Mixed Media

Before this project I had never really done anything like it. Mixed media is such a different concept for me and it was kind of difficult for me to see the things that I should or shouldn't include in the piece. For this piece the theme was to do something of fear, fantasy, or amusement and I chose fear and fantasy. I used a nightmare that I used to have when I was a little kid as inspiration. Where as my piece looks nothing like the dream I remember it has some of the similar concepts. The dream was of a dead forest with a bloody man standing in the middle where as in this piece there are different kinds of trees and instead of the bloody man there is a bloody doll, I chose a doll because dolls are also very creepy and it's a sort of fantasy for the doll to come to life and bleed. From this project I learned about the beauty that artwork can hold when incorporating different elements from looking around at other classmates. My initial idea didn't really plan out as I intended it to, so I think I could have worked a little harder on creating the trees and bring the doll more to life. I think I totally could have done better with the whole composition, but it turned out not too bad. Well in my opinion. 

Sticky Situation

When I knew that the topic for this project was a sticky situation I knew that a lot of people were going to do kind of like the same original things, so I wanted to do something a bit different. I got the idea to do toxic waste but I wasn't sure how that was going to turn out so I debated on that idea for a while, but the more I thought about it the more I liked it. I felt like it was a perfect situation because not only was it a sticky situation literally, it was also a sticky situation for our entire world. Before this project I had not had much experience with painting on canvas other than an Art 1 painting, which I did horrible on. I started this painting with not much of an idea on how i was going to put it all together. I used a bit of texture on the dirt or mud and the sewage waste. Although I know that the whole composition of the work is tilted to the right I feel like the highlights of the water and on the cans somehow wrap it up really well. Throughout this project I found paint to be fun and also found that adding the highlights wasn't as complicated as I thought it would be originally. I really enjoyed this project because it took me out of my comfort zone and let me explore new techniques and styles that I wasn't necessarily good at before Art 2. I'm really proud on how it all turned out to look and also really liked working with acrylic paint. 

Up Close and Personal

For the up close and personal project I decided to draw a lion with chalk pastel and some pencil. For the lion's face and the hair I used chalk pastel. For the eyes I used pencil, I just thought the eyes had to be more detailed and with the chalk pastel the eyes would have come out too messy, in my opinion. The more I worked with the chalk pastel the more I began to like it. I think it's such a nice way to blend the colors and and to layer the colors on top of each other. On the face I did more of blending with the chalk pastels and later on decided to add some of the texture that is the fur. On the mane, I didn't blend the colors as much because I thought the lines would give it more texture. I learned how to blend the different colors of chalk pastels and improved the skill even more. It was difficult to layer the colors because they usually didn't layer as I intended them to, but in the end they all worked nicely together. Before starting this project I was a bit hesitant. I thought it would be too complicated to draw the lion and incorporate the many textures, but I decided on the lion despite that because I had always wanted to draw a lion. Once I started the project and started drawing the mane I stepped back and really liked how it was turning out. I didn't know I was capable of adding the texture and the many colors but in the end I really liked it. Before I started I already had in mind that I would blend the colors in the face and the colors in the hair. As I started drawing it I decided that the blending didn't show much on the brown paper so decided to make the colors bold so they would stand out. I used different colors that don't usually stand out on a lion's mane because I thought it would make it stand out. I used pinks, bright orange, and neon yellow to make the mane bright and shiny. Throughout my whole work I asked students from my table what colors would look better and the different techniques. This really helped me because it opened my mind to different techniques and different ways my lion could look good. I learned important skills on the way to handle chalk pastels from the students surrounding me. Either in the blending or the way to go about layering the colors. In the end, I was very proud of my project and surprised on what I could accomplish with my skill. 

Scientific

At the beginning of this project I had begun working on some ideas such as leaves and trees but in the end I decided to go with a lava lamp because I thought it would be something different and it would clearly depict the theme of scientific because of the use of electricity and light. While in class we worked with many types of mediums such as pencil, pen, and charcoal. I thought the mini lessons were very helpful in the development of this project because it helped me understand the importance of contrast and value. The mini lessons also helped me exercise my skill specially when working with the spheres and bottles. Contrast, I think, is a vital part of a work of art to make it appear more realistically. I used contrast by making the checkerboard tile very dark and making the rest like the lava lamp and the background much lighter. I decided to work with pencil on this project because for me it was the easiest and the one I had more experience with. I also enjoy working with pencil and it let me more room for mistakes than the pen and the charcoal. Plus, I think that charcoal is very messy and hard to work with. All throughout my artwork I used lines, these helped me get the contour of the lava lamp and also the shape of the bubbles in the lava lamp. With this project I didn't have much risks. Firstly, I was working with pencil which gave me the chance to erase any mistakes and create either darker or lighter values much easier. I tried to create the lava lamp as symmetrical as possible and also the checkerboards. The only risk, in the beginning, was leaving the page too blank. In the beginning I was only planning on drawing the lava lamp but it definitely looked empty, so in the very end I thought of adding the checkerboard which was a great idea because not only did it fill some of the blank space, but it also draws the a person's focus to the lamp. Overall I really enjoyed this project and was very satisfied with the end result. I enjoyed working with pencil and gladly I had an eraser because at times it would smear. In the end the positives outweighed the negatives and it ended up being a decent piece of artwork. I was honestly surprised at how well it turned out, well that being my opinion.