Welcome Back Response

Above is my watercolor painting to which I humbly title "Ladybirds". It is my piece for the class's paint-by-subject drawing, in which I had to draw insperation from the word 'ladybug'. Of course I played it safe by painting a bug on a flower, with maybe the slight twist of unique dimention. For this piece I tried to employ shape, color, and proportion, which I think turned out relatively well dispite my inability to paint a clean oval. This is the first time I've completed a watercolor painting (successfully) and I think this is made obvious by how I avoided detail work or intricate scenery. Also, as far as the illusion of dimention, I believe I made a mistake in darkening the stem field at the center, making there be shading at the sides and center which leaves awkward bright spots at the middle-left and middle-right. The ladybugs turned out okay, which was the point to begin with, but the overall picture dissapoints me and I feel I could have done better had I put some more time into sketching out the scene before painting.
As far as tha picture itself goes, it could really be one of two things. If my illusion of dimention was successful, I've illustrated the journey of a single ladybug by painting several in a sort of mine that gradually gets closer. If I've failed to achieve the illusion, it is a diagram displaying the results of radioactivity in a dandilion field, flowers mutating to mature at a larger size and indiginous insects growing from their normal pebble size to that of a

ping-pong ball.

Apple Tree and Wicker Woman

To get us started on our first breadth piece, Mrs. Glenn had us draw artistic ideas from a hat. The idea I selected was apple...go figure :) So in true tradition to the AP artwork lifestyle, I completely deviated from what I was supposed to do. For my piece, I created two tree women or nymphs (whichever you prefer Quinton), with the main emphasis portraying the values of line and color. My mediums were colored pens and the approximate size is 11" by 13". As you can see, the lines are prominent in the bark and foliage and the colors border on extreme, from black and whites to browns greens and reds.

However, unwilling to break out into full mutiny, I portrayed the tree woman on the left as an apple tree. So, whoever says I don't deserve full credit because I did not include any type of apple into the theme, please turn your attention to the top, left hand corner :)

All in all, I like my piece, however I would love it if my pens hadn't quit on me in the middle of finishing. The blue is not as vibrant as I would have hoped and my attempts to create a flesh colored tone on the left tree resulted in a disastrous hue of yellow which I was eventually able to salvage. For my first breadth piece of an AP portfolio I would consider this successful, however it does motivate me to improve...and buy longer lasting pens.

Welcome Back!

By popular demand by the Art 4 students we will do blogs once again in order for students to post what they are working on so they may receive feedback and to allow others to see what we are doing out in the art studio at WHS.

Art 4 and AP Studio students are currently working on a piece of their chioce from summer sketches that will be completed by the end of class on Wednesday, September 1. They will post their work by 5pm on Thursday, Septemb er 2 and we will critique projects in class on Friday, September 3.

I am looking forward to an exciting year with this group!