Saturday, June 25, 2011

Back to Blogging

I haven't posted anything sense the school year started, and now that it's ended, I thought I'd get back into blogging. So first of all I thought I'd share the artwork I put in my final portfolio for my art class. 

This one is one of my favorites. It was my first time using pen and ink and the techniques like hatching, crosshatching, scrumbling, and stuff like that. We had to illustrate a story or poem or song and we were supposed to bring said story or poem or song to class with us... which I kind of didn't do. Lucky for me, my friend brought extra poems and I just used one of hers. :) The title of the poem was "the Dentist Pulled My Tooth Out"  By Ken Nesbitt

The dentist pulled my tooth outand he thought it was such fun,
he grabbed his pliers and dental priers
and pulled another one.

"Yippee! Hooray! What awesome fun!"
he shouted out with glee.
He grinned a grinthen went back in
and pulled out number three.

Then number four and number five
and numbers six and seven
were followed bya cheerful cry
of "Eight! Nine! Ten! Eleven!"

He took a few more from the top
and some from underneath;
he yanked them fastuntil at last
he’d pulled out all my teeth.

Without my teeth I cannot chew;
I just eat soup and mush.
But don’t be sad.I’m kind of glad—
I’ll never have to brush!

These two are made with oil pastel, the project was to make self portraits showing duality. I couldn't come up with an idea for the longest time so I ended up doing my focused and calm side and the energetic and fun side to show duality, which apparently wasn't really what I was supposed to do. I don't remember exactly what I was supposed to do, but it wasn't supposed to be personality traits like calm and exited or anything, it was supposed to be different life styles or something. I guess like the Clark Kent and Superman duality kind of thing. Anyway, the student Teacher helped me a lot with this and she really liked the finished product. She told me I should keep using oil pastels, which I have, but I haven't been as successful with them. I'll keep working at it though.




 The one to the right is titled "The Wild" mostly because my teacher's comment on it was "wild design!" I made this for a sketchbook assignment using a sharpie. I had no idea how the end would turn out, I just kept drawing random swirls and lines until I thought I was finished, I made a couple others like this before, but this is one of my favorites.











The one below is my 'artist's choice' design. I used soft pastels which I'm really not that familiar with yet, but I wanted to try it out. I tried to give it a lot of contrast and color.

 
As you can see I'm just trying to experiment with different mediums and different styles, I don't really have my own style fully developed yet but bear with me and at some point I might get there.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Recent Artworks

I made this one for the Virginia State Fair art competition. I used acrylics and painted the water with my fingers (as suggested by Natalie because I couldn't find my paintbrushes and was in an mad frenzy trying to find them, haha, of course I found them a day later where they were supposed to be, go figure). :) It didn't win or anything, but it's turned out to be one of my favorite paintings so far, and I even came up with a really great little story for my artist's statement (see below)
   Adrift
  After finally breaking through the strings that had once held them down, the six balloons set adrift over seas and mountains. They boldly set off on a voyage to nowhere, never to return, with only the wind to set their course. Never knowing what will happen next. Never knowing when or where they’ll land. Never doubting themselves, and yet never taking themselves too seriously, because they are, after all, only balloons.

  This one I painted for my mom for Christmas because she loves cherry blossoms :)
  I was waiting for a time when she would be gone for a long enough time for me to start painting it, but the thing is, the times she was gone long enough was usually when I was at school, so eventually I just told her that I was planning on painting her something and I needed her to disappear. lol :)
  I used mostly acrylics but the birds were made with chalk pastels.
This one is titled Hope (as in hope of spring and new things) (titled by mom)
This one (above) I wanted to make something with really bright, bold, warm colors contrasted with cool colors.


   This Christmas my family did a secret Santa thing, we pulled a random name from a bag and that was who we were supposed to buy (or in my case paint) for, I got my Grammie, and this is what I painted for her. It's all made with acrylic paint, the background I painted using a pallet knife.