art 2 porfolio

The picture above is my personal favorite of all the pieces I completed this past semester. The theme for this project was scientific. The way I related the piece to the theme was by first looking at pictures of wing anatomy and then a few reference photos of gas masks and lab goggles. I chose regular pencil and paper for this project as it is my strongest suit medium wise. I also chose to use a tortillion to help blend the pencil on the suit to give it a smooth fabric look. The one thing that helped this project the most was taking my time and not being stressed. By the time everyone else was half-way done with their projects, I was still planning mine out and doing sketches. In the end this did turn out to be my most  liked piece by my fellow classmates so I have made it my favorite as well.

For this project I felt slightly unsuccessful. I can look and tell it's not the best piece ever but I had been absent on the days set to work on it. The subject was to create a vessel, and that's what I did. the arms (tree limbs) are supposed to make a bowl shape that could hold an apple maybe, or a bird's nest. The piece really came to life and lifted my mood about it when a friend drew funny little faces on the tree trunks and made it look like a cute little cult gathering or something like that. If I could restart and change this piece I would definitely have used more structure and I would have painted and glazed it.

I think my most improved area was in mixed media. As you can see, to the left there's a piece I made earlier on in the semester. It is obvious that my experience with washes and color transfers (from left to right) has increased. For example, one can see the amateur aspects of the color transfers on the left piece, whereas all the colors fit together with little or no seams on the right piece. I've picked up many skills and learned many useful techniques in my art II class, washes and color transfers are only two of them.                   

The two above pieces were a little bit smaller in scale when it came to the importance of my grade. But I still held the lessons they taught me very highly. Take the top picture for example, it taught me how to make and use a 3D sense of reflection. On the bottom I learned how to mix primary colors and the correct strokes needed for certain textures. The concept was well described to me and I took it from there. Once I was told the fundamentals I knew what to do, no further instruction required. You don't need someone to tell you every stroke of a brush or every line on paper, all you need is for someone to ask for your art and the rest is up to the artist.

By far my favorite medium is and always will be basic pencil and paper. Not only have I had the most experience with it but the idea of the simplicity of it makes it more familiar and comfortable to work with. My best piece (in my opinion) was done in pencil, as shone below.