Lei-ing Around Diamond Head - Landscape - Project 7

I have had a lot of trouble in the past with using acrylic paints and making my paintings "too cartoony" or just not adding enough details so the piece looks bland and doesn't have any depth.  It's still not fantastic but I am very proud of how much I improved my skills during this project.  I've gotten a lot better at blending and I am usually horrible at painting clouds, but I managed to make them look like actual clouds and not weird abstract white things floating in the sky.  I took the original photo this past summer on a trip to Hawaii and I fell in love with how colorful the landscape was and how laid back the lifestyle was there.  I am one of those people who loves summer and absolutely despises the cold, so by doing this painting I created my own little bit of summer when it was really about ten degrees outside.  I surprised myself and did most of the painting relatively fast but saved painting the lei for the very end.  I cranked most of it out but had a LOT of trouble with adding shadows and making sure the whole thing still looked light and flowery, instead of a muddy unrecognizable mess.  I took a step back and figured out where I needed to push some values and where I needed to define the flowers so they didn't look muddy and misshapen.

Bionic Elk - Mechanical Animal - Project 6

For my mechanical project I decided to draw a bionic elk using black and white charcoal pencils.  I got the idea from looking at the light up reindeer decorations people were putting up around christmas time.  I didn't have any ideas for what I was going to do on the body minus using goggles for his eyes and the lights wrapped around his antlers, but I knew if I got everything down on paper I would get inspired and figure out what I wanted to do.  I watched transformers recently and got the idea for the design of the ribs from one of the decepticon's that looked like a scorpion. The spine and the tail looked similar to the ribs in my animal, and I decided to have half the ribs be natural and the other half were mechanical.  For the rest of the bits on the inside of my elk, I looked at different tattoos people had that looked like parts of machines, as well as photos of gears and springs from motorcycles.  It was tricky trying to make the parts of the elk look different because it incorporated all different materials, but I asked for a lot of ideas from friends and they helped me come up with ways to blend the black and white pencils to make different shades of greys, as well as how to make the whites brighter and the blacks darker.  Charcoal is probably my favorite medium so learning new tricks for using the pencils and blending the colors was a lot of fun for me and I was thrilled with how my piece turned out.

Pieces of Me - Portrait - Project 4

For this piece I decided to photoshop a picture and use photo transfer, but I took it a step further. Instead of just putting the picture on a regular canvas, I made the piece even more abstract than it already was and put it on a collection of mini canvases that were all different shapes.  I wasn't sure about how I would arrange the canvases or if the finished product would even look like me still, but I took the risk and put them together like a puzzle that doesn't exactly fit.  The canvases aren't arranged to be a usual square or rectangle, but I managed to make the picture itself line up and I am very happy with how the whole thing turned out.

It was difficult to make out certain parts of my face, mainly my eye, after I transferred the photo, so I asked some of my friends how I could make it stand out more and they gave me the idea of painting over my eye.  Instead of making the eye look exactly as it did originally with all different colors, I stuck with the monochromatic theme and painted it in different shades of blues.  I was excited with how it turned out and the eye turned out to be my favorite part of the piece.

Stuck in the Clouds - Free Choice - Project 5

This project is a chalk pastel drawing of a building I saw on the way to a stargazing tour on the Big Island of Hawaii.  I have made projects in the past using pastels, but I have never used them on something so detailed.  I wasn't sure when I started the project if I wanted to follow through with the pastels or if I wanted to restart and make the piece black and white, but I realized if it wasn't in color, nothing about the piece would stand out.  I am more comfortable with drawing in black and white, but the lack of color would have taken away from the piece, so I chose to step out of my comfort zone and continue with the color version.  I had a lot of trouble getting the smaller details to look realistic using regular chalk pastels, so I had to get smaller pastels that were designed for detailed drawings.  The smaller pastels were a bit tricky at first but I finally figured out how I could utilize them and ended up being pretty successful in drawing clean lines and adding the grass.  I still prefer the regular pastels because they are definitely softer and easier to blend, but I had a lot of fun making the piece and practicing my skills with the small pastels. I actually had a lot of trouble doing this piece because I didn't have much inspiration or motivation to do this project, so instead of torturing myself, I went ahead and worked on some other projects and eventually came back to this when I was ready to get it done.  I obsessed over getting everything exact in the picture but when I stepped away for a bit and came back to the piece, I was able to look at it with fresh eyes and a clear head on what I needed and wanted to do next. 

Hawaiian Hallway - Interior Space - Project 3

For this project we had to pick an interior we wanted to create and the first thing my mind went to was a picture I took when I went on a trip with my best friend over the summer of an abandoned building.  The original picture I took looked like it was basically all black and white in the first place except it had a few brown tones in it, but I wanted to stick with blacks and whites for this piece because it seemed like a fun challenge.  I've always loved using charcoals, so I chose that as my medium, but drew on a black piece of paper rather than plain old white paper. 

This is an in progress picture of the piece when I was still figuring out what parts of the original photo I wanted to include since the paper was shaped differently.  I had a lot of fun creating this piece and got a lot of good feedback from others during class that watched me create this.  I got good tips on blending from my classmates and figured out a few good techniques to get the shading right.  

This picture is the final product.  I ended up adding the ceiling in the picture which I was hesitant to do because I didn't want it to take away from the focus on the door and the flooring, but I loved how it turned out.  While making this I learned how to blend the white and black charcoal to make different variations of grey's for the board that were leaning against the wall and for smaller details. I always ridicule the little details in my pieces so I tried my best at adding all the knots and spots where the paint was chipped in the door and I am very pleased with how it turned out.  The texture in the wood looks fantastic and I can't help but daydream about going back to this exact place. 

Practice With Oil Paints

In class this year one of our goals is to challenge ourselves and try out mediums we have never used to make a piece.  We never did much when it came to oil paints and I was ready to be adventurous, so our class decided to experiment and test out the paints before we started our new projects.  We painted pictures of fruits using both pallet knives and regular brushes and this is how mine came out.

The first picture I have here was made with regular brushes and I was extremely pleased with how it turned out.  I learned that you had to be careful and patient with the oil paints because they are thicker and don't dry quickly, but I eventually caught on and learned new techniques for blending and adding highlights. I wanted to keep the whole picture bright so I chose bright colors for the background as well to keep it light and happy.  I was afraid the bright green would mess up the leaves that are on top of the orange but I was able to make a lighter green for the back and loved how the leaves didn't get lost in the picture. 

I have come to love using oil paints with brushes but I had a lot of trouble using the pallet knives.  I didn't get a chance to finish the practice piece with a pallet knife so I can't say I learned a lot from the experience but hopefully I can try this again soon and maybe learn some new techniques.  All I know so far is that it was very hard to try to do highlights and shadows because I couldn't thin the paint out much and it became sort of messy looking.  I prefer using brushes at this point but pallet knives seem like they would be a lot more fun to use on a painting that's not this small.  

Gaston Vibes - Reflection - Project 2

I have struggled in the past with colored pencils because I am usually never satisfied with the blending and it's not always easy to get the right coloring. I had to learn how to blend more and layer the colors, and I'm pretty happy with how the final product turned out.  I had trouble blending the clouds but compared to the original picture I based this off of the highlights and colors are very similar.  I definitely gained a lot of skill using prisma colored pencils and I've definitely come a long way compared to old projects I tried doing using this medium.  When adding details and shadows became challenging I had to just take a step back and decide what I had to add or fix that was necessary, and what wasn't worth obsessing over.  I'm glad I used that strategy or I would have spent a lot more time than I did drawing and redrawing bits and pieces that were already good.  It was a bit of a stressful process but the textures in the water and the trees in the back look great and I love how the "reflections" and the shadow of me in the kayak turned turned out in the water.

Chaco Livin - Object - Project 1

I have never used oil paints before this project except for a small practice painting of an orange.  I originally planned to use pastels to create this project but I decided to step out of my comfort zone and it took awhile but I finally figured out how to handle the paint since it takes a lot longer to dry than acrylics. I started to have second thoughts about working on this because it took forever to get the right textures and adjust the lighting but I kept at it and I'm happy with how the shoes came out and how the light reflecting off the background looks.  This picture was a lot more intricate and required a lot more attention when it came to adding value but I still enjoyed the learning process that came with the project.  I struggle with obsessing over little details sometimes so I had to take a step back and decide if certain parts were really worth stressing over.  I asked a few people for their opinions and they all said it looked great but if I get the chance I'd like to possibly edit part of the molding but other than that minor bit, I wouldn't change a thing about this piece.  I was asked a lot in class why I decided to paint Chacos and the best answer I could give people was that my sister and I live in them 24/7 and she gave me a pair for my birthday one year and it was probably one of the best presents I've ever gotten. Chacos describe my sister and I's personalities perfectly so I wanted to depict that in this by using the bright colors and making it an overall happy painting.

Missing Piece - Parallel Project Reflection

   For this project I had to work through some of the challenges that were thrown at me along the way and be careful not to add too much or too little detail to certain spots to make it look better. I was thinking at one point I could just use stencils to make the rhino but I was told I needed to challenge my artistic abilities and try to just paint it by hand. Considering how it worked out I'm pleased with the piece and even though it's not fully finished yet, I'm still excited to see the final product.

   I had to practice a bit with stippling and getting the right shades of paint for different shadows, but they turned out pretty well. I wasn't sure if I'd get the paint in the right spots but the stippling really added to the texture and made the rhino so much better than before. Instead of choosing regular painting to create the texture of the skin, the stippling did that for me and made the skin look a lot more realistic and almost rough looking.

Parallel Project Preview

I used many of my own unique ideas in this piece, and found it to be one of my most successful pieces this year. Our teacher told us to create a piece based on a current event we found, and I found on poachers who hunt down rhinos and cut off their horns so they can be used for many reasons like for medicines or just to make large sums of money. I decided to base my piece off of some of the pictures I found of the injured rhinos to make my piece, and when I thought about what mediums to use, I had the idea of using a puzzle with missing pieces to better represent the message I was trying to give off. 

I don't know of any pieces in particular that are like this one but I got the idea from a puzzle I once had of some wild animals in africa, and if you took out certain pieces of the puzzle, parts of the animal's faces or bodies would be missing. I took the idea and ran with it and luckily found the perfect picture to help me create my piece. 

My artwork is intended to show that if we take advantage of beautiful creatures like rhinos, we are taking a part of their identities away for our own selfish purposes. The issue I primarily examined was the problem our world has with poachers, and how we need to do a better job of giving these animals the proper treatment they deserve and protecting them from any danger that does not normally occur in their natural habitats. This artwork shows a bit of what I am like because I am very aware of problems such as these and I care a lot about what we do with our wildlife around the world. We need to protect animals like these because if we don't, there's a good chance our future generations will lose them and never get the chance to know what rhinos are like or even get to see them in real life. 

wounded rhino article link: http://www.news24.com/Green/News/Wounded-Tala-rhino-goes-missing-20140521

Apex High Free Expression Tunnel Perspective Project Reflection

During this project we had to learn to take things one step at a time and not freak out if something went wrong. We had a few arguments along the way but got through them when we took a few steps back and looked at the piece as a whole, and came up with solutions to whatever problems we had. 

We collaborated a lot during this project and had to consider many different ideas while working on the piece. It was hard to try to add everyone's ideas but we managed it and had a pretty diverse set of decorations on the wall. 

I asked other people in my group countless times about any feedback they had on my piece and I was glad because I received great tips and advice on how to improve the parts that I was doing. My group helped me a lot and we all became much closer while working on this piece, and they inspired me to keep working even when it seems like you messed up. If I kept moving forward, I could fix any mistakes I made and I knew they were there to help me.

Perspective Project Preview

I used my own unique ideas in this piece by coming up with cool looking "graffiti" to have on the walls of our Free Expression tunnel like the "Class of 2013/14" and the multiple arrows in a line. There is a free expression tunnel on NC State's campus that we took inspiration from for our mural and we decided to recreate it but with a twist. We wanted something that represented our own school's creativity and the free expression tunnel did just that. 

We had to teach ourselves how to draw in perspective with chalk, which is harder than it looks, to make the piece look more realistic and give it a 3-D effect. Once we figured out a process that worked, it actually became a lot of fun to work on the piece and see our abilities grow. We gained plenty of new skills while using the materials at hand, and I never knew how much I could do with simple sidewalk chalk. I learned how to create more details with different shades of the same color, and give something more depth by adding a few shadows. When we started we weren't sure how we were going to decorate the piece, even though we did have some ideas like in our sketch books. 

My group and I had to start out with a good background color and when we were coloring things in, it was difficult to not use up all of a certain color of chalk so we had to alternate colors which we were afraid would mess up the flow of the piece and make it look messy. It turned out to be okay and we were definitely pleased with our hard work. We hit a few bumps in the road but we easily came up with new solutions to the problems like when we used the wet pieces of chalk and paper towels to buff out the clumps, we had a bit difficulty on some bricks so we actually had to use regular paint brushes to "paint the chalk on" so it would spread better. It felt weird to use the brushes but they did wonders in helping us.