Amusement

For our amusement project I decided to create a world of dream and fantasy, since many find comfort and amusement in world of myth and wonder. I incorporated variety in my piece by adding multiple characters both good and bad and then created an atmosphere that shaped their personality. I wanted soft materials and dark rigid shapes as well as smooth light colors. In my piece I used a little bit of everything from watercolor to fabric and colored pencils. At first I was confused on how to put this all together, but I knew I wanted there to be a splice of everything in it. In order to make it work I had to spread the different mediums all over the page to get everything to blend smoothly. Our time spend on our visual journal gave us a chance to be creative and test out new materials as well as help us to decide which ones we liked best. I found out that gluing things on top of fabric comes off easily. Some challenges I faced are determining where to place certain mediums and how to mix specific themes together in a way that makes them belong.

Non Traditional Portrait

After deep consideration and thought I chose myself, because even though I have many people that I love I wanted others to see me in a different way.I spent an eternity, digging through the depths of my brain, trying to uncover the things that make me who I am. When I had found a sufficient supply of ideas, I began to eliminate them by efficiency and methodically. Finally, I came across 3 ideas 2 of which seemed impossible. The third was excruciatingly time consuming, but I had found it to be the one with most rewards. I had decided on compiling my piece with the medium of...The Apex High School Marching Band. This material proved to be difficult, but in the end it helped to show how much of an impact marching band has made on me in the past two years. I feel it is important to create the person you chose out of something that defines them, because it helps you to see their personality as well as their looks. I took a risk when I chose the difficult medium of The Marching Band. I had to draw the layout and place everyone, while finding a time for them to all meet me, and didn't interfere with practice. My choices made the picture feel personal. I used the band that I'm in and the field that we practice on, which made the photo special to me.

Sticky Situation

For sticky situation, I sketched out idea's which consisted a tower of candies, crayons lit like candles and a pile of glue splayed on a table with strung beads and ribbon. After a long elimination process I decided this would be the funnest and more colorful out of all the other choices. I think my ideas were pretty interesting, but not too far out of the box. I was able to incorporate rhythm and pattern with the beads and the colors. I chose to use acrylic because I wanted a solid feel to the painting and I wanted to be able to blend colors easily. The acrylic made it easy to add highlights to the lighter regions of my painting, and easier to add dark spots to the shadier ones. The mini lessons helped me to think about all the ways I could use each paint, by trying different brushes and different surfaces.

We got to design shoes :o

Our school got an amazing opportunity to be entered in he Vans competition and although my design was not picked, I am _very_ pleased with this design. I was up against tons of artists who are more experts on design than I am and yet I feel accomplished because I tossed so many ideas for these shoes out and was constantly gulping up new ones to test out. I like how this project prodded at my more creative side, it gave me a chance to scrawl ideas around until I was satisfied. Because this project helped my creative side to show, I would probably guess that I may actually try to decorate some shoes later on in life. Who knows? Life is full of experiences that I wanna try, and for art in general there are hundreds! :3

We bleached T-Shirts in art~ < o w o >

To relax a bit after our Landscape Painting, we got a chance to be outside and bleach some black t-shirts. I, being a music lover, couldn't resist making a shirt with the word "Bass" taped to the top. While we had the option to dip ours in bleach, I resided on sprayed mine lightly because I loved the light dots the bleach left on the black shirt. It was a fun project because we got to move around and be outside instead of sitting behind closed doors. Moving around and changing your surroundings while working always gives me a new perspective, makes everything a bit more exciting and helps to break the sadness of a boring, routine. I'm glad we did this project because every seemed tired of painting for so long. I really love the shirt I got out of this and have worn it a couple times since I made it already. I can see myself actually doing this on my own quite soon, because it is simply and is a great way to customize clothing. < > w < >

Landscape Painting~ ^^

For my landscape painting, I wanted to experiment with different styles and compositions to create a storm  over a lake. I haven't been able to paint since sixth or seventh grade in middle school and I was really excited to work on getting better. I decided to attempt to compose a scene that would appeal to me and marvel me every time I looked at it. I started with a concept based around water because it is my favorite element. First I began to compose my painting, which started with me forming different angle view sketches and mentally adjusting minor details. After toggling my brain, I finally decided I wanted a lake in the front of my painting, buzzing with bouncing water droplets, and giant, husky trees being sunk down by the heavy downpour of rain. Which would all be slightly illuminated by the clouds and high up ripples of lightning. I wanted to add the feel of a more gloomy scene while maintaining a thin wave of comfort. My light source was subtle and faintly created by the far away flashes of light the storm had brought. I used that to add value and shade to my trees as well as my lake. The objects I painted worked perfectly with my color scheme analogous blue, blue-green and green. I attempted to widen my variety of brushstrokes in this painting. I dabbed small strokes on the lake for a rain affect and I tried longer strokes for the trees. For the clouds I used a sponge because it gave the wispy, almost non-existant form. The shading was rather fun, I got to create  darker areas and lighter areas to make my painting look and feel more alive. I'm glad I was finally able to paint again and I'm proud to say I was able to use the brushes and the paints I bought for home confidently~ 

My Pastel :3

I began to plan my composition by trying to figure out which objects would look best together and which ones could be spread out. Then I began to doodle thumbnail sketches, which are small sketches that help you determine your layout. The viewfinder also helped me when I wanted to figure out how I wanted to see the picture, such as from which angle and how close or how much I would see. To make the items in my pastel drawing appear three-dimensional, I used shading and changed the value of the color to try and re-create lighting affects. In order to create a light source I used a single light in one place, which acted as a guide.

Clay Project

Medium: Clay
Size: 3.5 inches tall and 1 foot and 1 mm wide at the top.
The design element that was stressed most for this project was form. I, being indecisive and always willing to experiment and create something unique, I decided to create an eight pointed star, that when placed in my square slump mold, formed a flowery look. I liked how the slump mold helped the points upward, and allowed them to touch gently. From this project I learned that in everything you design, form and shape matter. Just one slight of the hand could cause something delicate to break or to wriggle around and wedge itself uncomfortably, causing cracks. If I were to do this project again, I would want to apply the red clay thicker, because it seemed to have lightened in the kiln, and maybe attach the points together a bit better. Although it was a bit of a wilder design, which took a bit of effort, I'm very proud of how it turned out. I love working with clay and although I may not have the delicate hands for it yet, I hope I do one day. This piece of art actually holds my little trinkets and pens for now, and is a constant reminder that, "No, I am not the best, but I am improving, bit by bit, and  loving it every step of the way." ^^