Projects (semester 2 at bottom)
Unit 3:
Hive mentality
Final reflection: Making this art took a lot longer than I anticipated given that I was so fixed on getting it realistic and 'right'. I like how the bee turned out much more than the lavender even though it took less time. for the lavender I wish that I had taken more time to figure out the coloration on scrap paper rather than just going onto the final piece directly. On the tips of many lavender buds in images that I looked at there was white highlights on the edges of the buds because they are fuzzy but it was hard to paint that because the background is white as well so it kind of just looks like pollen or something. Also I know I should do a background but I didn't want it to get busy and I liked the simple square boarder. The assignment was a close up-flower, and although you can tell what this is I enjoyed taking a much closer look at these super tiny flowers that are usually overlooked.
Semester 1 Final:
Description: This painting depicts a bee landing on a stock of lavender and collecting pollen (or whatever lavender produces. I don't know if it's pollen or nectar.). There is a thin and simple border surrounding the flower and bee and even though it looks like it's tilted, it's not it's just a bad photo.
Analysis: The main thing that stands out is the bright colors, since purple and yellow are opposites on the color wheel, they balance each other out and it strengthens their ability of vibrance. The texture of the fuzz on the buds is displayed with lighter speckles where the light hits the edge of it but not the whole thing.
Interpretation: This is titled hive mentality because bees live in hives and whenever they go out for food it is not for them but rather for their hive. This painting, for me, is peaceful and simple. It focuses on something so common and familiar but often overlooked. I really like the colors, having opposite colors as the main 2 choices I think really helped. Granted this is based off real life so I didn't 'choose' to make lavender purple, it just is, but I like how the colors turned out.
Semester 2:
Unit 4:
Final Reflection: I got super invested in this piece and actually kind of like how it turned out. The only thing I might change is doing another coat on a few of the squares to make them more solid but I also don't hate the organic-ness it adds. For the project that was supposed to be inspired by foreign culture, this style of black, simple, almost stick-figure people surrounded by super vibrant colors as background and clothing stood out.The picture of my notebook is very chaotic because it is where I did all of my color testing, designs for hair, and ideas for baskets. The hardest part of this was trying to make it colorful and incorporate patterns while not being too busy and confusing. I decided that a way I could do that is by having the subjects be cool colors with curved, more organic shapes. This stands out against the harsher more rectangular geometric background that is entirely warm-color focused. I also made the main part of the painting circular with black around it to make the warm rectangular inner background stand out even more and I'm really glad I did that even though it was an afterthought (I was considering just leaving it white).
<-- (Inspiration/ reference photos)
Unit 5:
Final Reflection: Here is a little house from water color. I wish I planned it out better and added more detail but all in all I like how it turned out. Using water color really helped being able to go monochromatic because I could just add water and dilute it and it would be the same color just lighter, I could also use layers for shading. I want a branch coming towards the POV but I didn't know how to do that without it looking gross so I just hinted and some branches going in that direction just off the page.
Unit 6 project:
(the image above was just a super vague sketch with descriptions of what it is.)
Final reflection: this represents death with someone transitioning from the grey-scale realism of a city to a colorful abstract wilderness If I had more time, space, and planning I think I'd be able to do more and I might do something with it later on, but for now this is what I have. It's a great coincidence that a college was one of the options this unit because I had this idea
even before the options came out and was hoping it would fall into one.there are some smudges on the board but that's also mainly lighting. I wish it was bigger so I could add more, especially to the bottom right. I wish that the bottom right was even more abstract instead of just looking cartoon like. I also didn't spend much time at all thinking about the background so I could focus on that more.
Unit 7 Project:
Final Analysis: These are some leaves and a bird of paradise flower. The background/leaves were done in watercolor since the assignment was watercolor, but I used acrylic on the flower because I wanted it to be more opaque .To be honest, I'm not in love with this, probably because it's kind of boring , but it was nice to be able to experiment with layers using watercolor. I chose to do slanted lines as the boarder because I was too lazy to measure it and better really off than a little off.
Unit 8 Project:
Final Analysis: I like this one. It was a conceptual piece which I don't do very often. I chose to personify the 'universe' by turning it into a giant hoodie. The original idea was 'to befriend a god' but I kind of changed it. I used size a lot in this. Making the hoodie super big compared to the kid, and the kid super huge compared to the earth I think gives a hierarchy of focus and power. I was considering adding stars to the black background but I decided against it since the hoodie and earth were both pretty busy, and I liked the focus being solely on those subjects rather than having distractions in the background as well. There were a bunch of different original ideas that also went along with the whole "befriending a god" concept. Such as a kid teaching it how to be a human in some way, but I settled on this instead.
