Questionable Project

For my project, I wanted to make something so random that I didn't even really know what it is. I decided clay was the best way to do this. I wanted to have a person that was somewhat recognizable and I believe I did a good job of that.
The first thing to ask or ponder is what the hell is this person doing?! And more importantly, what happened to this person.Why are the colors the colors that they are? Most everything about this is questionable.
I incorporated proportion by making this person unproportional in his arms and he has a missing legs which adds to the question factor.

Non-conventional Portrait

I began brainstorming ideas of people that I would like to do a portrait of. I couldn't really think of anyone that it my idol, so I just decided to do myself. I started off my project by starting from the inside and working my way out. I gave my border and straight look with longer, rectangular pieces. I then went into details with torn pieces to look more random.
I chose to use newspaper as my medium because it has a distinct texture and random looking colors. I knew that the contrasting black and white would make for an interesting piece. It made the piece seem discombobulated and random which was interesting as the face appears within the madness.

A risk that I took was using a medium that I had no idea how to use. I had to come up with the ideas of how it would be done and it also took a lot of planning and cutting to get the black paper away from the white. The biggest challenge to face (shown in this picture) was the eyes. I left them for last because I knew that it was going to have to be the thing that made my project. I needed the most detail in the eyes.


The medium that I chose impacted the piece by making it appealing to the eye because your eye never stays in one place. It also is interesting to look at because out of all the things that are going around, the face still comes out. I guess that the piece did say something about me. It says that with all the madness that swarms around me, I am still here.

Sticky Situation

When I was coming up for ideas for "Sticky Situation" I thought of anything that made sense. I thought of doing a thick goo and trying to incorporate something into that and I thought of doing scary or intimidating situations. Free climbing on a cliff 100ft above the water seemed like a very sticky situation. I think that I was able to think out of the box. I chose a scarier situation for a sticky situation because I thought that most of the people were going to choose sticky stuff.

 When I started, everything seemed messy and needed touching up. My moon wasn't round and my water did not look like water because of the confusing reflections on the water.

Since the main aspect to focus on was repetition, I knew I had to incorporate something that wouldn't look out of the ordinary. I chose to make the scene at night so I could include stars and their reflection.

I chose to use acrylic paint for this project and I think it had its positives and negatives. I was able to layer and fix mistakes that I made. I also like mixing the colors easily on the palette. The negative would be that it is more challenging to get a lighter tone with brush strokes than water color is.

I feel like the mini lessons were helpful for making my final product because it made me more familiar with the materials needed and the different options that I had to make my products including the different utensils that I could paint with and what brushes are good for a certain type of look.

My final product was finished with a round moon, straighter and perspective like reflections, and a more pronounced climber.

Up Close an Personal

This was my first try at large sketch of a tiger. At first I thought that it was going to look good and it could have been my final project but as I took a better look at it, I realized that it was not proportional and I realized that I really didn't like the sketch at all. I new I was going to have to make another one.

 This piece came out better than the first. There is more detail and time into the picture, but I still did not like the look of it. The tiger looked awkward, not the scary "up close and personal" feeling that I was going for.

This, my final project, came out just as I was envisioning. I got the rich color to attract the looker's attention to the eyes and teeth and the color fades out from the middle. The tiger looks intimidating which is what I was going for. I used emphasis to bring out the eyes and the teeth of the tiger which can be the most scary part of a big cat like this. I added claws to either side of the tiger to add a little filler and detail, which was a big risk. It was not part of my original plan but I decided to do it to give a scarier, "in your face" feel, and I believed that it worked out.  Overall, I believed I conveyed the Up Close and Personal idea and I effectively used emphasis in my picture.



This project's theme was Up Close and Personal.When I started brainstorming on what I might like to do I was thinking of something scary and seeming to come out off the page. I instantly thought of big cats and I thought that the most interesting cat in color would be a tiger.
To create the main idea of this project, emphasis, I really wanted to emphasize the most intimidating part of the animal, which instantly made me think of eyes and teeth. I made the eyes a really rich color and that made them stand out. I also worked on whitening the teeth to help them stand out. Making the color richer on the nose and fading the intensity as I went farther away from the focal points allowed the eyes and teeth to stand out as well.
I decided to use colored pencils as my medium because I knew that I wanted to get a very rich looking finish and I wanted to blend colors. Using colored pencils also made it easy to fade the colors out as I could put layers on top of layers for the richer places and only one or two in the less intense places.
I would say that I took any large risks in this piece. I had never used colored pencils in a large piece like this before, but I did have past experiences with them. I'd say that the biggest risk that I took was putting in the paws and claws of the tiger. I knew I had too much empty space and needed some sort of interesting filler on either side of my tiger. I did not know how the paws would come out, but overall I was happy with them.
I believe that of the five main aspects of art, I used mainly three; emotion, concept, and medium. I evoked emotion by giving the "in your face" feel and making the tiger look angry. The concept was planned out well and helped give the piece emotion as well as a good scheme. The medium was one the only a few used in the class and helped give the piece what I wanted.

The final product was put on a white mat to finish the photo and was not put on the sides to help the claws give the full emotion and message.

What's the Point?

1.) Besides picking the solution that I did, I thought of doing a Bulldog baring his teeth to express the idea of "What's the Point?". I also thought of a porcupine or a rocket.
2.) I chose to do a hesitant hand with a double-sided pencil and a sad shadow because it expresses a figurative and literal meaning of the main idea. It allowed me to express contrast, and I could add a bit of realism with the hand, and abstract with the shadow.
3.) I used charcoal as my medium.
4.) The main technique that i used was drawing with charcoal (vine/pencil) and blending with a paper towel. Then I added dark black lines to express contrast and give the fingers a realistic wrinkley look.
5.) I showed contrast in my work by darkening contour lines and lightening the foreground of the piece. This also allowed the hand to pop off the page more.
6.) The risks I took when doing this project are changing my subject right before starting. I thought that I wanted to do a bulldog but I switched to a more meainingful subject. This made the project a little harder on me. I also made the contours of the hand darker which i thought would ruin the piece but ended up looking better than I thought.