Half of Me- Unconventional Self Portrait

I worked with my classmate Gabby, and we couldn't decide who to do a portrait of, so we thought, why not do both of us? We ended up cropping half of both our faces together and making it one. We went to the store and found strings of beads that we thought would be perfect for our project, and decided to use them to outline the features in our faces. We used photoshop to manipulate the picture a bit, then traced the picture onto a piece of cardboard, and painted over the lines to make the features stand out. We were kinda nervous that cropping our faces together wouldn't work out and would ruin the piece, but our skin colors contrasted very well and made the portrait look really cool. Another problem we ran into was trying to make the hair look okay, and since we have completely different hair types we didn't know if it would make the picture look weird. Once we glued the beads on, it actually made it look really cool and created a nice contrast. By making the decision to put our faces together and add beads, we made the piece look really cool and different from traditional portraits. Together we have vibrant, fun personalities, so we were able to show that by incorporating the different colored beads. 

 

Macaroni Mayhem - Sticky Situation

I had only thought about a few things when I started brainstorming, but never really decided on any of those. I went to my friends house that night for dinner and had Mac N Cheese, and came up with the idea of painting that. Were you able to think outside the box when you were thinking about ideas? I was able to think outside the box because other people were doing simple things like gum or candy, but when I decided on Mac N Cheese, I came up with so many different ideas for the design and how to make it look sticky. I made a neat pattern by using raw macaroni noodles and gluing them to the canvas so they made the shape of one big noodle. The piece still seemed a little plain, so I scattered more raw noodles around the canvas, as well as painting some in the background. It really brought the picture to life, and I was able to make it look extra cheesy and sticky by using hot glue and painting over it so it looked like strings of melted cheese. I had a lot of fun using the macaroni, and this piece definitely helped me improve on mixing acrylics so I could make different shades of yellow for the cheese. It took me a few tries to find the right yellows but once I figured it out, it really helped improve the piece. The mini lessons we did helped me a lot with the shading on the macaroni I had to actually paint. It's still hard for me to get it just right but I feel like I did better with shading on this project compared to previous ones. 

Feline Focus - Up Close and Personal

When I was brainstorming ideas, one that immediately popped in my head was a close up of a cat eye. I chose this because when you look closely at a cat's eye, it's so intricate and the pupil tells a lot about the cat's current mood, so I thought this would be interesting to do. I added emphasis by making the eye the focus of the piece and putting a blue color that really made it stand out, as well as putting the white lashes on the picture to brighten up around the eye. I also added a little emphasis when I put some purple pieces of fur in the hair of the cat. I chose chalk pastels as my medium because I've worked with pens, pencils, and some acrylic paints, but I wanted to try something new with the chalk. The chalk was easier to blend and add texture to for this particular project which helped make the picture come to life. I took the risk of adding the white eye lashes and the whiskers on the bridge of the nose and eyebrow last. I was nervous they wouldn't show up that well and would just blend with the other colors I had already put on. If they hadn't shown up well, the eye wouldn't have looked as realistic and defined as it does with the lashes. The whiskers were very hard to make defined so it took me a few tries until the white color really stood out. The characteristics mainly included in this piece are medium and technique. I used chalk pastels as my medium and added so many different shades of brown, black, grey, white, and even purple to create contrast in the fur, and did a bright light blue color in the eye to really grab your attention. I used a lot of crosshatching when making the fur and since the paper was brown, I had to add white before I could color the eye blue. When it was time to add the blue, I rubbed the side of the chalk against the paper instead of the end to add texture to the eye. 

Worth 1,000 Words

                         

I thought of many solutions to what's the point and kept coming up with things like needles, pens, arrows, simple things that simply had sharp edges on them. After I though about it, I thought about point of views and came up with the idea of the point of view from a camera because it's a totally different take on "what's the point" and playing around with different angles of a Polaroid made me very excited. I showed contrast by using a simple black on white sketch for the top half of the piece and a busier white on black pattern on the bottom. I chose charcoal pencil and a white Prisma colored pencil for my medium as opposed to a regular pencil and pen. I chose this mainly because the charcoal was a bit easier to shade and blend with, and was more matte than regular led which leaves a shiny finish; I also used the white pencil because it showed up on the black paper very well and grabs your focus when you first look at the piece. I used a lot of shading in the process of making the camera and played with the shadows to really make it look 3-dimensional; I added an intricate paisley/zentangle pattern on the bottom to liven up the picture even more. I had never really worked with charcoal before but because of this project I came to find that it is now one of my favorite mediums and I would love to do more projects including this in the future. I did not take any particularly big risks, but I was a little nervous trying to sketch the pattern on the bottom half without having to erase and redraw different parts of it. The message I am trying to convey with this piece is that people shouldn't just look at the surface of something when they make judgments, do a little research and see things from all angles so you can get a better perspective on what something is really worth before you jump ahead and label it. The camera itself represents the surface of what we see, but when we look through the lens, we see something like the pattern coming out the bottom that's so crazy and beautiful and more than what we expected.

"Giraffe Closeup" Print

For my print, I chose to carve out a picture of a baby giraffe. I loved how the wrinkles looked all over his face, and when you looked at it all put together, you could see his happy expression. To start out, the class drew pictures of an animal and figured out we wanted it to look on our print; after we traced the sketch onto the linoleum, it was time to cut. We had to use speedball cutters to carve out the lines, which was a lot of fun, but it was tricky deciding which blade would do the best job. I was surprised at how well my project turned out overall, and I liked how the little details really enhanced it. The hardest part of the process, for me, was making sure I didn't add too many wrinkles to the sketch, so it would still look recognizable when I cut and printed; it took a lot of patience to make sure each step was done right. I have never cut linoleum so this was a new experience for me, but it was a lot of fun and I liked seeing the giraffe's face come to life.If I could I'd take him right out of the picture and keep him as a pet because he seems so adorable!

Frog Tongue

Today we worked on another picture with Photoshop and blended a frog with a human tongue. This task was a bit more difficult to do because we had to completely crop out part of an image and blend it in with another. When we added the frog to the tongue image, it obviously wasn't the same color, so we had to use a tool that copied parts of the tongue's texture and added it to the frog so it all looked like one image. Afterwards we added a shadow to complete the picture and give the tongue more definition and make it look more realistic. It's these types of pictures that make me lose my appetite; who would want to eat with a frog tongue! It was a lot of fun making this picture come to life, and learning how to manipulate photos was a cool experience. I really hope we use this more often in class because it's fun to put the paintbrushes and pencils down every once in awhile, and learn something completely different from what we're used to.

Angry Pancakes Photoshop

Today we played with Photoshop for a bit and learned how to put some fish jaws on a picture of pancakes. I've never used Photoshop before so this was a new experience for me. I had a lot of fun blending the pictures together and playing with the different hues and colors, as well as stretching a part of the image so I could put the jaws in. I never realized how simple the program is and how easily you can make monsters, such as this one, come to life. I'm happy with how my picture turned out and I can't wait to use it again for other assignments, and even personal projects I will want to do in the future.

Stencil Project

For this project we had to cut out multiple stencils so we could use them to create an image using different colored spray paints. It was fun to see the different blob-like shapes come together to create one big picture. This unit was a nice change from the usual painting with paint brushes, and we were able to learn how to use different colors for different layers. I was happy with how the face turned out and the different colors really complemented each other which, in my opinion, made the painting that much better. I'm excited because I'll be able to use these skills I learned with the spray paint when I want to make personal crafts at home as well. I can easily say this is one of my favorite units because I love using spray paint and watching the picture come to life was cool to see.

Contour Shoe Drawing

We focused on two different kinds of contour line drawings when we first started on this unit, and they helped us focus a lot on detail. Before this unit, when I would draw, I wouldnt focus on detail as much, but during the exercises we had to learn to slow down and include as much detail as we could. We were not supposed to pick up the pen while drawing, and use one continuous line, so if you wanted to avoid making mistakes, you had to be extra careful. It was a lot of fun doing this unit and I learned a lot about paying attention to detail and taking my time to make sure it look good. I feel like I'll use the same mentality a lot more with my drawings to make sure they come out detailed and clean.

iPad Value Study

Using pastels was one of my favorite things to use; it was a nice change from the usual pencil or pen sketches, and i learned a lot about blending and adding shadows to a picture.  The layers pro app was also a lot of fun to use because it gave me a chance to use a wider range of colors to create the drawings, and made it easier to add more dimension. For both the pastels and the app you had to learn to be patient when blending; if you rush it, it will come out with lots of lines and look sloppy, but if you take your time, you can really add a lot of detail that will make the drawing look neat and realistic.  With the pastels however, you have to make sure to add the right amount of pressure when you press against the paper because if you added too much, you may ruin the sketch or mess up, and sometimes it was more difficult to make the shades flow together and not have lines.  The app was nice when you made mess ups because you could use the eraser or undo buttons and easily fix mistakes, and continue adding onto the drawing without smudges or bits of pastel shavings ruining lighter parts, and the lines were a bit easier to blend sometimes.  I learned a lot from my experiences in the past few days with the pastels and Layers Pro app; I mainly learned how important taking things slow and being patient with your work can improve a picture greatly, and adding value can make any object stand out.  I hope I can do more with values and pastels in the future because they really stand out and can be a lot of fun to make! 

Cartoon Skeletons

For my skeleton, I chose Woodstock the bird from Charlie Brown. I combined the human skeleton and bird skeleton in some ways to make it fit his character.  He stands like a regular person, but I left some parts of a bird's skeleton like the talons on his toes, as well as the tail, and beak.  Many bones were exaggerated to fit his body, and an example of that is when I stretched out a few of Woodstock's ribs to show how his stomach got its plump shape, as well as his feet because they were so long. I used simple things along with a spine that looks like a human's, and incorporated my own ideas for a bird's spine and was proud that  my idea fit Woodstock perfectly. I had a lot of fun creating this sketch because it gave us an idea on how to use our own creativity to make simple ideas or pictures even better.