Change Blog

One of the challenges I encountered while working on this project was trying to make it not look like a child's artwork. After I finished my first painting session, it looked very flat and bland. I liked the winter side, but I didn't like the spring side. I ended up getting feedback from other people and made changes based on that. I added more shading to the back and foreground and I added elements from each side to the other.

I found the idea for this project from the change journal entry that we did. I painted a tree with one side spring and the other side fall. I didn't like my original, so when we got the assignment to do a change project I decided on doing a sort of "remake" of my journal entry (after much indecision). I came to terms with the fact that I couldn't draw leaves and chose to do spring and winter (because it was snowing outside) instead of spring and fall. 

I'm very proud of my final project! I don't think that's its really great necessarily, but I am proud that I was able to do something that I didn't think I originally could. I'm very proud of my work on shading with paint, as that was one if the things I came into this class wanting to learn/work on. It didn't turn out exactly like I expected, as I thought I would mess it up, but I like it. There are some things that I want to change (like the clump of snow pictured) but I am too afraid of ruining the painting to fix it. 

Portrait and Surrealism

My artistic skills have greatly improved in these first few weeks of art class. My goal in the class was to learn to draw people, and I did! I learned about proportion and how to properly shade facial features.

I don't use anything in particular to help me generate ideas for my work. I often use pictures to help me do the work (almost like a model). When I'm given a topic to do a piece on I think about what comes into my mind when I think of the topic and think of a few ideas. I then pick one that I like and then start working! I typically figure out how to approach the work best, sketch, then add value or paint. 

I think that I've had major success in learning how to draw faces/people. My first photo of a portrait looked nothing like the person I was trying to draw, but by using the grid method I was able to achieve a drawing that looked extremely close to the picture I used as a model. My challenge was definitely creating value with paint. I've definitely had trouble with it and still haven't mastered it, but I am building up by using pencil and paint together.