Blind/Modified Contour

Hand Sketch

Art Three Final Exam

Papa (charcoal)
I Create Original Art: My source of inspiration was my grandfather.  My other grandfather passed away at the beginning of this year and I wish that I had done some kind of portrait of him while he was living, so I decided to do one of my other grandfather while he is still here.  My own idea was to do charcoal but I had never done a portrait of someone while they were in front of me the whole time. I was very nervous doing it, but I think it turned out great.  Other than a few things like the face shape, I think it looks similiar to my grandfather or as I call him "Papa." 

I Take Risks: I was not sure about the whole portrait aspect of this project. Trying to portray someones features exactly how they are is very hard to do on paper. Everything needs to look exactly the same or it won't look like the person.  I was very scared in doing that part of it.  The only think about this project that I was familiar with is the medium which was charcoal.  And I'm still learning so I think this project turned out pretty good. 



Mountains (Acrylic)
I Developed My Art Making Skills: I have done projects with acrylic paint before, however I have never been very good at it.  A new technique I used was the darker values in the trees and the values in the shadows on the mountain.  I tried at least 5 times with the trees trying to make them better than before and finally I found a way with the help of Mr. Sands.  I went with a dark shade of green and then went over with lighter yellows and greens.  I used a fan brush and used downward strokes so it looked like pine trees.

I Solve Problems: At first this project was supposed to be a city in Greece with a beautiful sunset.  However, while I was painting I realized that I wouldn't be able to pull off the city like I imagined it in my head so instead I changed it to a mountain.  I had already done the sky for my city so I left it and just went over the town with the mountain.  I was really disappointed that my Greece city didn't work but as my mountain started to become a mountain I was very proud of myself and how I turned around my project into something that now hangs on my kitchen wall because it matches the colors.  (My mom liked it a lot)



PART TWO:

If I could do over a project I would redo my text art project.  It was the first project we did in class and I don't think I liked the theme so I didn't really take much time into thinking of doing something cool.  I do however like my idea with class on class but I wish I had used different glue.  I ended up ruining it in the beginning by accidentally gluing glass on wood and it made a huge stain that stayed for the whole project.  Then we took it off of the board and just left the glass letters on the glass background.  Then I had the idea of putting peoples faces behind the glass to show how people may not look shattered on the outside but on the inside they could be breaking down.  I tried this, but the face behind it didn't look how I wanted it to look so I just had people hold the plates of glass with letters on them in a row and pose for a picture. I have mixed feelings on this project and I don't really know how I would redo it.  Maybe I would start with not having stains on my glass from using the wrong glue.  Then maybe find a way I could put faces in the back without it looking totally ridiculous.

Watercolor: Giraffe

For this project I wanted to do something with watercolor. My favorite animal is a giraffe so this is what I decided to do.  The first thing I did was the brown spots and then I started filling in the body. Next, I made the background by doing green bushes that weren't real life looking which contrasted with the real life looking giraffe.  This is what the final product looked like:

My First Abstract Piece

After visiting the National Art Museum in DC, I wanted to do something that inspired me from what I saw there.  I wanted to try abstract painting because I had never done it and I thought the abstract pieces at the museum were cool.  This is how my painting started out.  It all looked really choppy and I wasn't really happy with it at all.  Then I started blending the colors in more and making it darker on the outside and bringing different values in.  This is what it turned out looking like:

Lions Eye

This is an acrylic painting of a lions eye.  I layered on a bunch of colors so that the fur would look more realistic.

Acrylic Paint--Representational

For my next project, I chose to explore acrylic painting.  I had tried acrylics my freshman and sophomore year of high school, but I was never any good.  This time, junior year, I decided to try it again and try to take more time on it.  I chose a couple of photos of mountains and started painting.  I worked on the mountains after I had finished the sky.  The mountains were hard because there were a lot of shades of blue and greys and white that I had to try to incorporate into them.  I did the trees last.  The trees were difficult for me because I had to find a way to make the trees in the front pop out instead of them all becing the same.  So I went back and put dark, dark green trees first and then put lighter colored trees after.  I incorporated yellows, greens and reds into the trees in the front.  Now that it's done I am very happy that I decided to try acrylic again.