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.