Up Close and Personal

This is a drawing of soldier saying his goodbyes to his son before he heads off to war. The idea of "Up Close and Personal" came from the idea of a man spending some personal time with his son before or after he goes off to war. The emphasis was made by softening the lines and shading of the train in the background, and making the man and his son bolder. Pencil was chosen to make the picture resemble a black-and-white photo from the 1940's. Emotion was used to help the impact of this drawing, since people can relate to having a loved one going off to war, they can understand the emotion the boy is feeling just by looking at him and know the feeling the piece evokes from their own experience.

What's The Point?

The theme of this piece was "What's The Point?" The point is the compass, which will point in any direction. To medium used was a combination of charcoal pencils and black pastels. The charcoal pencils were used to draw outlines, and to emphasize certain objects, such as the compass, the mountains in the background, along with the railing and the hand. The pastel was used for shading in order to create shadows used to contrast the bright areas to the dark areas. The pastel was rubbed out on the paper to create areas that were darker or lighter than others. The reason pastel was chosen over charcoal was because it blends best, and creates better shadows. The result is smoother and more believable shadows and surfaces.

Pastel Still Life- Soda Love

The composition of this piece was a cool color scheme, which was chosen based on the colors of the cans as well as the colors of the bottle. Thumbnail sketches were used to help decide what point of view to use, as well as the position of the cans and bottle. Thumbnail sketches are small sketches that help determine what kind of viewpoint and angle you want to use for the artwork. The viewfinder helped decide on the composition by showing what the cans and bottle were like from a certain angle. The cans and bottle were made three-dimensional using shading and perspectibe, which make them appear as seperate objects that had space between them. The lightsource was created by having a lighter value in the background and having the value become darker as the space became more distant from the lightsource.

Ceramics- Shallow Bowl

The medium of this project was a shallow bowl meant to hold fruits or chips. This bowl has a large size compared to the other pieces made. The design element the is stressed most is the curving of the bowl along with the design at the center. The technique that was used was to use another bowl as a template, sculpt the clay on it, and remove it once dry. The bowl's purpose is to serve as a fruitbowl or a bowl for chips. The design in the center was based on French symbols and paintings. The symbol was first scratched in when the bowl was removed from the template, then red clay was painted in so it would show up better. The red clay was painted before the bowl was placed in the kiln for the first time. If I could repeat this project and change the bowl in any way, I would make the center design more neat, and I would make the edges more smooth. This project taught me that patience is needed for this kind of work, and you must be careful and thorough when making pottery or clay sculptures of anykind.

Acrylic Painting- Mountains, Fog, and Snow

 (Above) The completed sky and mountains

(Below) The sky and mountains along with the unfinished fog

 (Below) The finished painting

The painting is organized into four sections. The sky, the background, the middle ground, and the front ground. Atmospheric perspective was used on the mountains to help give a sense of realism and depth. Atmospheric perspective is when an object fades into the atmosphere. The farther an object is, the more faded it is in the atmosphere. The light source was created with a light purple in the dark purple sky, this helped determine where the objects in the painting would be bright and where they would be dark. The color scheme was an analagous scheme with cool colors. It used blue, green, and purple as the basic colors. The strokes used for the sky were long horizontal strokes that went across the canvas. The stroke used for the mountains were short up and down strokes, the fog strokes were curving with the fog clouds, and the the strokes used for the hills were curved and went along with the hills' slopes to help make it more realistic and make the hills seem seperate. Value was used to help emphasize depth and perspective, which helped maked the hills seem seperate, and make the mountains seem distant.

Charcoal Self-Portrait

This is a self portrait I did of myself using charcoal. First, to make sure the face was proportionate, the head was drawn out and the position of the eyes, mouth, nose, and ears were marked to make sure they weren't out of place. Next, a mirror was put in front of me to show my face as I worked so I didn't need to use a photo. After the face was drawn out lightly using charcoal, value was added to help make the picture three dimensional, and the lines were darkened or lightened. After that, a large piece of charcoal was used to fill out  the space surrounding the figure.

Escher Perspectibe- Game World

Inspired by Escher's  use of perspective, this is a drawing that utilizes perspective to create a world that is different from our own. This drawing used two-point perspective for the buildings and rectangle in the sky. To help create perspective, two additional sheets of paper were taped on to help extend where the points of perspective could be placed. Those points of perspective were used to help make dimensional buildings and the gamer shown in the sky. As the buildings were being drawn, the lines used to trace lines to the perspective points were erased so they wouldn't get in the way later. After the buildings and the massive rectangle in the sky were made, details such as windows, vehicles, clouds, the sun, and people were added. After the details were added, value was used to help create depth. The windows relected light and the people cast shadows along with the buildings. Perspective and value helped create a world being watched over by a person from another world.