Observation

For my observational piece I observed my dog and took pictures of her. This picture really spoke to me because it kind of shows what the naked eye can think without giving context to what was going on behind the picture. At first sight it looks like my dog is satanic or demon possessed, but with closer observation and more knowledge you would be surprised to know that she was actually just yawning. It shows the viewer that without observing and analyzing something you can be surprised that you are missing the actual picture entirely. I really like this picture and I'm glad I could capture it with perfect timing to show everyone my dog. I haven't had much experience with photography but I really like it and I may try to use it again on future projects.

Final Exam Post

1) What is art?

In the beginning of the year I explained that art was a freedom of expression thought creativity and imagination. Now, I said that art cannot be defined in a single sentence. Art is self expression. Art is what comes from the heart and flows through your brain into the paper. I said that art is a feeling that is expressed in any way that one pleases.

2) List some reasons that an artist would need to use observation when making artwork.

In the beginning of the year I said observation was used to get correct detail, to see color, and to see shapes. Now that I've been through art 3 I've learned that observation is necessary to create a piece with complete accuracy. Observation is drawing all of the details to get exactly what you want just using your basic senses. I pretty much knew what observation was in the beginning, but now I know more about observation after taking this class.

3) Is copying always plagiarism or is there a gray area? Explain your thoughts.

In the beginning of the year I thought that copying wasn't always plagiarism. I said there is gray area where you could just be using someone's idea, but creating something different with it. My answer at the beginning of the year is very similar to my answer at the end because I answered the exact same thing. Art 3 taught me that copying isn't always plagiarism, and I know that now for sure.

4) What are some reasons why artists make art?

I said at the beginning of the year that art was used to express yourself and make a statement. Now I said that there isn't one single reason that an artist makes art. An artist makes art because they want to or maybe even because they're forced to. The point is, there is no answer to this question. Art is everywhere, and anyone and everyone can make art.

Inspiration Piece

I worked on this project with Samantha. We were inspired to do it based off of the painting at the NC Art Mueseum called Invasive by Steed Taylor. We painted it with temperate paint, just like Taylor's, so it will be washed away after weather and rain. I thought these painting that he did on the trails were very cool and nice. I wanted to follow in his footsteps and create something that would inspire others like his work inspired me. I tried to make my piece deep and thoughtful, so I chose something very important to me: love. I truly believe that you cannot live without love, and love should be shown towards everyone and everyone should show love others. Because without love, nothing is important or meaningful in life. I really liked how this turned out and I hope other people like it as well. I hope people see the beauty in this piece that I saw in Taylor's work. 

Destruction Project

For the destruction project I didn't have a piece that I wanted to destroy so I created a quick painting of a butterfly in a garden. Then, to destroy it I painted a piece of bread over my beautiful painting. Then I put the paper in a toaster. At first, nothing happened, but then it started to smell really bad. And smoke started to come out of the toaster. Then the paper caught on fire and we had to turn the toaster off. The paper was completely destroyed, and that was my destruction. I toasted my toast.

Smooth Drawing

For this drawing I drew my hair in a bun. Immediately I thought of silky smooth hair. I used pencil as my medium and I tried my best to shade and get value so that the hair looked as real and smooth as I could possibly make it. I enjoy doing this quick sketch and making it look as smooth as possible. I liked doing this mini project and seeing what other people did when they thought of the word smooth. I really liked working on this project and I hope we can do something like this again.

Artist Collaborate

For the artists collaborate project me, Samantha, and Erik let people create their own story, but limited their knowledge on the events that occurred before. We had Mr. Sands start the first page by writing a sentence and then drawing a picture. Then we had the next person look at the page before and create another page. And then the next person was only allowed to look at the page before to create another page. And so on, until we felt the story needed to take an end. Then we had Mrs. Rossi finish the story off. This project was fun and I enjoyed working on it with everyone else. It was also funny to see how the story went along with people only being able to see the first page. It took some unexpected turns but I think in the end it turned out well.

Artists Solve Problems

This project really taught me how to solve problems. As an artist you encounter many problems. The problem I had to work through with this project was I only was allowed to use one color. It was difficult to get the right values for each part of his face but I was able to work through this problem and create a nice piece. I really like how this turned out and I'm happy I chose to do this as my project. It taught me a lot about are and dealing with problems.

Artists Solve Problems Snap Shot

For this project I encountered the problem of only having one color of paint: blue. I solved this problem by paintin a portrait in only one color: blue. I enjoyed working on this project because I liked painting a picture of my brother and working on different values to make the painting look more realistic. I think when I'm done this project will turn out looking really nice, which will show that artists can work through problems and still make great art!

Artists Steal Project

This mini project was actualy very fun. What we had to do was steal something that already exists (Beauty and the Beast) and create something new with it. So I decided to do Belle and the Beast as teenagers. He is asking her to prom and giving her the red rose that is in the movie. I think overall it looks nice but you can't really tell that they are younger. I think that I like the idea but I didn't execute it very well.

Stalking Project

For the stalking project that Mr. Sands assigned to us Samantha and I left a phone out in Samantha's dance and people would grab it and take pictures of their feet on it. It was different and unique and funny to watch how people interacted with her phone. I enjoyed looking at the pictures after we were done observing.

Mixed Media

I did Snow White in the apple and I was kind of skeptical because I'm not very good with colored pencils and drawing people. I didn't get much help from others. I enjoyed working on the project but I had some troubles sketching it a lot.  I kind of like the way it turned out but I'm not super impressed. I think that drawing people is not my strong point. But I know my weaknesses now and I know what I need to work on. It was an interesting project to work on and I'm glad it's over.

Sticky Situation

I really liked this piece. It's different and unique and it's not what I normally do. I enjoyed blending with the paints and getting different colors by mixing the different colors. I had to use repetition in this piece and I used it by painting the swirls. The swirls are sticky and represent the spray that comes out of the spray can. In the project I struggled a lot. I could never mix the right colors together to creat the exact same color that I had before. Also I struggle with the blending and application of the paint. While working on this I learned how to blend the paints more effectively to show value. I was pretty proud of my efforts and work overall. I tried to make my painting half realistic and half imaginatory which was a bit different for me, but I liked the risk and I'm happy with my work.

Up close and personal

In this project I enjoyed using the oil pastels. I like blending with them and adding value by using different colors. It is up close and personal of a glass of water with lemons in it. I used emphasis by adding darker values and adding different colors to the lemon to make it bright and colorful. It was kinda risky to use such a big paper with a technique that I'm not super comfortable with. I enjoyed working with this technique because of the blending. My process was long and I tried a bunch of techniques before finding the final one, but in the end I feel like it was successful.

Coca-cola can

Oil pastel was definitely my favorite. I used this for my final project too because I really enjoyed the values shown with it. It was my favorite drawing I did. I also liked how bright and colorful they were. I also enjoyed how well I blended all the colors together by layering the colors. Oil pastel was my favorite technique.

Colored pencil dum dum

The dum dum was fun to do because of it's shape. I like the shading and it was easy to add value. I didn't like how I drew the wrapper but otherwise I liked the actual candy. I liked using several colors to show the values of the candy. I enjoyed my experience with the colored pencils. 

Chalk drawing

I drew a gum ball using chalk and I don like it at all. The chalk was hard to use and I had trouble blending it. I wasn't a fan of the chalk. We had to show the highlights of the gum ball with the chalk and it was very difficult. Chalk just isn't for me. I did like how bright the color got though. But I couldn't blend very well. It was still a cool experience.

Scientific Drawing

I went about the project with confusion. It was difficult to think about what would really be different and abstract me with this project. I came up with a few ideas at first and I didn't really like any of them but drawing a different form of biotechnology and then an idea of a galaxy being within an eyeball. I was pretty set on doing the eyeball, but I was struggling with the eyelashes. So I sketched out an idea for the biotechnology theme and I sort of liked the way it looked on the paper. So I went with that idea. I was contemplating the idea of playing it safe or trying something different. Mrs. Rossi told me to try something new so I decided on the pen and ink style. My final sketch was okayish. I tried different pen and ink styles on it and finally decided to stippling on the pot and hatching on the leaves. Once I was done I made a few touch ups on the value and finally, I got my final product.

Clay Tile Piece

Clay Tile Pieces

This is my clay tile piece that I made. I made a moose in the tundra zone by using clay. I made it in a certain way that so it would look 3-D in the end. I liked how I had the grass popping out of the tile piece. I also liked how I had his antler coming out of the tile. I thought it was an interesting project, but I must say that I am not very pleased with the overall outcome of it. I did work very hard on it, but I think that clay just is not my "thing" because it does not look very realistic to me. I did enjoy working with the clay before because I had never done anything like that before. It was definitely a good experience for me. 

Landscape Portrait

Landscape Portrait

The landscape portrait was probably one of my favorite projects. I enjoyed mixing the colors to add value, and I liked the way this project turned out in the end. Blending the color really made the piece look realistic in the end. I also like the reflection I made on the water from the mountains. This project was one of my favorites also because I got to create it from a picture that I took in Wyoming. Which made it even cooler to look at the final piece and compare it to the picture I took. I think I was definitely most impressed with this project. I was glad that I was able to create something like this because I had never created anything like this before.

Gameboard Drawing

I think the piece turned out okay from what I expected it to look like in the end. I didn't like the designs on the rooms of the gameboard. They were very difficult to draw and I hated drawing them. I feel okay with this piece. I would haver preffered it too look different and better, but it is okay. I think that the front of the gameboard came out nice, but towards the back it started looking worse. It also looks very unproportional. I would probably try and work harder on my watercolors if I were to do this project again because I didn't like how my watercolors turned out. The most difficult part was drawing it so that it was proportional and also trying to do the watercolors after I drew it. It was hard because I do not really know how to use watercolors. I learned about one point and two point perspective by working on this piece.