interior

 For my Interior space project, I really struggled finding a picture of something real that wasn't simple like the inside of a box or room. I wanted something different. I was on the idea of doing something with the inside of an animal but I didn't want it to be too gory to where people didn't want to look at it. My friend Sammy is a really big fisherman and he took this for me to use. The inside of a fish's mouth seemed interesting to me because of all the different parts inside that humans don't have. I decided to use oils because they blend so well but I was a little unsure of using them because I have such little experience with them.

The canvas I'm using is 16 x 20 so the fish is taking a lot longer to complete than I had anticipated. The pinks and whites in the bottom left hand corner is my favorite part right now and probably will be at the end of it all. I chose to do it off center to the bottom left to be able to create reflections in the eyes and to get the top of the fish's head too. I'm using the warm, fall colors that make the fish look more realistic and like it did just get reeled in from a lake. I enjoy doing this project but all the layers are very tedious and it is starting to make me nervous at how long its taking. 



In this progress picture I have added more of the space in the mouth. The "rib cages" in the mouth are very hard for me to be happy with because they aren't the same in the picture on both sides and that drives me crazy.

 In this next Picture I have taken a break from the inside of the mouth and started working on the background. The water I did to have some contrast with the fish itself because in the picture it was almost the same and I didn't like that.

I used a palette brush for the Lilly pads because I feel like it gives them a blurred look and that's exactly how i wanted it, focused on the fish! I also added some grass because the shore was right there.This is an up close picture of the fish's head. I know its not realistic but i really am happy I went with pinks and purples for the outside of the fish. There were so many bland colors like browns and dark greens and blues, I really wanted to spice it up.

This is the finished product! I really liked the way it turned out, some parts more than others. I liked the Lilly pads, the eyes and the left bottom corner of the entire canvas. I do not think my "ribcage" turned out the way i wanted it to so i might just work on it more later on this year outside of class.

Object

For my object project I chose a butterfly landed on a showel in the middle of grass with some pink flowers scattered. I thought the whole compostion was fabulous and I wanted to reinvent it with the palette knife. I had practiced with the palette knife previusly with the apples that I did. with this, I wanted to add more depth though so I knew I had to vary my colors and really work with it.

This progress picture shows the texture i got in the grass from using the palette knife. That is why I used it for the whole piece, I loved the way it looks when it really is 3D.

I loved working on the shovel because of the values I got to create and the way it slowly started to look real. I really enjoyed working with the paint with the palette knife finding out how to mix colors directly on the canvas. I was really worried about starting the butterfly because I liked it all so much before I put it on there. This entire project was really outside of my comfort zone because I had never used oils except on my apple project and the palette knife was brand new news too. I feel like i learned a lot from this project, I learned how to push the lights and darkies with oils and i figured out how to blend all the colors better. Using the palette knife helped me get the texture I waned and I really liked the strokes that it made. It made my project more abstract and interesting I think. I also liked how much paint i got to use on it and the way you can create detail with such a big utensil.  I enjoyed doing it but I do not think I will do another butterfly. Ever.

 

This is the final project of my shovel. I wasn't very impressed with the butterfly and i feel like I could have accomplished a lot more with i just don't know what I could do. I really loved the values i created on the shovel. Pushing the lights so much was out of my comfort zone and i don't normally push them to almost straight white but I'm glad i did and i think this project turned out very well.

project #4

 For this project, I decided my medium to be an array of things. watercolor, ink  pen, and photography. All of my summer projects were kind of like this and I loved the way they turned out. I printed out a picture of me before prom last year in black and white with some contrast and highlight edits on the computer. I printed it out on water color paper and started to paint over it and add color where I wanted.

On this practice one I used pen and ink on the dress itself. I liked the way it look by itslef but I liked it better without the pen so the colors would contrast better with the background and really stand out. I also experimented with the water color in the background. I didnt like it at all after I did it so that idea was thrown out.

On this practice I started to experiment more with the pen and some cross-hatching techniques. I really liked the way the bricks turned out and the house in the background. At this point I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted to balance the top and bottom with the semi-empty space in the middle. I also started trying new and brighter water color on the dress and in my hair. I liked it but I couldnt tell if I liked it more or less that the blues and greens I had started with.

The next practice I did I decided to push the bright colors on the dress even more to see if I liked it. To me, it kind of looked like a rainbow dress and I wasnt really a fan. I then decided to stick with the colder colors and just try and still push the highlights. 

 On the left picture there is an upclose of my hair. I added mostly blue and brown to it and some purple to get the colors that show through and just exaggerate them. I worked with water color for these and it was on normal paper so it kind of peeled up. I added reds and pinks to make it look like a cut or where my skin is being peeled off. This could be my favorite thing that I leared from this but I knew it wasn't for this project, it didn't really fit so I'm planning to use that technique on my next project.

This is a picture of it finished. I am extremely happy with the way it turned out. Im glad I decided to go with the cooler colors and keep everything else black and white. I liked being able to portray what I wanted to out of a picture that someone else took of me.

Prisma Pencils

 I was honestly terrified when I found out that we had to do a project in color pencil. I had never really tried colored pencils before, let alone prisma colored pencils. Although it was WAY out of my comfort zone, I enjoyed learning about all I can do with them. For my project I took an American flag off of the side of our house and set in on the table. I arranged a whoole bunch of diet cokes, which are my favorite drink, in the flag. Our topic was reflection so I tried to wrinkle the flag up as much as possible for you to still be able to see the cans and what they say but also see a relection of the flag in each can itself.

This was my practice picture and as you can tell, I struggled at first. I didnt know how to blend the pencils well and I didn't realize all of the layers that I had to put on it for the colors to turn out really vivid.

This was my finished project and I was really happy with the way it turned out compared to my practice one. I got the values darker and added more layers and it ended up looking pretty good. I loved getting to learn all about these pencils and how they are different from regular colored pencils. I had fun with it but I do not think I will be revisiting this medium anytime soon.

Apples

 For my oil apples we didnt have enough apples so mine is an orange. This was my first experience with oils and I loved it. I got to practice different techniques and learn a lot about painting with oils.

Personally, I really liked the first orange better mainly because of the technique I used which was a palette knife. I liked the texture a lot more and I don't always enjoy drawing or painting really realistic things like still lifes. So, with the palette knife, I got to add my own ideas like the texture and background. one thing i really liked was the highlights I got to portray very strongly with the palette knife. I want to continue with this technique and see what else I can do with it.

Summer Work

My summer projects consist of a perpective of an alley in downtown Nashville, the interior of my mouth, teacups in a china cabinet, a photo of me with flowers around me and a landscape of the beach.

This is my perspective down an alley in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. I enjoyed doing this project because I got to do a basic medium like perspective but got to add my own touch with the water color and other aspects. I added more to this than what was in the original photo because it seemed too plain. I added windows and doors and I painted it as if it was night time.

For both of the above projects (interior of mouth and teacup) I printed off photos that I took in black and white and then painted over them. For the painting of the inside of my mouth, I used water color. This picture was fun to create except the teeth were really hard to get shaped the way I wanted them and to get the gums in the right values. The teacup with the saucer and plates underneath was probably the project that took the longest this summer. If you notice, each plate is lined with a mustard yellow color on the edges and has its own values in it as well as on top of the plates that are visible. I used acrylic paint for this piece mainly beacuse I wanted to change things that were dark already and I needed paint to be able to go over black and show up clearly. 

This is by far my favorite piece I did this summer. Originally it was a picture taken of me in Wintergreen, Virginia by one of my close friends. I loved everything excpet the way the flowers looked so I figured, "why not make it exactly the way I want it?" I printed it off in black and white just like the others but this time, I only changed one aspect. I liked the way I could make the flowers I wanted to pop brighter and the ones in the back fade out. I had a lot of fun with this project and I really want to continue with this method.



For my mixed media project I did this landscape of the beach with pen and ink, water color, and acrylic. I printed the picture in black and white like the ones above but I did add an effect on the computer to change the brightness and contrast so i could make the highlights and shadows how I wanted. I used acrylic for the sand and water and water color for the sky. On the original picture I took, there was no fishing poles but it seemed too bare so I added them in.

I've explored alot of my own ideas this summer and the way I like to work. I feel like I have grown a lot as an artist and I've found what I excell in and enjoy the most. The reason I believe I like altering my own pictures is so I can portray what I see and my perspective on certain objects and pictures. I can't wait to see what this year has to offer!