Color: Dark Lady

Hello fellow bloggers and artists! The theme for this project was Color, so I decided to get creative and try a media I hardly ever use: water color. I wanted to create a contrast with dark and light, however, I didn't want the dark to be overbearing or "sad." So, I used an African American woman for the piece. The woman is "dark" but the background was meant to convey a lightheartedness, as was the necklace and her eyes. When I worked on this piece, I didn't have symbolism in mind. Instead, I decided that the colors should make the viewers "think." Let them, come up with the symbolis.

It was much easier than I anticipated in shading the woman's body and I was able to fully convey the affect I was going for with her hair and the background. However, I feel that her face could have been shaded a bit more, but I like it as it is. Her face was the hardest to color, in that it had the most detail and I didn't want to be overbearing with the blue. I was also disappointed in the coloring of her lips, but thanks to many, including Kate (thanks girl!) I decided to keep them that particular shade and it has grown on me. I believe this piece to be done, but if any of you have ideas, please feel free to tell me.

Art 4 - Advanced Placement

Please begin posting your work, not only for the assignments but other pieces you are working on for the breadth section of your portfolio. Discuss your composition, media and what element and pricipal of art you focusing on.

Project: Color

Students in Art 4 are well underway with a new project. This project will focus on the element of art, color. Color can add so much to a piece of work and depending on the color scheme can create or set the mood of a painting. We can see this in the art by Pablo Picasso. During his 'Blue Period' (1900 - 1904) his paintings were monochromatic in shades of blue and blue-green and sometimes warmed by adding other colors. Some say that during this period he was not happy with his life and this was reflected in the cool colors used as opposed to the 'Rose Period' (1905 - 1907) that followed when things were going well for him. Image, how would the overall effect have been changed if he had painted 'The Old Guitarist' in shades of red?

Blog Assignment: Post a picture of your work in progress by Wednesday evening, October 1st, 7 pm. Discuss your color scheme, it's meaning or purpose to the overall composing of your piece, what message you hope to convey to the viewer upon completion, and any problems you maybe having.

Comment on others work and reply to those who comment on your piece by Saturday, October 4th, 7pm.

Your completed piece is to be turned into Mrs. Glenn by Thursday, October 9th at the beginning of class with your completed grade sheet.

My three criteria were color, contrast and non-objective. So basically I had the freedom to do as I wish on this project. I love doing portraits to that was my focus. I achieved contrast through doing the portrait in color pencil and making the flowers around her out of yarn and string. I feel this piece is not quite finished so any suggestions are welcome. This was a fairly easy project and I enjoyed doing it. Thank you.

Due Date for Roll of the Dice

Now that everyone has posted their work for 'Roll of the Dice' and comments are being posted also to help guide you with your finished project, they are due to me by the end of the day Wednesday, September 17 with the grade sheet filled out.

Your next project will focus on color.  We will talk more about this on Wednesday.

Hope Springs Eternal

Hey Art Gang! I hope you like what I've created and please don't hesitate with any criticism. I want to know more ideas for the background and what I can do to make it more mesmerizing. I'll take whatever you say into consideration and try my very best to apply it.

When rolling the dice, I received the elements: emphasis, non-objective and value. As you can see I placed the emphasis on the ribbon, value on the souls and non-objective on the bodies of the souls. From the very beginning I knew I wanted to do something disturbing to make people think so that they could come up with their own idea of the meaning in it. I started off with drawing an enormous blob. However, after a few pencil strokes, I gave this blob an arm and a head. Before I knew it I had created this ominous spirit that was strange but needed something more. I wanted to give it color but not too much because I didn't want to throw off the eerie sensation it produced for me. So I began thinking about ghosts and how they supposedly drift and glide in mid-air. This inspired me to create the ribbons around them, providing the element, emphasis, I needed.

Well I know your probably wondering why their are two up there. After creating the one on the right I noticed some small but significant details that I wanted to change about it such as making the ribbon larger, making the head into a skull, and also adding the slime onto the arm. However, once I completed that one I couldn't help but using the original piece also. I found it really odd how both arms fit together perfectly so I connected both together and got my final project.

Some Beauty is Only Skin Deep

Hello my fellow bloggers! The theme for this project was the 'Roll of the Dice' and, when it came to my luck, my project was based on the elements and principles of Value, Contrast, and Interior. Value for the project was easy, since it was simply shading, where executed correctly is for you as viewers to say. Contrast was easy as well (mmm, the idea was easy) as shown in the drawing of good and evil, light and dark, nice and mean. Again, to whether it is successful is for you to tell. However, interior took some brainstorming because frankly, I would get bored very quickly trying to draw the inside of a house or any other building, and my idea of a dissected cadaver didn't go over well either... So my project focuses on the interior of the human conscience.

The media used for the project was colored pencil on paper. Colored pencil is not my strongest media, however I was satisfied with the results. The only thing I regret is the background. I really struggled with it.

Roll of the Dice - Blocks and Podium

I rolled my dice and fate dealt me internal, balance, and lines. I had dealt with balance before, it's difficult to not use lines and internal can be taken several ways so I felt relatively comfortable going into this project. While I don't think my humble graphite stands up to my classmates previous posts I think I came out with pieces relavent to my instructions.

I haven't drawn much over the summer so I kept both pieces relatively geometric. What I liked about this project was the chance I had to experiment with balance. In both pieces I tried to use a different method of artistic balance, having heavier objects force light ones higher (like literally being on scales) rather than methods like having several small objects in the middle balancing one large object to the side. I'm not sure if its a new idea, but I thought it was interesting.

I used the same methodology I always use when working on a project: think for a long time on it and get whatever result I'm after relatively quickly. Obviously "Blocks" is the more geometric of the two. I tried to keep it pretty uniform and solid. I'm not sure I succeeded.

With "Podium" I tried using minimalism, as I think it's called, wich was fun since I haven't realy used so much implied surface before.

Roll of the Dice: Teaparty In My Ear

The idea behind this piece came to me in a dream; vivid, lifelike, and full of energy. I, however, cannot decide how to recreate it's magic in an artform. The idea remains trapped in a 2D black and white sketch format, but I wish to redraw and paint it with acryllic. I wanted to try to do it in oil due to a suggestion by Kimberly but I still remain quite confused.

The three things I got for this piece were Architecture, Repetition, and Paper so honestly, I don't believe I could've gotten away with painting it. I honestly love this idea quite a lot and I really hope I can revise it and redo it much better than it is now. In this state, there wasn't much more I could do to it.

I vaguely like how this interesting scene is contrasted by its boring color scheme.

I hate how I feel like I didn't do my idea justice, but I really could go too far. I also hate how after I "finished" it, so many more ideas came to me and I grow angry at myself for not incorperating some of them.

I can say that M.C. Esher inspired part of this piece...along with bits of Picasso for the characters. I just really, really, want to redo this picture; I feel it has so much potential, but I didn't do it justice.

Hello everyone! My project is called The Oriental Landscape. I was going for a kind of Asian look; similar to the paintings you see at Chinese restaurants…I hope I captured that effect. The three things that I rolled on the dice were landscape, color, and pattern; they inspired me to begin this piece, even though two of the elements I rolled are not included. I was originally planning to do the piece in color, a light, purple-blue color to be exact, maybe with a sunset in the background. But after a few days of working of the piece, I kind of lost the feeling that it needed to be in color, so I decided to leave it as it was. In the end that turned out to be the best decision anyways, keeping it black and white gives it a faint, serene quality that I prefer to color.
I was really hoping to draw the viewers eye to the waterfall in the background, but I do not think that that happened; much to my disappointment. The waterfall does not appear as realistic as the cliffs and trees do; I may try this piece again later to see if I can fix that, maybe I shall even add the sunset next time...
I had alot of fun doing this piece. It is an expression of me in a way, and I like it. I find Art 4 to be so much more fun than the other art classes I have had, there is so much more freedom. I love being able to choose to do my project on and can’t wait to do more pieces.

~kate