Final Blog

I feel that I grew a lot from the beginning of class to now. I learned different techniques and skills not only from the artists that we looked at, but also from those around me. In particular, I feel that I learned a lot from my classmate Anam. I feel that I really grew as a painter from watching her do her pieces and noticing some if the techniques she used. 

I did this painting around the time she did her boat, and I feel like it was better because I saw her work. The blending and layering she did with her paint inspired me to take some of the techniques she used. Her colors were not completely blended into one another and it looked beautiful. I knew that I wanted the light to look as if it was coming from the lightbulb, and a lightbulb's light gradually fades. I took some of the techniques I saw her use (layering and mixing her colors slightly) and combined them with my favorite techniques to get a really great color  gradient. I'm really happy with the way the painting turned out, and I think a lot of my success is from watching her work on her painting piece by piece.

I also took a bit of inspiration from Anam on this piece, although not as much as the last piece. She was working on a pear painting when I started this, and again, I liked the blending and layering she did with the paint. I don't like painting realistic pieces very much, but I did add highlights on the trunk and branches to give the tree more dimension. I also used a mix of grays, browns, and blacks to give the tree some differentiation and a bit of texture. I also used many different colors on the leaves and tries to create texture with the stippling motion I used. I was much more open to experimenting with color after seeing Anam use so many different colors and hues.