Duxbury Beach

      In this water color painting was just a two day process. It is a simple painting of the Duxbury beach in Massachusetts. 

Melted Crayon Art

     This project was started with a link that I found: http://www.stilettosandboots.com/melted-crayon-art/ The piece that I made was similar to it except on a canvas and it had a different color scheme. I never melted Crayons before until this project so I was also working with some new materials. The girl with the umbrella is the girl on the Morton Salt containers. 

     I took this picture and placed it into photoshop to get rid of the rain and the salt to just have the figure then I printed it out and painted it black so it was only a silhouette of her. 

     The art teacher showed me how to put the canvas on the frame and staple it down. After that was finished I hot glue gunned the Crayons onto the canvas and in the bottom left hand corner put tape on it so crayon could not get on the part that I would place the girl. I melted the crayons with a heat gun (that is usually used to take off wall paper) and mostly let the crayon move to their own place. The final product turned out well although if I were to do this again I would not have used canvas because the crayon seeped through it.

Midterm Student Reflection: Drawing Lab

     Engagement for art portfolio class was easy for me. I came prepared for class everyday, was excited for new upcoming projects, and was just excited for that time of day when art class started. During this term we worked on a few small projects and two big ones such as the windows and doors project and the map project. For each one I worked systematically and was organized on my approach to directions on the projects. The process for each project also came easily to me. If I was stuck it would help to jot down or draw ideas in my sketchbook. If I had any nervous thoughts on what I was doing or was not sure on the way I was going to handle something I was not afraid to ask my friends or Ms. Pollack for assistance. When they gave their opinions I was respectful and open to their ideas. This class was a very successful time for me. I got to use many materials such as water color and painting that I have never used before. Sometimes I have this bad tendency to want to make something that is perfect the first time and if it is not then I start to lose hope. This class has taught me that we are human and it is natural to make mistakes.

     Sketchbook assignments were sometimes a bit difficult for me. Sometimes was hard to incorporate drawing in my sketchbook once a week because of a hectic life. I also got confused on some of the assignments or how many drawings I was suppose to do. But when I do draw it calms me down. 

     Drawing from observation was a good break from other projects. Some of the types of drawings we did were an overview for me but it was also good to get back to the basics. 

     Blogging has been enjoyable. Although we have not been asked to blog much I still do keep a chronological order of all my artwork for the future. It will come in handy one day when showing colleges and just to see all the work that I did. 

     With technology so available to us we sometimes lose the meaning of art. Images can be copied so easily and what was once a priceless picture that was one of a kind can now be produces in mass quantities. Pieces like the Mona Lisa can now be hung up in your old bed room. The feeling that the artist may have expected us to feel when we saw their original painting may have been lost through the time. Creating art of our own is a way to get that feeling back into art. We can look at art differently and with our own artwork because we have nothing to compare it to because it ours. 

     From experience drawers and artists look at the world differently. We do not only see objects or the way they may seem as a first glance but we see them as shapes, colors, meaning, and so much more. We look more in-depth in just the simplest things.  

     All together this class has been enjoyable, successful, and a new experience. I am excited for the up coming term and for the new projects to come with it. I want to keep exploring new materials and get better at them.

Shoe

     For this art portfolio project I just wanted to do something simple. In the end it turned out a little more difficult than I expected. For Christmas one year my mom let me design a sneaker on NikeID.com and order it. The shoe is very colorful.

     Painting is not in my expertise but I wanted to work more with it and try to get it down more. I thought that the shoe would be perfect for a painting because of the define lines and lots of colors.
The final product turned out well although I had trouble recreating some of the bright-neon colors.

The Curtain

     The process of the windows and doors project took longer then I expected. From my last ideas of my dad in the silhouette with the ocean in the background I used that as a base. The image looks similar to it in shape but the person is not in silhouette. To add more of a meaning to the picture I added a curtain, for a more mysterious factor. For the shape and folds of the curtain I took a picture of my best friend standing behind one.

     When I was home one night I was cleaning out my room when I looked under my bed and found many art materials! It was a great find. One material that was under there (for who knows how long) were water colored pencils. It was interesting using the pencils because I never had used water color before but I liked how it gave the picture a layered, full covered, look. When the painting was finally done I thought that it turned out better than I expected and that there was a lot of hidden meaning in it (Which I attentional tried). 

Portraits Using Photoshop

     For this project I got the idea of this type of portrait from a picture that I found on Pinterest. http://artistaday.com/?p=15225 The picture that I found was made from oil and canvas. Instead I took my own approach on it and used Photoshop. The first step was a mini photo shoot with my best friend in which we had to take some plain photos of each other's faces and then some photos of our hands over our faces.

     After trying to get the perfect photos I put all of the photos onto Photoshop. It was a long process of trying to cut the basic features from one picture and pasting it to the pictures that contained the hands. It had to be exact so you would not be able to tell that you cut and pasted the eyes. I'm sure that there were many different approaches that could have been taken but it was a project that was different from anything else that I have done so it was a good learning experience. The final pieces turned out well.