Blindfold Drawing

When you first told us what we were going to do I was a little excited and a little dumbfounded. Sure I'd goofed around and done drawings with my eyes closed but they were always nonsensical and had no real purpose to them. I did not really know how to go about drawing a real place or a memory of myself in that place. I just winged it and obviously my result was pretty funny. There's something unnatural about giving yourself up to the darkness. We are so used to being able to see all the little details out there that when we can't, an almost immediate sense of fear overwhelms us. This is only natural. It was fascinating trying to create a matter very close to my heart without being able to see because I really had no idea what I was drawing or if I was drawing over something else for that matter. I just had to trust my instincts and the images I had in my head. I kind of just thought about everything I love about the place I drew and did not try to draw the actual place rather all the things that make it so special to me. I just began with one idea about hammocks and palm trees and from there the rest of my drawing evaporated into some weird mess of scribbles that do not really do my place/memory justice. When I could take off the blindfold I decided to draw more of me in the place and then show the other blindfolded drawing as if it was a dream I was thinking about at the time.

Proportion & Perspective

The first drawing I made was much easier. Although there were more things occupying the space we drew, it was a larger space with larger objects, which made capturing them easier. Todays drawing was very difficult. In the beginning when I had to draw the table at the correct angle almost failed but after a few tries, I got it almost right. Then the most challenging part was how to lay out all the small objects on a small surface that did not look exactly right. It was difficult because once you put one object down, it affected where the rest of the objects went. So basically if I drew a triangle in the absolutely wrong place then my entire drawing was off. But yesterdays drawing really showed personal improvement for me because drawing from observation for me last year was very difficult but it really looked real for one of the first times. I really hit the nail on the head with the drawing yesterday and if I had some more time today, I could have made it better.

Marks Made Drawing

I first had to find 2 pieces of collage that I thought I could use to make a bigger picture. After that, I had to lay them on my page and see what sort of image I could come up with. After I had my idea, I had to paste the two original pieces on to my paper and see where they got me. I ended up making a drawing that I never would have created on my own, and that was very exciting. I sometimes use a gray scale but rarely all of the shades included in my final outcome. It was hard to scale the first drawing down to the second one and have everything look proportional and have the colors coordinate. I was surprised that my end picture really did resemble the first one so clearly, as I thought it would not.

Reflecting at the end of the course.

I came into this classroom at the beginning of the year, ready. I did not know what to expect besides an amazing space to work and experiment in. I did not know you, or some of my classmates, but here we are, months later, at the end. It SUCKS. This class was my favorite by far. All of the projects we did were interesting to me in some way, if not always challenging, I took my own approach on them and spun them around so I could take more out of it. I am always very eager to learn about things I care about, art being one of these things. I started off thinking that I sucked at drawing because I always thought of drawing as still life's which aren't my favorite, but you let us expand on drawing many other things, still life and pure original thought. I would say that a few of the highlights of my time in this classroom have been, my four hour project, my self portrait, and my light drawing. These projects were right down my alley so to speak. I hate having something plain to do, even in other classes I always somehow make it my own, personal you may say. I always put all my effort into trying new ideas and ways to process information given, such as when doing the block prints. Speaking of which, that might have been the lower point of this class. While my print came out alright, it was not exactly my favorite project to do. I will always remember doing the pour paintings because of the things we found to highlight within the poured images, I will ALWAYS remember that day in drop everything and draw when you took away and added things to the still life and we were all miserable! But it has stuck in my mind for sure. I will remember this class as being an open laid back environment where I could always be who I wanted to be and do what I wanted to do, and have many opportunities. This class ending is something foreign to me as last year classes ran all three terms. There really isn't any other way to put it besides being weird. Not coming up here everyday and enjoying this class to the fullest is going to be odd, and something I will miss dearly. This class ends with me having grown very much into my own artist niche. I know now what types of art I like to make, which I do not, and which I will do and enjoy and try my best on even if it is not what I care to do. I have learned the skills I will need to continue my art education throughout the rest of my life. I know that for the next three years of highschool, you will see a lot of me because art is something I love and will always love to do. I will always be interested in creating stories through drawings and hope to do so more and more as I grow older and grow as an artist. I can tell that with the skills I have been taught and adapted to this year in this class I will remember for the rest of my life. With hands on learning, I do best because it sticks into my brain. I know when I am a senior I will be doing some art project and I will remember sitting with Alex Fissler saying something crazy and doing something you assigned to us with gusto. So now we say goodbye well not really but it is weird and I will miss this class very much! Thank you for a great year :D

I See The Light Drawing

The Road of No Return

I used lights and darks to show the winding road leading to an unknown destination. I used it to show the mountains and the various crevices within it. I had a very difficult time deciding what to draw but after messing around with a few ideas, I let go and just started drawing and it ended up the way it is... somehow. I used the light pencils to draw in the light parts of the mountains and the darker pencils to shade in the darker parts of the mountain. I used the erasers when I wanted to show something as completely white with no smudges around it. I discovered that I needed to use a lot of contrast between light and dark to show what I was trying to express and that for a really dark color, you really need to press down on the paper hard.

Self Portrait as a _________.

This project made you utilize two different parts of your brain, the part that is creative and makes ideas, and the one that isn't afraid to get messy and goes through with the project. You had to use your hands to form shapes with the clay, but you also had to get a creative idea, then execute it. I decided to choose a butterfly on a puzzle board. I am very much like a butterfly because I am a free spirit who likes to flutter around and be adventurous and colorful while I fly all over the place, creating memories. I chose a puzzle board because while the can be messy to begin with, but the end result is always a clean cut picture with no depth, which is VERY unlike me. I am too all over the place to be a puzzle but I am just like a butterfly. In the past, I was no fan of clay after one particularly rowdy experience where my hair got stuck in the wheel... you can imagine the rest! Also clay is very sticky and dry and gets into your pores and under your nails and yuck, not my thing, I like being clean. I made myself as in intricate butterfly with many different textures on the wings. I chose to make patterns because it shows all the loose ends and differences about me and my life. I discovered that it is very hard to put clay together and get it to stick and you MUST slip and score a lot.

Me-scape: A reductive Block Print

At the beginning of the print making project, I was pretty confident with my ability to make a good print. I somehow ended up carving away the wrong sections of my block so my end result was not exactly what I intended it to be...anyhow, I did struggle with this project. It was very hard to work backwards, meaning carving away what you want to stay first, then printing, then repeating the process various times. Starting with a project that is difficult to begin with then making it harder by having to work backwards, conceptually made my brain go WHOAAA! If I were to do this project over again, I would really focus on where I was supposed to be carving away that way my end result ended up being more of what I wanted it to be.

I am lively, centered and me.

I am not entirely sure which aspects of my story came through the most because my portrait isn't really a typical story. It really is just a jumble of things that make me, me, coming together as one. My artistic choices that came through the most is where I placed things. I have me centered to show that the portrait is about me, and then if you still couldn't tell, I put the lower and middle halves of my body in tinfoil so they shine. Then I have something else in each corner of the paper. The right hand corner on the top is a heart in hand. This corner was my favorite to do because it showed that I put a lot of heart into everything I do. The bottom right hand corner is the earth and since I am depicted sort of floating above it, that represents that my head is sometimes in the clouds. Before I even started pasting things on to my paper, I gave the placement of my items a good thought so that whatever my story was, could come through in whatever way the person looking at it made of it.

Reflecting on self-portrait progress

Today we discussed our self portraits that we have been working on. We discussed in a group and I shared about how I got the ideas for my project and why the items I chose to put in it represented me in an abstract way. My group members asked me questions about my project as to why I used certain things on my paper. They wanted to see the unclear things from my project and be able to understand them. They told me that I should fill up white space on my paper and maybe outline my figure so it is more clear. I need to color in white space for sure and maybe add one more symbol of me to take up more room. I'm not sure exactly how many more classes I will need but however many I can use would be good. I need to brainstorm about what to add in because at the moment I am not entirely sure.

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.

Shades of gray

Today we drew from observation of a still life. We first colored the whole paper black then rubbed it down with paper towels to turn it gray. Then we started by using an eraser to take away gray and leave white. We had to use 5 different shades of gray to make this still life come alive. I think I did this pretty well because my shades were evident and my drawings proportions were pretty accurate. I did not really face many challenges with this exercise because it was pretty straight forwards. The only challenge was making things that were not gray into different shades so they seemed their real colors.

Reflecting on Found Object Sculptures

When I began, all I had in my hand was a old pink Converse shoe. Inspired? I think not. Trying way to hard? I plead the 5th. My inspiration was quite lacking in the creativity department. I hadn't yet let go of my senses to not see things for what they really are, and for what they really are not. Then, silly old me stumbled upon the silly old pot you see as the body and head in my sculpture, "Lincoln in his Prime." At first I wanted to make a clock, but it looked, plainly, way too clocklike! So then I trashed that idea and in popped the next. When I saw the wooden piece I have as the base of the hat, that just happened to be under the old computer hub, the light bulb went off in my head, "ABRAHAM LINCOLN", it screamed. The other pieces were easy to accumulate as I had brought in a lot of, "little stuff." When I saw the arm I use as a nose, I tried it out as a mouth at first then said, "No way, this has got to be a nose if I ever saw one." The wooden pieces I use as legs I cut in half so that was quite simple. To attach the hat to the head, I had to hot glue a nail and drill it into the skull of the pot. This was the hardest part in making this quirky little man. I think what makes my sculpture successful is the hat, and the huge head and small body, which makes it funny but it works. The huge eyes also add oddness to the face but highlight his features... haha. The pieces I found to make the rest of the body really work especially the spoon for a mouth because you use a spoon to eat and you eat with your mouth. I could have spent more time playing with my larger objects to make a real thing before just winging it because I could have ended up with a bad result, which I do not think is the case.

Reflecting at Mid-Term

As an artist in and out of the classroom, I think I have progressed to further more of my potential. At the beginning of the term, I had no idea what to expect of this class and therefore was a bit shy about creating things. However that never stopped me from putting forth my best effort and trying out everything that was offered to do. As I stabilized my confidence in my artwork, I began to breathe art in. I am very visually and audio aware. Everywhere I go I listen and look and take in things for what they really are, and for also the abstract. I have thought of myself as a creative person all along, but when asked to do things that are simpler, I tend to have more trouble. I like to get in detail with my work and make every line perfect. With the charcoal exercise I had to give up that notion of control and go with the flow. Somehow I was okay with that. Normally I am very protective of my drawings and make sure everything is good once so I do not have to go back and alter my piece in the process. I think one area in which I excel in is describing my work and how it feels to do this. Some parts I think I did very well in and grew in were my sketchbook drawings, not because of the way my drawings look, but about the thought and carefulness I put in my work. An artist is anyone they want to be and can be anyone. Everyone is an artist in some ways even if they do not realize that yet.

What's in the Sack?

In your own words, describe what the goals for today's drawing were.
How well did you achieve these goals? Give specific examples from your process and/or from the finished drawing. You might even describe what challenges you faced.

Today we drew from observation of plastic bags with objects inside of them. We started out drawing fast, just getting the gist of the objects and then worked slower, concentrating on shapes and coloring in and shading. This process was noisy and speedy at first, then quiet and meticulous afterwards. I think I did pretty well achieving these goals. Although I could have made more generic shapes rather than focusing in on the smaller pin point objects, my overall process went really well. One obstacle that I faced was I had a lot of black and no shades in between. When going back and being more specific, I shaded in and erased a lot of the black to make things seem real.

Changing Still Life

Today when we kept having things from our picture taken away, you had to be agile because you had to have eyes on your paper, on the still life in front of us, and you had to have good reflexes when Ms. Roberts would take away objects or add objects in. You had to not get attached to your picture and not make it realistic just get a basic idea of where the objects go. You had to be able to erase A LOT of stuff and be okay with the fact that your picture wasn't going to be pretty and very different from the way it started.

Reflections about my first critique

Today I received feedback on my story collage. Some of the feedback I got was that my story was very funny and out there because of what it was about. Someone noted that my story was a bit random. Then I received some positive feedback saying that my lines were very intricate and I had a lot of depth and detail within my lines connecting all my people. It felt fine to get feedback because I knew my classmates wouldn't be too harsh on me and I like hearing their opinions on my artwork so I can know what they think of my work and how the react to what I created.

Reflections about the week...

Here's what we've done over the past week and a half:

• describing a work of art (with the postcards...)
  

• collaborative drawings (with the penguin, remember?)
• pour paintings (remember the mess?)
  
• mapping the still life (draw, but don't)

What do all these activities have in common?
I think that all these activities have a lot in common. Well what they have in common is what they don't. All these projects are kind of not typical projects that you would expect to do. They are all analyzing art at a different aspect. They make you question the regular way to create art. I really enjoyed thinking about art in a jumbled way because I think thats a better way to learn how to make art, not just learning straightforwards because thats just plain BORING.