood out. For example, in the piece of artwork above, I made a push pot that was functional, but also looked like a Pokemon. This project had a broad requirement, and due to this there were many pieces that were very different from each other.

Blog 5

2. During this activity, I learned how to make a print. This was a very fun process, but was also very complicated, and easy to mess up. You have to carve the linoleum block, and you could not go back if you made a wrong cut. Then you had to add paint with a roller, and when you put on the paint you had to listen for the orange peel texture. After you had added paint, you had to flip the block over, and massage the back of the block, then massage the paper.

4. During this activity, you had to have 2 colors for each print. After doing the first color for all of my prints, the art looked finished, and I was satisfied with the result. I took a risk and added another color to each one of the prints. In my opinion, the art looked better before I added the second color

5. During this activity, I worked within a group, and took on leadership roles by taking pictures in the group, coming up with ideas for pictures, and finding ways to make the pictures look better than they would have otherwise. While in this group, we all helped each other better understand the concept of perspective, and how it could be sued in our artwork. During this time, he would have ideas, and would use them as inspiration for our artwork.

Blog 6

1. In this activity I used my own unique ideas by using the second layer of the cardboard as the background of the piece. This did a good job of showing certain areas of the horse, like the jawline and how the neck is three dimensional. I think that cutting away the background, eye, and nose worked well. I think that since the horse's mane and skin would have been primarily one color in real life, leaving them not cut out was a good idea. I did get inspiration for this piece, from the dark horse brand of clothing and frisbees, which are made by Brodie Smith.

2. For this art, I relearned how to make pinch pots, which I had originally learned in elementary school. I also learned that you can put two pinch pots together to make a sphere. I gained a lot of skill with clay in this activity, because I had to make the 8-ball spherical, without making a hole to the center. I also had to make the transition from one pinch pot to the next seem more smooth, so it actually looked like an 8-ball. 

7. During this project, I had to analyze my piece many times, and it largely improved my artwork. When I was making this piece, I had a particular vision, and I wanted the artwork to be very similar to that. Before I fired the clay piece, I stepped back multiple times to make sure it looked good from all angles, and I fixed a lot of things. After I fired it, I painted the bottom area a certain color, but after stepping back and analyzing my artwork, I decided I was not satisfied. The next day I made a new color, and used it to paint the bottom half, so it looked much better.

Style, Color, and Others

1. For my color project, I used many unique ideas. I wanted to bring attention to the eyes of the figure, so I made his eyes blue, while the rest of his face was gray. I also made the background orange, which is the complementary color of blue, so it made the blue stand out even more. I used The Beatles Revolver album cover as my source of inspiration. The cover shows The Beatles in grayscale, and I used the figure in the lower right hand corner of the picture as my source of inspiration. 

2. When I was making this project, I learned how to use acrylic paint. This was my first time using acrylic paint in a project, so it was interesting using it for the first time. I feel like this new skill was very helpful in my artwork, because it allowed me to use the bristles of the paintbrush to make the hair look more realistic. Using acrylic paint also allowed me to make the bricks in the background look more random, and not be all one color.

8.  In my Abbey Road Pacman picture, I found inspiration from Iain Macmillan, who took the famous Abbey Road album cover photo. When I was making this picture, I used technology. I used photoshop to put pacman and some ghosts where The Beatles would have stood. I did somewhat participate as an art community member, because I showed many people this photo, and posted it on social media.

Iain Macmillan

Date of Birth: October 20, 1938 in Dundee Scotland
Date of Death: May 8, 2006
Major Life Events:

• Studied photography at the Regent Street Polytechnic
• Worked for various newspapers
• Met Yoko Ono in 1966
• Yoko Ono introduced him to John Lennon
• Was invited to take the Abbey Road cover photo
• Work was displayed in the US, Britain, and other places throughout Europe

Artists Work

• Published "The Book of London"
• Abbey Road album cover
• Live Peace in Toronto album cover
• Cover photo in Yoko Ono's book Grapefruit
• Hinge and Bracket at Abbey Road album cover
• Paul is Live album cover

I admire this artists work because his artwork is very simplistic. In all of his photographs, he has a very obvious center point for the picture, and is very good at attracting the attention of the viewer by placing his focus in the center and making them stand out. 

Space

1. In my art, I used many unique ideas to make my art extremely original. Since the theme of my artwork was space, I decided to use the Dark Side of the Moon album cover for inspiration. This is a popularly know image, so I decided to allude to it in my work. My art shows this symbol, on the dark side of the moon. You can also see the sun and earth in my drawing, which adds a sense of depth to the artwork.

2. In my drawing, I used oil pastels for the first time. This was a new skill for me, and I feel like it was necessary for the final product to look as good as it did. The shading of the dark side of the moon worked very well with the oil pastels, because I was able to layer the grey on until I was satisfied with the color. The oil pastels also made the value of the sun and the earth much more realistic. The vibrancy of the oil pastels also made the Dark Side of the Moon contrast against the darkness of the moon and the darkness of space.

6. When I was drawing the empty space in the picture, I was not sure how I was going to make space look realistic. After I had shaded in about half the page with black, I realized adding stars to the picture would make it look more lifelike. Having already filled half the page with black, I had to find a solution. I realized that there were small areas of white left behind by the oil pastels. These resembled stars, so instead of going back and filling them in, I left them, and it looked very realistic by the end.

2 in 1

1. I used many of my own ideas in my 2 in 1. In my 2 in 1 drawing, I had Batman and Bruce Wayne side by side. This made it very easy to compare the two drawings. I also chose to use this picture of Batman (shown above) for my inspiration. This picture features a large amount of shading and contrast, and I felt like I could incorporate that into my drawing well. 

2. When I was working on this project, I had to learn new skills to draw Bruce Wayne's face accurately. Above I show my first drawings of lips, which was one of the things I learned to do when I wanted to draw Bruce Wayne. I learned adding curved lines to the lips made the lips look more three-dimensional, and shading the bottom lip more than the top made it look like the top lip was above the bottom lip. I also learned many other skills, including drawing eyes and a nose. 

3. When I drew this artwork, it was intended to make a statement. This artwork shows Batman on one side and Bruce Wayne on the other. This is intended to show how Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same person, but are actually completely different personalities. The fact that the left side of the drawing is darker and more defined than the right side shows how Batman has a darker personality, and is not a biased character. 

Batman Zen Tangle

1. I used my own unique ideas in my work in many ways. In my drawing, i had the batman symbol flying over Gotham, and drew buildings below them. I also filled the symbol with many different patterns and shapes. When drawing the patterns, I included eyes, which are usually not included in the Batman symbol. I wanted to branch out from the usual Batman symbol, so I added eyes. My source of inspiration for this project was the Batman statue in the art room. I needed a shape to zentangle, and when I saw the Batman symbol on his chest, I decided it would be a good shape to zentangle. I then added buildings and eyes, and instead of drawing the symbol on Batman's chest, I drew it over the buildings.

7. When I finished drawing my picture, I asked some people to give me feedback on my drawing. In the picture below it shows all of the feedback I got. This helped me reflect on my drawing, because other people saw things I did not, and were able to tell me how I could improve my drawings in the future.

4. In this project, we were supposed to zentangle an object. After I had finished zentangling, I needed to add a background. I decided to draw a background of Gotham, instead of drawing the symbol on Batman. I also decided to leave the buildings blank. I was not sure if this was the right decision, but in the end, I decided it was the right decision. If I had added more detail to the buildings, it would have taken the focus off of the Batman symbol, which was supposed to be the focus.