Charcoal - BoraBora
I chose to draw the tallest mountain in BoraBora, because its on my top ten list of places I want to travel to, and also because I'm a very adventurous person and I picture myself here; somewhere far away in a warm tropical place and touching the clouds. That is where I would feel the most free and and at peace with myself. My inspiration was my uncle, he travels to so many different places all around there world. I have always wanted to be like him and travel everywhere I could squeeze into a life time, and my Uncle loved BoraBora so much he named his dog after the island. In the picture I drew, I removed some of the smaller islands in the background because I wanted to focus on the mountain. The biggest challenge I faced was probably drawing the vegetation because it was so short and small it was hard to pick up on and especially with charcoal it would have been hard to draw every little plant. Instead I drew the vegetation in a rough way so that it contrasted with the softness around it. Something I wish I could change would be the background because for some reason it looks a little empty to me. I like that I was able to fit lot of different values in and I'm proud of the way everything's form turned out because I struggle in that area and I worked hard to improve my skills.
Graffiti - UNIQUE
One of the struggles I face daily is being able to be myself. I find it hard to act like myself because I'm scared of being, judged, criticized, and abandoned for acting the way i want to. Due to my social issues I chose the word "UNIQUE". I feel everyone (including myself) should be able to be comfortable being themselves without the fear of being prosecuted. As a people we should be free to be who we are and do what we wont without the constriction of societies demands of us. I modified a couple things but the biggest thing that I did change was the second "U". Originally it was supposed to go from brown to a light tan color to represent people of different races, but I couldn't find the correct colors for either of them and I didn't know how to make tan with out a brown, so I decided to just fade it into colors I already had. I like the way that the Jiggly Puff turned out, even though one eye is not in line with the other, and I also like the way the Nintendo controller turned out, since it does look extremely similar to what it would look like in real life. I wasn't sure how the "N" would turn out but I like the way the darker green contrasts with the yellow. I believe I used for well in the pokemon and in the rainbow "U". I think I could have used more lines to define the letters better. Something I would change would be the size of the controller, I would have made it a lot bigger, but then it wouldn't have all fit on the paper. I think I could have spaced the letters better but I'm okay with the way it turned out. I think I grew as an artist because it helped me become more creative and helped me bring my own feelings and opinions into my art work. It helped me become more creative because I had to think of a lot of different things or uses of symbolism I could have used in my art work. I also think the project helped me put more of myself into my work, because it thought me I had to start my art with think about what I feel and transition that into my art.
Ink - Sunflower
I decided to make a sunflower, or a flower in general, for my ink project, because I wanted to create an object that had some sort of sentimental value. Sunflowers are so beautiful, and resemble happiness and positivity my life. Sometimes I think people to stop all the busyness of daily life to just stop and enjoy the small things that make a world brighter. I think the way I drew the petals could have been more organized and that the shading could have blended more into the general direction of the hatching I made. I also wished I would have made the hatching on the petals smaller and more detailed and less broad. What I like most about my project is the center part of the flower, I really like the way it looks with the scumbling and the stippling.I really like the how I shaded around the center part of the flower and how the value looks a lot darker but it looks realistic. I am also pleased with the variety of marks I used (like stippling, hatching, etc). I happy with the fact that there is lots of contrast, I think theat the negative space looks cool against the lighter petals and that the petals in the back of the flower actually look like they are in the back because I made them darker than the other petals on top. shade of the petals and how yo can tell which flowers in the back. I also like the way I decided to position the flower. It was really hard not being able to erase my mistakes. I had to try and think of ways to cover things up. I accidentally smeared the ink in a couple places, but I kinda covered it up by making the hatching darker and making shadows. If i could change my project I would get rid of the bold creases in the petals and and made the hatching in the petals more realistic looking. I also think I could have made some of the negative space darker. Overall I think it is okay, but I think I could have done a couple things to make the picture look a lot more realistic. I changed a lot of my plans since I wrote my guiding question but I think it still fits my piece because I mainly used hatching and cross hatching.
Grid Project - Zorro
For my grid project I chose to draw my dog Zorro. I chose to draw her because her image deals a lot with proportion, and because I love her! I think it pretty much looks like what I intended it to be, except I was originally going to make the back ground black. I decided to change it to pink and purple because black would look too much like her fur. I really like the way the pink and purple contrast with the more neutral colors on my dog. I like this better because it matches her personality better. I really like the way the way her face and upper head turned out. I also like the way the dog looks like its moving or real, and just not a drawing of a dog. Something I don't really like the way her ear looks, but that's how it looked in the picture I took of her, so that's how I drew it. It was folded over so it was a really awkward shape, but I didn't know how to draw it normally, so I just left it the way it was in the picture. I don't really like the way the fur looks on the bottom, it looks really unrealistic compared to the rest of the picture and I didn't know how to fix it. In real life all of her chest fur was white. Because of the light in the actual picture I couldn't tell where separate strands of fur were, so I added a couple chunks of greyish hair to add detail instead of it being all white, but it looks weird. In the actual picture there is a huge space that's just a white glare form the lighting and I had to improvise for what was there. I'm not sure if I did it exactly correct, but I think I got it mostly right. I did a lot of blending in this piece to make the grey fur on the chest and the pink and purple background. As a whole I really like the way my project turned out, I think it looks realistic and I chose the colors in the background well. I learned that as your drawing something it may not look right, but once its completed as a whole all the pieces fit together. I think that the grid helped me out a lot to make my drawing look more realistic and I'm super happy about that, because I think this is one of the best drawings I have ever done.
Portrait - Gaby
For my portrait I chose to draw my cousins daughter Gaby. I chose to draw her because, I wanted to draw someone who meant a lot in my life and I am really close to her. I don't get to spend much time with her and I think it is a great way to remember her by. I've never drawn a realistic portrait and, I think I did pretty well for my first time. I practiced drawing the nose a lot, to be able to get the values right, and I think I did pretty well but it still kinda looks a little messed up. I also really like the way I was able to make the stuffed animal look. I think that the texture is really good and I was able to get it to look soft and squishy. I don't really like the background.Originally I did want to put anything in the background and i just wanted to have like a shade of grey but I thought that was too bland. I had no idea what to do with the background, but Ms. Peters gave me the idea to blur out the background, I wasn't quite sure how to do that, so I made the background with scribbley lines and I blended it a lot! I think I could have done something better but I was pressed for time and it was the best I could for the time I had left. Something I do like about the background is how the two trees come around and make a halo thing around her, and the values in the trees. Gaby's hair looks kind of still and I think I could have gotten the texture and shape of the hair better, but i don't think that it looks that bad. Her right arm looks kinda weird and I'm not quite sure why, I think it is because i made it really light and I didn't make the values dark enough and you can barely distinguish the wrist and hand from the grass in the background. Her shirt in the actual picture had a bunch of cute owl and hearts on it; at first I thought I was going to add that in, but towards the end I decided it would be too much and not to put that in. At first I thought the body was way to big for the head but when it came all together, it looks kind of right. I think I grew a lot because I drew this; I never thought I would be capable of drawing something that looks kind of realistic. This is my last piece in my PV drawing class and I think I ended a lot better than I started, I'm really proud of my improvement and I cant wait for future art classes.