Shoe Drawling

The shoe drawing was one of our first projects done in art one.  We could either pick shoes from a box of shoes, or draw our own shoes.  I decided to draw my own shoes.  I first put my shoes in many different placements, but I drew them upside down and to the side because the soles of my shoes had a lot a texture to draw.  I put the shoes in the center of the paper, and I didn't leave much space around the shoes so that there was not a lot of negative space.  I made sure that the shoe in front was darker to make it appear further up than the other shoe.  The shoe in the back is lighter to show that it is in the background.  I shaded with the pencil by rubbing the pencil in with a paper towel to create cast shadows from both shoes.  I also did this to add texture to the soles of the shoes, making them seem more rough.

My Name

This drawing is a small representation of myself.  While planning this, I wanted to include a few things that I enjoy and that are important to me.  (Our name or initials had to be included as well.)  I have always loved the beach and being in the water so I incorporated a sun and waves.  I also like water polo and swimming, which is also represented by the water.  To tie the picture all together is a jump rope.  I have been doing competitive jump rope for several years now, and it is a huge part of my life.  To make this, we first drew the picture in pencil on a blank piece of white paper.  Next we placed another paper on top of the original and put those two pages on a tracing table so that you could see the pencil through both pages.  Lastly we traced the pencil lining with a black sharpie.  We had to make sure that there was an equal amount of negative and light space.  To add more negative space, you just added more with the black sharpie.

Ceramics

The medium that was used for this ceramics was clay, and the bowl is about medium sized.  The designed element stressed during the construction of the ceramics was form.  The technique that I used was the slump technique and a slab roller.  My piece can serve as a bowl for many things like cereal or fruits and vegetables.  To figure out my design that I wanted to use, we looked through different magazines with unique and intricate designs.  I wanted something complex, but still simple.  From this project I learned that clay is fun to work with, but it can also be very tricky to work with.  If I could change anything about this project it would be to make the rim different, and to make sure my lines were more precise and straight.

Escher Inspired Perspective

First for this project I tried to think of different creative objects for the sky, where I wanted my shading to go, and if I was going to include a checkered pattern or not.  After sketching out an idea and coming up with background ideas I decided if I was going to have my building in two or three point perspective.  I decided to use three point perspective, and I also decided to shade my building.  Escher focused a lot on abstract backgrounds, so I decided to do a mix of things, and in no particular order.  I also included a checkered path / walkway because it is an Escher inspired drawing, and that is something he included in many art works.

Acrylic Landscape Painting

For the composition of my painting I first decided on what landscape idea I wanted to pain.  Afterwards, I looked through pictures online of palm trees in Venice Beach, and I also found some of my own pictures that I had taken that I could use.  In this painting, we had to use atmospheric perspective.  Atmospheric perspective is having depth within a painting, and the painting being as realistic as possible.  You have to make sure that what you're painting is in perspective with everything else in the painting.  I used tints and shades to help create an atomospheric perspective that fits my painting.  To add a light source I made certain parts of the painting lighter by adding white to the color, and other parts of the painting darker by adding black to the color.  I also used cast shadows to make the light source more clear.  The color scheme that I used for this painting was complementary.  My two complementary colors in the painting are blue and orange.  There were a couple different brush strokes used in this painting.  For the sky and the ocean I used horizonta brush strokes.  For the sand I took the bristles on the paint brush, spread them out, and dabbed the paint on the painting.  For the leaves of the palm trees I used a small paint brush to create fast short strokes.  For the trunks of the palm trees I used vertical strokes, and I used markers to make the graffiti.  I used value in my painting by using the tints and shades of my color scheme.  This added texture to the sky, ocean, sand, and the leaves of the palm trees.

Pastel Still Life

I planned my composition for my pastel still life by first figuring out my placement of the objects, and then doing a thumbnail sketch.  A thumbnail sketch is a smaller, zoomed in version of the bigger picture.  It is the focus of the main object in a picture.  A viewfinder helped me decide on my composition because it helped me focus on the placement of my three objects and how I wanted it to look.  I made the items appear three dimensional by shading with both light and dark colors.  I created a light source by making one side of the still life lighter and one side darker.  I also used cast shadows to create a light source.