Drawing 2 Final Exam
1) Choose a project you felt was challenging but yet successful.
For the self portraits project, I had to develop an idea around the concept of multiple faces. I struggled quite a bit trying to settle on an idea. Nothing I thought of got me really excited. I came up with several different ideas and finally settled on one. Originally, I planned to create my face melting with multiple faces coming out. A bright and colorful background with psychedelic elements would complement it. However, I felt like I had already done a similar concept before and I wanted to push myself further. It then became a struggle to think of something that got me excited, but that I hadn't done before. I started doodling until I ended up with a pretty awful sketch of a girl pulling a face out of her face. Liking the idea, I ran with it. Next I had to decide between an unrealistic or realistic color pallet. I wasn't sure which vibe I wanted the piece to have. An unrealistic color pallet would give a sense of surrealism and open more doors for different interpretations. However, realistic colors would allow me to become more familiar with working with skin tones. However, after playing around with colors I ended up deciding on unrealistic colors. I liked the juxtaposition it created between the dark concept and bright colors, and I has just finished another portrait which I used realistic skin tones for. My largest concern for this project was trying to make the stretching skin look realistic. Obviously, I can't get a literal picture of myself pulling my skin a foot away from my face. Therefore, I had to improvise. I played around and realized stretching skin is similar to the folds of fabric. Thinking about the skin as fabric made it much easier to draw. I choose this project for this particular question because it taught me that sometimes thinking about something differently can help me create a more realistic piece. This will be extremely important for me in the future because I tend to alter subjects unrealistically, so its impossible for me to get an exact reference image. In order for me to come to this realization, I had to go through the struggle of trying to draw the stretching skin.
For the self portraits project, I had to develop an idea around the concept of multiple faces. I struggled quite a bit trying to settle on an idea. Nothing I thought of got me really excited. I came up with several different ideas and finally settled on one. Originally, I planned to create my face melting with multiple faces coming out. A bright and colorful background with psychedelic elements would complement it. However, I felt like I had already done a similar concept before and I wanted to push myself further. It then became a struggle to think of something that got me excited, but that I hadn't done before. I started doodling until I ended up with a pretty awful sketch of a girl pulling a face out of her face. Liking the idea, I ran with it. Next I had to decide between an unrealistic or realistic color pallet. I wasn't sure which vibe I wanted the piece to have. An unrealistic color pallet would give a sense of surrealism and open more doors for different interpretations. However, realistic colors would allow me to become more familiar with working with skin tones. However, after playing around with colors I ended up deciding on unrealistic colors. I liked the juxtaposition it created between the dark concept and bright colors, and I has just finished another portrait which I used realistic skin tones for. My largest concern for this project was trying to make the stretching skin look realistic. Obviously, I can't get a literal picture of myself pulling my skin a foot away from my face. Therefore, I had to improvise. I played around and realized stretching skin is similar to the folds of fabric. Thinking about the skin as fabric made it much easier to draw. I choose this project for this particular question because it taught me that sometimes thinking about something differently can help me create a more realistic piece. This will be extremely important for me in the future because I tend to alter subjects unrealistically, so its impossible for me to get an exact reference image. In order for me to come to this realization, I had to go through the struggle of trying to draw the stretching skin.
2) Look at your body of work over the semester and choose 2 pieces that show your growth as an artist. Discuss each piece and how you grew in the following areas: application of materials, techniques and skills, artistic vision, use of the principles and elements, creativity, intuition and subject matter
Progression Piece:
For my progression piece, I had to show the progress of one object turning into another. I struggled for awhile trying to think of ideas. I knew I wanted to choose objects that looked somewhat similar, so the transition would look smoother. I wander around my house until I saw a pasta scooper. To me, it looked almost like a rib cage. I took this comparison and worked off of it. Prior to this project, I had always had almost exact reference pictures to work off of. However, since its physically impossible to turn a pasta spoon into a rib cage, I had to use my knowledge of value and intuition. In the end, I feel like I successfully showed the transformation in a realistic way. This skill of being able to create realistic pieces from unrealistic objects is something I know I will use in many of my future pieces. For this piece, I worked with graphite. Typically, I work with colored pencils and it had been a long time since I made a graphite piece. At first, it was a bit hard to get used to controlling my pressure to show value. However, I eventually fell back into the swing of it. This project taught me how to combine reference pictures with my imagination and reminded me of the basic skill of controlling pressure to ass value.
Progression Piece:
For my progression piece, I had to show the progress of one object turning into another. I struggled for awhile trying to think of ideas. I knew I wanted to choose objects that looked somewhat similar, so the transition would look smoother. I wander around my house until I saw a pasta scooper. To me, it looked almost like a rib cage. I took this comparison and worked off of it. Prior to this project, I had always had almost exact reference pictures to work off of. However, since its physically impossible to turn a pasta spoon into a rib cage, I had to use my knowledge of value and intuition. In the end, I feel like I successfully showed the transformation in a realistic way. This skill of being able to create realistic pieces from unrealistic objects is something I know I will use in many of my future pieces. For this piece, I worked with graphite. Typically, I work with colored pencils and it had been a long time since I made a graphite piece. At first, it was a bit hard to get used to controlling my pressure to show value. However, I eventually fell back into the swing of it. This project taught me how to combine reference pictures with my imagination and reminded me of the basic skill of controlling pressure to ass value.
Opacity Project:
For my opacity project, I decided to make a self portrait. It turned out to be an image of me screaming inside of a plastic bag. This piece was the first time i drew a self portrait that I actually like. I felt comfortable drawing a face, because I make portraits a lot. However, the opacity of the plastic bag scared me. Last year for my opacity project, I made a gum ball machine because I was low on time. Therefore, I had never drawn any clear material that has many folds and crevices, such as a plastic bag. I was extremely intimidated. However, I decided not to think about it as plastic. I decided to just draw the lines and shapes that I saw. This helped me get over the fear and create a realistic image. This was also the first time I drew using only realistic skin tones. Typically, I use pinks and purple because I was always afraid of making my shadows too dark and give the illusion of my skin tone being too dark. For this project, I only used browns and a little bit of purple. I think the final result came out looking very realistic, and I am proud of myself for only using realistic skin tones.
For my opacity project, I decided to make a self portrait. It turned out to be an image of me screaming inside of a plastic bag. This piece was the first time i drew a self portrait that I actually like. I felt comfortable drawing a face, because I make portraits a lot. However, the opacity of the plastic bag scared me. Last year for my opacity project, I made a gum ball machine because I was low on time. Therefore, I had never drawn any clear material that has many folds and crevices, such as a plastic bag. I was extremely intimidated. However, I decided not to think about it as plastic. I decided to just draw the lines and shapes that I saw. This helped me get over the fear and create a realistic image. This was also the first time I drew using only realistic skin tones. Typically, I use pinks and purple because I was always afraid of making my shadows too dark and give the illusion of my skin tone being too dark. For this project, I only used browns and a little bit of purple. I think the final result came out looking very realistic, and I am proud of myself for only using realistic skin tones.
4) Look over the blogs of other students in our class. Choose a piece of artwork from one of your classmates that you feel is an exemplary showcase of what the project was to depict.
Through out this school year, I was always extremely impressed by Tess' work. Her scratch board was no exception to this. The project required the display of movement. The main feature of movement was the wave lengths coming from the headphones. However, the actually girl's face has so much movement because of the way she scratched the board. It looks like the face itself is moving. The hair as well shows a lot of movement from the way she placed each strand. After reading her blog post, I saw she didn't like how the value wasn't smooth and didn't reach as many values as she would have liked. However, I think the strong contrast looks very nice for scratch board and that she did reach a good amount of different values considering it was on scratch board. Overall, I am in love with this piece.
Through out this school year, I was always extremely impressed by Tess' work. Her scratch board was no exception to this. The project required the display of movement. The main feature of movement was the wave lengths coming from the headphones. However, the actually girl's face has so much movement because of the way she scratched the board. It looks like the face itself is moving. The hair as well shows a lot of movement from the way she placed each strand. After reading her blog post, I saw she didn't like how the value wasn't smooth and didn't reach as many values as she would have liked. However, I think the strong contrast looks very nice for scratch board and that she did reach a good amount of different values considering it was on scratch board. Overall, I am in love with this piece.