GIF-Traveling Around

    This relates to me in a few ways. First of all, I have traveled a bit in my 15 years. I was born in Fort Bragg, moved to California, then to Kansas, Washington State, and back here(all driven). We weren't planning on staying here though, but after my dad retired we were stuck. So the title "Traveling Around" is because I have.
     Since I've driven all over the country, I've learned to love traveling. I want to travel anywhere I can once I'm older, or even now if the opportunity shows itself. I went to New York this past summer, I'll be spending 5 weeks in Richmond for a summer intensive, and although I don't have the time, there was a point where Uganda was in my summer plans. Traveling has been forced upon me, and has also been what I want my life to be like, just traveling around.
     

Print making

Did you try something that you weren’t sure about as part of this project?
  Doing this whole project I was unsure of what I was doing and didn't feel very secure about the carving. Although that was really out of my norm, what I wasn't sure about was the background options. I chose to do a checkered kind of style but I decided to not make the checkered pattern even. 

Did you pick a material or technique that was new or different over something that was familiar?
Since we were kind of limited on what to use I didn't choose anything new. What was assigned to us to use was new though. I don't usually carve ever, and the whole paint thing isn't my thing so it was definitely new.

Did you ask another student for feedback during your work process?
Yes. I asked what they thought of it as it was in progress and discussed whether I should add more, do less, what to fix and not to fix, ect.

Did someone help you understand important information or inspire you?

They helped me see that things didn't have to line up exactly and be precise on every line. Things could be a bit messy and different. 

My meme

My first definition of art was the following-
    Anything that provokes thought, emotion, and or feelings.

My new definition has not changed, I still agree with my first definition and I think that it still applies to all art.

The Legs

This is what I based my drawing off of.
It's actually a larger picture and I just zoomed in, my cropping is a little off though, I post this too so you can see what it's suppose to look like.

This is what I drew to practice my shading with oil pastels. I used oil pastels back in 4th grade once for a peacock, and that was my first and only time since this. So I figured I should practice, when it turned out to look pretty cool. I never really got to finish the tutu, but it looks cool so I haven't messed with it.

Origami

So for this project, I was utterly confused on how to make anything. I tried with what I knew though, which is only really fans. However since it was still plain I chose to doodle on it to add some color.

Color project

             For the color project I chose to draw a mask. The picture is only half a mask to add even more of the "disguise". I chose the theme disguise, so a mask, and hiding the mask was oh so clever (or I thought so at least). The reason why I chose disguise as a theme is because it was the first thing that came to mind and I felt I could easily represent. Plus there are so many different way to represent a mask.
             I used color penciled. It's more inside my comfort zone considering I've never used the other mediums before coming in art 1. There's no reason other than I've used them before and it seemed the most logical considering I can draw some of the strict lines.
             So! This project was not as easy and comfortable as I figured. I have no idea how to shade which sounds ridiculous but it never came out smoothly. This may be because I got into the practice of smudging, or it may just be that I suck at shading with colored pencils.

Finished product on the right.
  If I could go back and redo something I would use a different medium to better draw details and to seem more life like a mature\
  Though it may not have a lot of details I'm proud of the blended colors of the mask. I tried to focus on the sight over lapping of the colors so it gave the illusion of almost fading from one color to the next. As I said before I think I suck at shading so I'm fairly proud that the shading seems to blend well.
  What I learned is that my 'comfort zone' may not actually be the best zone for me, its more of a shameful corner that I've given up on getting out of. But now when stretching my use of different mediums, I see that my comfort zone is really pathetic and I'm not even that strong in. Although I worked hard on this piece, and it turned out as best as I could, I feel that maybe if I just risked using something I never had, like water colors or oil pastels, I could have had a better outcome.

Two in One

      For this project I decided to morph an eye with a music note. I decided to choose the music note since music has such an impact in my life; being in the school band and having a large music history in my family. The eye has no sentimental value to me other than the eye being so important to life, although I also find drawing an eye really interesting because eyes can differentiate so much.There are simple ways to represent change in eyes such as looking different ways, the color, and even shape. But what's really stunning in drawings of eyes are the emotions that are shown. Eyes can show fear, love, sadness, confusion and so many more emotions, and for that to be shown on paper really interests me and makes me want to strive for the same.  I've transformed an eye to a music note by lengthening the soft curved eye lashes so long that it eventually becomes the straight harsh line of the stem to the eighth note. The eye can easily mimic the wide oval shape of an eighth note, making it easy for someone to see how it actually is 'two in one'. 
      I've been on the fence deciding which medium to use. Pen was immediately voted no because of the struggle of the light shading to the white of the eye( the struggle is real). Drawing with pencils is definitely inside my comfort zone; practically being the only medium I've ever used. However the range of lights to dark isn't as big as charcoal could give. The final choice had to be charcoal so details could clearly show and the dark and light can better contrast. I'll use a charcoal pencil for the eye, but not for the stem of the music note. The stem of the music note is very even and rigid; no details needed.
      So far all I've done is the sketch so nothing has gotten tricky yet. Looking at the sketch I can tell the proportions are gonna trip me up though. Also the eye will most likely turn into a war with myself trying to get the details just right since my view and standards of a drawn eye is so high.

These are my two in progress pictures. The first one is where I had outlined it with pencil and had started shading. The second one is where I have done it all over in charcoal but haven't started really layering.  

  This is my final drawing, I added a 'back round' which is the number four, this is actually a time signature and is cut off to go with the cut off note. I added the time signature to point out that it's also a music note not only an eye.
  Throughout this project I had most trouble one shading in the basic things such as the time signature and the stem of the music note. I feel like the eye itself turned out well with the details and shading however. If I could do it again, I'd add more detail to the back round.