Final Thoughts

There were many highlights I experienced from this semester. I think the most memorable of all was the self-portrait. I had many complications with that unit and I got very frustrated with it because of how detail oriented I am with everything. In the end though, I think that it was a positive experience because I learned how to effectively show different values just depending on how hard I pressed on the charcoal pencil. The unit also taught me a little about self-acceptance. Another highlight from this semester I think was the watercolor unit. Before I did this unit, I didn't realize how many different techniques you could do using watercolor. I thought it was really interesting how there were many different aspects and ways a watercolor painting could be created. I think after experiencing drawing and painting this semester, I have learned to not give up when tasks get too difficult which I think in turn made me a better artist.

Work of Art that I am the most proud of

The work of art that I am the most proud of is the watercolor landscape. I thought that this unit was really fun to do because I have always really liked watercolor paintings. I'm proud of this painting because it came out so much better than I thought it would. It is a close resemblance to the photograph that I was working from which I'm really happy with because I loved the photograph that I used. Doing this painting impacted my learning in a great way because I never really worked that in-depth with watercolor before, and this unit showed me how to paint well with them. Also, I thought it was very interesting to learn about the history of water color and how it originated before we started working on our painting.

Final Watercolor Landscape

Purpose: To use an demonstrate what you learned from the watercolor exercises you did in class to create your own landscape painting.

In my final painting, the techniques I used were gradient, watercolor pencil, salt over paint, and sponging. The watercolor pencil and the sponging techniques did not work out very well because their effect on the painting is not very visible. I tried to add the color pencil into the grass and the more-detailed trees but the colors did not show up very well. Also, using the sponge, I tried to make the land to the right of the river below the trees look more textured but the sponge did not create the effect that I wanted it to. Despite the two techniques that did not work out as well, there were two other ones that did. I used the gradient technique in the sky and I think that it worked out really well. It gave the painting a misty, cloudy effect which I really liked. The other technique I used that worked out well was the salt method. I used this in the bottom right corner on the end of the river and on a little bit of the land above it. The salt gave a good texture to that part of the painting which is what I wanted because in the picture I was working from, the water looked a little rocky and textured.
There are a few important concepts that I learned from this watercolor unit. When I first started this painting, I thought that it was difficult that we were only allowed to use two colors. As my painting started to progress, I started realizing that I could get many different shades of color from only mixing blue and yellow together. Another concept that I learned from doing this unit was to not add too much water into the paint or else the paint will run and the paper will curve. This lead to having to be extremely careful about not making any mistakes. With water color, it's almost impossible to cover something over once it's already been painted.

Watercolor Exercises and Techniques

Purpose:

To experiment with a variety of watercolor techniques;

To make connections between experimenting with watercolor techniques learned to creating your own landscape watercolor.

      

 After doing many different techniques experimenting with watercolor, I learned many different ways to create an interesting effect on how watercolor paint can show up on paper. Also, while doing the watercolor book, I was careful not to mix in too much water into my paints, which was my problem with the first watercolor technique collage (top picture) because the paints were just blending together and weren't very clear. I realized in order to get bold, visible colors (which is what I wanted), there has to be an equal balance between paint and water, and not more water than there is paint. With these thoughts in mind, I was able to create the techniques that I wanted without any complications.

Lino Prints

Purpose:

• To become familiar with basic printmaking history, processes, and artists
• To make connections between the Expressionist Art Movement and artists who worked in that style, including artists from our past and present;
• To respond visually to artists who work(ed) in the style of the Expressionist Art Movement, by creating a work of art in this style.
• To print 2 editions of 2 different drawings/designs, demonstrating understanding of the printmaking process.

At the start of the project, with my first drawing, I was having an extremely hard time trying to transfer it onto the linoleum. With each transfer I tried to do, the drawing came out more and more smudged and hard to see. I finally just decided to give up tracing and make the best of what I could see. With my second drawing, it worked out so much better because I just pressed the linoleum onto my drawing and pressed on it and it transferred.

One aspect of this assignment I’m the most proud of are the leaves underneath the fruit in both of my prints. I really like the way they turned out in the final prints because I think that they have a nice shape and texture to them. I was concerned that they would look a bit odd but I think they definitely add to the print and do not distract from the main subject.

Final Still-Life Painting

Purpose:

• To communicate all of your knowledge about color and painting techniques to create a final, more complex, still-life painting (than your smaller still-life studies);
• To use your knowledge about composition and placement to arrange your fruit and/or vegetable to create a strong composition.

Artist Studied: Vincent Van Gogh

Looking back at my still-life studies blog post, I did use some of the techniques I mentioned. I liked the idea of using a paintbrush instead of a palette knife because I felt like I was more in control of the paint. Also, blending was much easier using a paintbrush rather than a palette knife. However, I made the fruits look realistic instead of making them unusually colored. In a way though, I did use contrasting colors because I put a green apple and a red apple together in the same image.

Some important things I learned from doing this unit were to always manipulate the color from the paint bottle, how to make colors look darker without using black, and how to paint in the same direction as the patterns on the subject matter. First of all, if I had just used the colors from the paint bottles, the fruit would not end up looking “real” and 3-dimensional. It was a challenge to not use black in this painting, but I learned my way around that. You have to neutralize the color to make it look darker by adding its contrasting color. It was hard to get the color I wanted by doing this, especially with the orange, but eventually I got there. Finally, a very important thing I learned was to paint in the same direction as the pattern of the fruits. By doing this, I could make the fruits look like you could just pick them right out of the painting. This technique really helped with the red apple because that fruit in particular had a lot of detail. Overall, I learned many things from this unit.

Printmaking History, Processes, and Artists

         Over hundreds of years, many different types of printmaking have been used. Printmaking originally began in China in the 800s AD. Etching in particular, has been a part of European art since the 1300's. In the 1700s, Asian printmaking started to become a popular form of art. Printmaking was used through the 1800s-1900s to make advertising posters and early editions of books and newspapers. Some different types of printmaking include woodblock, screen-printing or silk-screening, linotype, and etching. Woodblock is with using wood, screen-printing is using fabric, linotype is using linoleum, and etching is using metal. Each of these methods all make different effects on printmaking and how the final product looks.

Still-life Studies

Purpose:

To use strong compositional skills to depict a fruit or vegetable,

To use knowledge of color and a variety of brush strokes to paint a still-life

As I begin my final still-life painting, I want to remember to give a good, strong shadow to the fruit or vegetable in my painting to make the object look grounded and not floating. I really liked my idea of using contrasting colors and switching them around in my two still-life studies. For the palette knife painting, I made the tomato yellow and the background purple. For the brushstroke painting, I switched the colors to make the tomato purple and the background yellow. For the final still-life painting, I think I will definitely use contrasting colors to make the object in the painting an unusual color and to make it stand out using a paintbrush instead of a palette knife.

Experimenting with Color & Painting Techniques

Purpose:

To review the meaning of color;

To practice mixing color and exploring a variety of brushstrokes

What is Still Life?

         Still life is considered as an art of drawing or painting of any household object such as a fruit, a vegetable, or a vase of flowers.  Artists create still life images in order to convey a natural beauty of their subject, a story or idea, or to show the abstract elements expressed in the visual elements.  The art of still life has been around since the time of the Ancient Greeks and Romans.  Subjects in still life usually had to do with some sort of symbolic reference of mythology until the 17th century.  Before the 18th century, still life was thought of as a lower form of art.  The work of Chardin and Cézanne changed these thoughts and still life became more popular.

Realistic Self-Portrait

      

While working on this assignment, I was giving many types of feedback. For example, I was told that the way I had originally drew my eyebrows, it made my portrait look angry. I fixed this by redrawing my eyebrows higher and spaced them out a little bit more. This feedback really helped my drawing look more like me. Another type of feedback I received was to make my values darker and more noticeable. I had a really hard time seeing the different values of my face so it was hard for me to tie them all together to make the portrait look more 3-dimensional. After many different critiques about values in my drawing, I was finally able to do my best to show the different values and the value changes throughout my portrait.

Looking back at my pre-instructional self-portrait, I realized that the head I drew was extremely small and oddly shaped. I feel like I didn’t have enough room to really show my facial features. I notice that my lips are very small and don’t line up with my eyes. Looking at my final, I notice that I tried my best to line up my lips so they match up with the very edge of my pupils. Also, I notice that I did not do any shading to show the shape of my nose or any other facial feature. In my final portrait, I tried to show a lightness and darkness to define my eyes, mouth and especially my nose.

Interesting Facts About the Color Yellow

~Yellow is the color that is often associated with deities in many religions

~In Russia, an informal term for an insane asylum used to be "yellow house"

~Marigold yellow is often associated with death in Mexican culture

~The color yellow is the first color the human eye processes

~Yellow is the only color that reacts badly with black.

Eyes, Nose, and Mouth Exercise

Purpose:

To demonstrate understanding of the structure for each feature: eyes, nose, & mouth;

To practice using black & white charcoal to render a drawing, using brown paper as the middle value.

Hopes & Aspirations

In order to be successful, I have to be proud of my work and I have to be interested in what I'm doing. If I don't find interest of any sort in an assignment, then my work will not be as successful and it won't have as great a quality as my work when I actually take interest in a project. For a teacher to help me be successful, they definitely have to be motivational and very encouraging. Also, another great quality a teacher could have is when I ask a question, the teacher should be able give a helpful response, not just something vague, and ask if I understand. With the help of a teacher including qualities like this, I can most certainly be successful.