I began our mixed media practice by choosing the topics of love and heartbreak since I had recently gone through a break up and had a lot of feelings that ice cream couldn't help. This was the first time I had tried visual journaling and this was the result of the love theme. I didn't have enough time to finish the heartbreak one. Since I was only experimenting with different techniques, it didn't turn out quite as pretty as I wanted it to. Before I laid down the pink tissue paper, it was very busy and didn't flow well. I added a photo transfer using tape on top of the tissue paper. It was my table mates' idea to use the tissue paper in making my piece more cohesive. My final piece was more intentional than this one. I titled it "Down the Rabbit Hole" and it was inspired by the questionable theme as it is about me questioning my sexuality and becoming comfortable with it. This time around I realized that I could use gesso to make some of the pictures fade into the background. I did this to make the circle in the middle look like it had depth, by putting some things in the foreground and making them stand out. I also used gesso to make several photo transfers, such as the two male faces in the right. I think I gained skill with tissue paper, which I used around the circle. The blacks and whites didn't seem like such a stark contrast against each other when I painted around them. I used real dirt to make the hole, which was new. I wanted to use dirt that was more loam-like, but unfortunately that is not the kind of dirt that we have around the art room. My piece was to show how once I discovered who I really was I let myself fall into a whole new world. I was really pleased with how it came out (pun intended) and with my work on it.
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For this project I made a close up drawing of a bearded drawing using prismacolors. I love bearded dragons so I went to the pet store to take pictures if them. That was the picture I based my drawing off of. I liked using the prisma colors to make the different shades of the scales, but I had an accident in one part where I thought a purple pencil was brown. It took me a very long time to do the individual scales, but I like the way they turned out. My group have me a lot of feedback along the way as far as colors go. Our group had dinner as our meal to create food from and I decided to make meatloaf and a baked potatoe. I chose meatloaf because in the Rocky Horror Picture Show they eat a character named Eddie who was played by Meatloaf. The potatoe was just a side thing to add on, but it ended up being more successful. I am not very used to clay, so this particular project was a challenge for me. I got very frustrated and gave up on making the shape of the meatloaf which did not turn out how I pictured it. I didn't take pictures of the clay process, mostly because I didn't want clay on my phone. I did not know that you could fill the inside of clay with paper towels, so that was helpful in keeping the meatloaf from collapsing. This was the first drawing I did. It was made out of chalk which I had never used before and probably won't ever again. It was difficult to blend and the dust from it got everywhere which really annoyed me. The dum dum was second and it was made with prismacolor pencils. This was easier and I felt like I had more control with the colors to make shadows and highlights with the colors. The jolly rancher was made with oil pastels. I liked these too, but the lack of many colors made it difficult to create a wide variety of colors. The artist whose style I used was Diego Rivera. A lot of his inspiration came from the mexican revolution and the working people of Mexico. I decided to make a self portrait holding a bunch of callalillies and with a rifle on my back, because women fought in the war with the men, and I love that kind of strength. In doing this project I learned a lot about mixing and blending colors. I also had never heard of doing the complimentary color wash. I used purple for mine because the background I wanted was yellow. This reflects who I am because I have a gentle and a tough side which is shown through the props. My table mates helped me through this process by giving constructive criticism. I had originally planned to be sitting on one knee instead of sitting cross-legged. It made more sense once I started painting so I had to change my idea a bit. "Empanadas with Oaxaca Cheese" is the title of my project. It is a drawing of my sister making tortillas. The idea came from drawings we saw using foreshortening. My sister loves making empanadas and since she's gone back to Mexico I wanted to make something for her. In doing this I learned more about drawing with pencil, and especially shading. I did not know that it's a no-no to use your finger to smudge it. There isn't anything really deep behind the meaning of my work. It's just a bit of Mexican pride and love for my sister. I had tried using charcoal originally, but that ended up being my final sketch and I started a new final because of the difficulty I had in shading with it and erasing it. I had a lot of difficulty in getting the proportions right with foreshortening, but I'm glad I stuck with it and made it work. |