Shades of gray

Today in class we made charcoal drawings using different shades of gray. The goals were to make it so you could tell what everything was, have 5 different shades of gray, and make it look realistic. I think I achieved this goals pretty well. I right away got to work on different shades of gray which I like a lot because it helped show whether the object was light or dark or in between. What was hard for me was drawing a certain handle from a pitcher it wouldn't fit right and I was making it with an eraser which didn't give great curves. This was a very big challenge for me. Also, we were to make things bold and make it look like they were actually hard or made of ceramics if they were which I think I showed in my drawing as well. Overall I think I achieved all of the goals from this weeks drop everything and draw day.

Studying Nighthawks

Nighthawks

by Edward Hopper, Edward Hopper is from America.

Made in 1942

Oil on canvas was used to make the work.

My first impression of this painting was that it was a very regular picture. When I say this I mean that it looks like just a regular day with dark colors and no bright colors. There is no one outside of the diner which shows loneliness and that there are only a few people alone in a big world.

Edward Hopper was trained to be an illustrator but spent five years studying painting which influenced his style to become about urban isolation. He made this painting to show a diner and three customers that are all in their own private thoughts. Without even knowing it Hopper actually painted the loneliness of a large city.

Edward Hopper shows asymmetry in his painting. There isn't any balance in this picture because there are more objects on the right side of the painting. The emphasis is on the four people. They are alone in the diner and it shows placement. They are in the center of the picture and you right away start to wander what each person is doing, thinking, and who they are. This placement emphasis helps you think and they are the first thing you see when looking at this picture. There also are leading lines in this picture. The leading lines take you up the street, down the sidewalk, into the diner and then down the table. I can tell these are leading lines because that was the path my eyes took me on when I first looked at the picture.

Finding images that are balanced

Symmetrical Balance

Approximately Symmetrical Balance

Radial Balance

Asymmetrical Balance

The Principles of Design

Principles of design: this set of rules that help artists from whatever they are working on

vocab

Balance: when the visual "weight" of an an artwork feels equally distributed

-symmetry

mirror image

-approximately symmetrical

almost mirror image feeling of symmetry

-asymmetry

opposite of symmetric yet still could be balanced

-radial balance

coming out from the middle (circular) infinite lines of symmetry

Emphasis:

rhythm and movement:

proportion:

unity: feeling that everything works together, if something was missing it would be incomplete

variety: having some differences in shapes, colors, forms, order, etc.

Emphasis

-When one element in an artwork appears to be more important or attract the most attention, we say it creates EMPHASIS.

Placement-Where Artists put stuff matters sometimes in the middle or not but always thinking about where it goes.

Contrast-something that is very different then what's around it could be color, shape,etc.

Grouping- When Artists decides to take a bunch of elements and put them right around the thing that they want to emphasize is grouping.

Rhythm and Movement -referring to how the artist guides the viewer through a work of art do it by:

-repetition

-same elements

-alternating elements-ex. color pattern

-progression-element is repeated but changing getting ex. getting smaller

-leading lines-Lines that help us travel through the painting.

-implied movement- Looks like it's moving by positioning of other parts of the picture or sculpture.

-optical movement-When you repeat some line or shape and there's an illusion it makes your eye feel like it's moving.

-actual movement- Where art actually moves

Proportion- In art we are talking about the size relationship of the parts to one another or to the whole.

Colors- Can put a lot of red in and emphasize it by contrast.

Shapes-

Forms-

We might use words like a lot, a little, many, few, big, small, similar, etc.

Reflecting on Found Object Sculpture

I started my found object sculpture by taking the chains off of my moms old shoes. This pretty much is what inspired me to start my sculpture. I thought that together the two chains looked like a body. I then took two plastic pieces from sunglasses and noticed it looked like a butterfly. I didn't know what to use for wings at first. My plan in my sketch book was to create a tree for the butterfly to be on. Which is when the flower pedals came in to use. I noticed that it looked more like wings and kept adding more and more making it very colorful just like a butterfly. The best part of the two chains was that I got to use a wire to tie it together making it look even more like a body. Once I noticed this my mind was set and pushed me to want and to ultimately complete my sculpture of a butterfly. During the scavenger hunt I noticed how much people overall influence art. Half or even more of the sculptures were of people or animals. This shows how natural it is for us all to take what we see every day and apply it to art. I really like how my sculpture hangs but if I could go back and do it all differently I probably would have been more strategic when it came to putting the flower pedals down as the wings to make it look a little more neat looking.

Reflecting at mid-term

So far in this term I have progressed by having a better attitude toward creating art in general. I easily become uncomfortable with my art because I'm not great at things like drawing. I have learned to embrace my creativity which I do have and just try my best to show what I can do. I'm good about doing all my homework and blogs thoughtfully and on time. During the line story collage in particular I got really into it and created this story from a song I was listening to that inspired me. This project helped open up my mind and show me how much fun art really is. I liked taking pictures from magazines and creating different emotions through lines which was really interesting to me. Lastly, on drop everything and draw days with charcoal, helped work on my focus and drawing still life. I wasn't afraid to get messy or erase what I had already drawn. As you can see, I have progressed a great amount so far this term but I definitely have much more to work on and learn throughout the rest of this course.

What's in the Sack?

The goals for today's drawings were to create shapes out of the bags to make them look different to show whether there's liquid in it or something hard and to represent the object. For the what I believe to be a big bag of water, I shaped it so that it was not proportioned and an odd and circular shape. For the bag with the box in it I made it so that there were straight and pointy edges to show what I was trying to create. Another goal for today was to make the shadows. This was a little difficult at first, because I made the shadows dark instead of the background. Since I did this I had to go back and fix it to make the shadows lighter. One last goal was to at first go quickly and look at the still objects more then the painting. This was a little hard for me as well because I liked perfecting little things which I learned not to do during this process. These were the goals for today's drawing.

The changing still life

In order to keep up with the changing still life I had to keep my eyes on the set up almost the whole time. Also, I had to not worry as much about whether my drawing looked good and neat but more about getting all of the objects onto my paper. Lastly, I didn't really carefully draw anything I mostly just drew the obvious and didn't perfect each little thing because if I had then I would have gotten behind. When I was erasing I had to go really fast which made my drawing really messy and dirty which I truly only noticed afterwards because I was paying attention to the changing still life.

The Potential of Found Objects

Each sculpture shown on the class blog are made from different raw material/objects. In the dog sculpture they added ears which look a little bit like a post from a lamp. They are floppy so it helps create the vision of a dog. The artists chose the objects they did because they all bring something different to the table. Different shapes can turn into pieces of an object by fitting together almost like a puzzle in 3D form. Big objects like a big empty water jug which is in one of the sculptures is a great base to start the sculpture.

Reflecting on my first critique

My artwork was very in depth and creative to a point where it was hard to figure out what was going on unless you actually knew what it was about. My negative feedback was that I should have used darker colors to show more sadness. I really like bright colors so I couldn't help but use colors I liked even though it didn't match the theme of my picture. My positive feedback was that I definitely thought about the story. Getting feedback from my classmates was fine. It made me think a little bit more about my painting and what I need to work on in the coming projects.

The Work of Ingrid Calame

These pieces of artwork don't look like anything I've ever seen before. They all are so unique and make you have a different view. You can't just look at it and that's all there is so much more to each painting then meets the eye at first glance. Ingrid Calame is an artist who tries to represent the world and the things that we forget about or don't notice through artwork. Her process is that she goes on to the street, traces marks and stains on the street, goes back to the studio pieces them together and then mixes different colors and shades of paint and just paints the piece different colors.

This is one of Ingrid Calame's paintings. I really appreciate this painting because it is very colorful and puts colors together that you would never think about putting together. Also, they aren't just straight lines. She doesn't paint in the lines which I really like too.