The 4 Hour Project

The short project we just finished was very independent. While we have worked by ourselves during the year, this alone was our creation entirely. The other projects we always structured and we had guidelines, if loose, but we had guidelines. This project was all up to us. We could do basically anything we wanted to, given the materials and the time we had. I decided to take a very different approach to my project than I have with anything else yet this year. At first, I was totally oblivious and had no idea what I was going to make. I had wanted to do something with photography but with the amount of time that would have been difficult. So I started making lists and drawing ideas out in my sketch book. I ended up with a drawing of random sketches put together that looked really cool. At that instant, I knew that is what I wanted to make. I drew my design and loved it. But then I thought to myself, hmm there is a lot of white space I need to take up. Do I want to draw little things or big things? Immediately, I knew I wanted to pursue something intricate. I looked online for tattoo designs, especially henna tattoos done on hands and arms since those tend to be the most detailed. I found a design I loved and started free handing it on my page. It looked perfect. I wanted to mirror that image on the other side of the page but re drawing this detailed design was going to take forever so I photocopied it and pasted it upside down on the other side. This worked out very nicely. But then, my center image did not flow so I erased all my beginning work and had some trouble finding a center focal point. I messed around with some ideas and then found one that worked. I drew it in and then filled up the white space with random henna designs. Along the way, I found a way to collaborate many pieces of work together to make a whole drawing, and I definitely learned that changing my drawing is okay.

The Book Project... process and planning

My original plans for the book project were to make a story about a cowboy and his father. They would not know about each other until a mysterious phone call came about. Unfortunately, without words, this message would have been hard to convey especially because I wanted to have the son end up killing the president since the father works for him.. etc it goes on from complicated to more so. I liked my story line very much and so I was devastated when I had to part from it to make it more simple. The most challenging parts of the project have been deciding carefully what to put on the pages to show what story I picture in my head. Some of the things I wanted to depict are a bit more extravagant than what I was capable of doing without words so I had to break it down. Also my pictures didn't give me much to work with besides the people so I scramble to make the white on the page disappear. Some of the things that are going well are my first and last pictures because I really show the emotion I am looking for in these pictures. Something that isn't going well is trying to make the middle pages coherent to the rest of my story.

Drawing the human figure from the inside out

Today we drew human figures. We started at the hips since they are the center of the body and we went on to draw everything else from there. We made everything out of ovals so it was a bunch of connecting ovals. We drew from the general to the more specific. It was hard to shade everything in so that it looked like a person wearing clothes instead of a bunch of ovals. My challenge was when one of the figures we had to draw was lying down in front of me so the figure was at an awkward angle for me to draw. When a person was standing up, I found it easier to draw them proportionally correct. The easiest part for me was drawing the legs. I am not sure why I just found it so much easier than everything else. Normally my drawing was too large to fit in a head so I had an odd looking headless person.