Portfolio Drawing and Painting: Sophomore Winter Term

Independent Project 

Windows and Doors

Color Evaluation 

Still life

Final Independent Project

Throughout this term I have gained many different skills in art. In the beginning of the year, we worked on mark making. This opened my eyes to the new ways that I could use all different tools. The color value project helped me learn how to mix all different colors of paints with only the basics. It also taught me to be more patient while doing this because mixing colors takes time. Within my drawing, being able to make objects seem closer to reality in size has become a lot easier. In addition, I have improved my shading a lot. My creative process has become more elaborate because this year the topics were more open ended and forced me to think about the topics in greater depth.

Doors & Windows

For this project I am going to combined the warm feeling of the inside of the house with the dark storm. 

Color & Value

Cape Cod Morning by Edward Hopper.        
This photo's main color is green. There are three main shades of green. There is also white, orange, and light grey/blue. The artist uses the colors to create a sense of depth and reality.

Scuola di San Rocco 17 by John Singer Sargent. 
The main colors in this painting are blue and green. 

Mary Magdalene by Leonardo Da Vinci. In this drawing there is less black and more shades of grey.

The Modern Woman by George Seurat. This drawing is mainly dark grey and blacks.

Essential Questions

We can access images of anything via the internet and snap photos with our phones, so why are drawing and painting still viable methods for making images? What can drawing and painting do that digital and photographic media can’t?        
Drawing and painting are still viable methods for making images because they allow people to show how they perceive the world and different situations. In addition, it allows people to express themselves in a way that taking photos and media does not. By being able to pain one can share their feels with the world and express themselves without using language. 
                                           


How can we use the methods, materials, and techniques used by two dimensional artists today to tell the story of our lives and to address contemporary issues?

Marks made by Nature

Artist Statment

Before I began creating art my only way to escape from the rest of my hectic life was swimming. Swimming and artwork are very closley related to me. In swimming I compete in almost every event and in art working I love working with all different media. Swimming and artwork come naturally to me and flow through me. My artwork does not have a soul base of insperation. I get inspired by everything going on in the world around me. Personal expresinces also relate to my artwork. Music enspires me too.  The way the instruments all merge together to create a completly diffrent sound is very inspiring. Artwork is my way of allowing others to see the world through my eyes.

Art 21 Reflection #2

Laurie Simmons is "an artist who uses photography as a tool." Her artwork is about capture a still peaceful moment when everything else going on is hectic. She also turned some of these photography into a short movie. In the beginning of her carere she did not show all her feeling through her art work and left all her thoughts about it in her head. That makes it very hard for me to relate to her. As an artist I believe that art is about expressing what you feel and not holding back. This way you can create something that you are a part of.



Lauri Pittman is a painter who creates very detailed artwork with many different aspects in it. It does not try to create one point but many different ones according to which viewer is looking at it. I like his artwork a lot. The different aspects make looking at his artwork interesting. I can relate to his work because I enjoy creating detailed artwork. I wish that I could have more time to do this. I also like how he works on such a large scale but still adds in every small detail.

Progress Reflection 2

This week I completed my symbolic portrait. It feels very good to have that completed. All I have to finish now is the mural. This makes me worried because I think that this is going to take up the rest of class time. It is hard because not everyone has worked on it and some of the people are not able to work on it without creating problems or messing up the details. I would love to get to the final independent project though and I hope I can make that happen. With only a few classes left I might not be able to do a whole series of collages but maybe just one collage. I think that I might do it about music but I still am not completely sure. I guess it depends on what I find in the magazines. So for the final week I plan on finishing the mural and doing the independent project.

Progress Reflection 1

This week has been the beginning of the end of our time together. Everyone is in a different spot in their work. In a post on your blog describe... 

What did you accomplish this week? 
 This week I finished my clay sculpture, came up with my idea for my independent project, and I am rapping up my symbolic portrait.
What challenges did you face? 
This week the clay was the hardest for me but I am glad it is over now. Also creating the curly hair in my symbolic portrait was complicated and frustrating. I am now excited to see how it ends up.
What are the next steps? 
Next I plan to finish up my symbolic portrait. Then my group is going to spend a class on the mural and then begin my final project.
What do you plan to do in the week ahead? 
In the week ahead I plan on finishing my symbolic portrait, beginning my final project and finishing the mural. 

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Art 21 Reflection

Julie Mehretu
Creates abrstact paintings with densely layered amounts of paint. She does this by going to different places and creating a map like immage of it in her mind or on paper. She does this is many places and adds them together. This way she is making a map of "history." Its hard for me to relate to this artist because I have not done very many abstract paintings. I think that her type of artwork would be a lot of fun though because you are creating something new out of things that already exist. I also think that putting a lot of different colors on top of each other and see how it ends up could be a lot of fun. I am sure that there is more technique to it than that but still that is very different than most other artists I know.

Florian Maier
Is a landscape photographer who digitally changes and enhances him photographs. His inspiration is old photographs, how they used to be taken, and how much the technology has changed. I can relate to this work because when I have taken photography classes before I have enjoyed using manual cameras and going through that process. Also I think that I would be very cool to be able to fly to all different parts of the world to capture the beauty. One of my favorite things about Florian Maier is that he can take these beautiful picture and then is able to turn them into different colors or black and white to make the image more simple but it does not loose its beauty.

Sketchbook

This year my sketchbook has been a place for me to go and explore all the ideas swearing around in my head. It has helped me develop ideas for my artwork. Also some of my sketchbook ideas have been incorporated into my work. In my sketchbook there is a lot of patterns and collage. These are both things I really enjoy. Also one of my favorite things to do in my sketchbook is try mixing different materials to see what they end up like.

Initial Reflection

Freshman year in art we have done a lot of different projects. Every Tuesday we spent time drawing a different still life. This was not one of my favorite things because drawing in detail is not something that I enjoy. I also did not enjoy making the sculpture because manipulating the "junk" was not easy for me. I loved all the painting and I would consider that one of my strengths. Painting relaxes me and allows me to express myself more than some of the other projects. Collage with magazine and news papers are also something that I enjoyed. I love being able to take something apart to create another thing completely different. I will leave this class thinking about different ways to incorporate art into my life and when given the chances I will defiantly continue to create art.

Art 21 Reflection

Jeff Koons 
His art work is about connecting with others. He likes that he does not know what is going to happen and what the reactions of people will be to his art. He tends to work on his computer to vary the color in photos before they are made into larger paintings. He also works with many different materials. He even creates floral arrangements. I could relate to Jeff Koons because he seems to be someone who likes to try new things using new materials which is something that I also enjoy.

Mary Heilmann 
Wants her art work to cause trouble and to make people think about it. As she grew as an artist she began to love collaborative work. Her art work is about putting emotion that can read to other into the art work using many different techniques. Her simple ideas become obsessions and she spends hours working and thinking about them. I can relate to Mary Heilmann because when I get really caught up in a piece of work I want to make it the best that it possibly can be like Marry.

Symbolic Clay Sculpture Portrait Plan

I chose my great grandpa because he is someone that I enjoy spending time with him. He is a person who anyone can talk to and has a wise answer. He is kind, respected by all, and coragious. All of these characteristics reminded me of a lion. For the background I plan to put him on a hill which shows his power even more. Ontop of the hill he will be sitting down and reading a book of stories to represnt how he likes to tell stories from the past to friends and family.

Visiting artist: Hamlett Dobbins

I like this painting of Hamlett's because it is a painting that can be interpreted in  many diffrent ways, what does the dragon have to say about anything? Dragons are a creation of emagination. Then there are words on the side which at first glance does not fit with the rest of the painting. By doing this you have to think about how the two things might fit together. 

My question for Hamlett is that when he is having trouble finding inspiration what does he do to get that back?

Reflecting on Group Work

Making art with a group is very different from working on your own. You have to work with the group to decide what to make the art work, this involves a lot of compromising. Everybody wants to do their own ideas and we could not do all of them. Some people wanted to do things that only they liked. Some people also were not flexible on their ideas and made working on this project very difficult at times. Finally, we decide on what we are going to do which is a huge relief and we will see how the rest of the project goes.

Slipery Slope

Term One Reflection

Art Principles fall term has been very different from all the other art classes I have taken in the past. First of all, we have covered so many projects using a wide variety of different materials. One of my favorite parts of the term is not one specific project but how we begin all projects. Many of the prompts have gotten me to really think about what I wanted my art work to be instead of just staring without a plan or very much thought. I think that this term has gone very well for me. I enjoy this class a lot and its a great way for me to escape from all the stress of my other classes. This class has also helped me to expand on what I am willing to do as an artist. Drop everything and draw used to be very difficult for me because drawing is not one of my strengths. At the beginning of this term when I had to draw something I would have no idea how to start and what materials to use. Now I feel more confident in my work and abilities. I was very surprised about how easy it was to have an idea for a project can come to you at any moment in time not just during art class when you have to think about it. Some of the biggest challenges for me besides drop everything and draw is the collage. I love art and getting into my work so when I started the collage that is what I did but I found it very tiring to keep on working on it. Also, adding all the small details was hard because I did not have the patience to be able to cut out so many little things. In the end thought I do really like the outcome of it. Through my next term and future art classes I need to work on planing out my projects more. I prefer just starting a project not making a sketch of it first, so in the future I would like to be able to step back and see that making a sketch will be very helpful for me. In conclusion, during this term of art I have grown a lot and enjoyed the process too.

Chair With Coat.

HOW did you find today's still life more or less complicated to draw than the still lives over the past few weeks (white paper, sticks, fabric)? Be specific.

HOW did you use some of the skills we've developed over the past three weeks drawing more complicated still lives to draw the chair with coat today? What are these skills? 

Today's still life was both harder and easier. It was harder because you had to make sure everything was in exactly the right spot and be more carful about placement of everything. For example, with the sticks drawing you did not have to worry as much about what stick was what but with this there were only a few objects to draw. It was easier thought because it was less over whelming with less to draw and more time to focus on everything.

I used some of the skills that we have learned over the past few weeks with this drawing because I did not try to become to detailed quickly. I also knew how to shade more and get the feeling of the drawing which made this picture easier to draw.