I am a daughter. a friend. a student.

I think the main strength of my project was the drawing of my face behind the clutter. Although it does not look exactly like me, it is what makes my project my own. It was the part I worked the hardest on. The pictures, which were meant to represent what, and who is important in my life add a unique twist. Each photo highlights friends, or family, or activities that are meaningful and play a significant role. Without the pictures this would be an ordinary self portrait. It is the bits of color that add more life to the piece, which although is not what I intended turned out to be a metaphor for what adds color to your life.

Visiting artist

This piece is by far my favorite. I love how the artist has the ability to take many different images and subjects and combine them perfectly to make something new. They way the birds head become almost a billowing chimney to the house is very interesting, it takes a really interesting metaphor and expands it into an intriguing image. I marvel at the ornate detail and how each line is seems to be so deliberate. While looking at each piece I definitely wanted to ask the artist how long he takes on each picture?

Reflecting on Self Portrait Project

In our group we each went around sharing our ideas then saying what we were planning to do next. When it was my turn to share, I told my group members about my plans to add more pictures of things that make me who I am and fill it out more by adding color and life. They mentioned that it is looking little bit too square right now. All the pieces are square and the piece as a whole is square. This gave me the idea to cute out most of the white edges around that drag that, I think, drag down the piece and only make it boring. My next step is to get my act together at home and print more pictures in color, and cut out the white, then finally glue it down to a back piece of paper to finish.

Why do people make art?

I think different people create art for many different reasons. First and foremost I think people who are serious artists make it because they like to. It would be hard to be a professional artist and hate the process of producing art. For some I think art serves as a hobby, a release of emotions and form of self expression. Others may make it to tap into some emotions or convey a story, anything they believe in. I think people don't make art for other people, people make art for themselves. Of course for those talented and passionate enough about art to make it a career they have the pressure of making a profit weighing down on them in a way that may positively or negatively effect their product, but the pressure or bringing in a salary keeps them productive. I think people make art for the same reason others play instruments or write novels. Something in your soul inspires to create and free yourself translating it into a physical manifestation. Art is not always about making you feel good though, sometimes we need to create to evoke some emotion in ourselves or one we feel others need to recognize. People can also use art and images as a manipulation tool in advertisements and propaganda. With all art we are trying to instigate some sort of reaction in ourselves or in our audience.

4 hour project

What makes this project so different from the others we have done is that it is so independent. We were required to think deeply not only about what our skills are but what we are passionate about and what has inspired so far this term. Before we were presented with a challenge of some sort and had to work it out ourselves, this time we had the added pressure of choosing a project that would challenge us just enough so we would be pushed to create and showcase our best work. This term the drawing and sketching has been my favorite thing, I look forward to every thursday for drop everything and draw and have practiced sketching in my sketchbook when there was no assignment. So when this project came around I instantly knew I wanted to draw something. Then came the question of whether to draw an inanimate object or a person. As I looked around the class room for inspiration I knew I wanted to draw the sculpture of the hand. This was the perfect compromise. Everyday I have come in to art class I have looked at that hand and wanted to duplicate it. I thought I would put it on the floor to enhance the lost feeling it has. Looking at it alone on the floor I thought it looked too lonely so I decided to add another object that would be symbolic. At first I wanted to draw a pocket watch to show how we have no handle on time but realized that would be to hard of a challenge in our time restraint. After talking about it with Ms. Roberts I decided a light bulb could provide a similar effect. It was not until I finished that I thought of naming the picture mente e manu, hand and mind, the motto of our school. When I was sitting on the floor drawing actually drawing it there were multiple times that I felt stuck, not knowing what to draw next and frustrated it did not look more realistic. It took a while but as it started to take shape I became more confident with shading and it really took off. With helpful tips from Ms. Roberts and Mr. Brooks I am really proud of what I created and I think it shows where I am in learning to sketch so far.

The Book Project: progress and planning

When I first saw my photo I thought about how miserable the man looked, it was not until I picked the second picture I wanted to work with did I decide that one looked like a younger version of the other. I started planning out pictures to highlight times in this persons life that help describe why he is so sad looking in the final picture. In my original sketches I showed different instances where anyone would be miserable but as I am creating those pictures I feel they do not hold together as well as I would have hoped. My biggest problem is where I stop using the young boy and start using the old, I am worried my viewer might not make the connection that they are meant to be the same person only older. What is going well though, is that although I am putting time and energy into each picture I am working efficiently and getting things done.

Drawing the Human Form From Inside Out

I think the goals of todays exercise were to get us to look at the human form as a series of general shapes and less in the hyper-detailed way feel stressed to do. We also heard Ms. Roberts say "draw what you see not what you think is there" so this, like most drop everything and draw exercises, was to reinforce that concept. Also the focus on proportion (one of the principles of design) has been a major topic this week and this class was to drum it harder into our heads. Although I do not particularly like the drawings I created I think I achieved creating the general shape and image of people who are more or less proportionate. For me it was more interesting to see how other people aproached drawing the same subject and how although none were better or worse they were all different. A major challenge I faced, besides my easel breaking then falling on my head and giving a splinter, was drawing from the inside out. Constantly I had the urge to draw something else first, but I think this really made keeping things in proportion easier than if I had started with the head.