All things in-between- Scratchboard project

1) Recently I have desperately been wanting to go see the P!ATD concert and in wanting to see it have explore what the concert scene is typically like. Friends have said their is normally a lot of weed and booze around as well as vaping. A specific friend in my art class one day was showing some cool pictures of them vaping and i came up with the idea of using it for my movement piece because i had liked the example piece my art teacher, Ms. Rossi, had showed us with an exploding head and smoke coming out. The only thing this person required me to do in return was block out their eyes so that they could not be identified. This the idea came to me to incorporate the censored picture into the piece and use bars in the background as a suggestion of more people being present. 

2) I used hatching in the smoke to give it color and direction in hopes of creating and airy, light texture as is usually given to smoke. 

3) Initially I just had the face with the smoke coming out of nose as the center of the piece and nothing else. However, I soon decided that I wanted to have more "people" part of the piece to create a crowd so I added in the bars to create a background. 

4) I implied movement in my piece by using hatching in the smoke to make it appear as if it is moving in particular directions and by having it come out if the nose it is assumed that is in motion. 

5)I could improve this piece by having smoother lines and cleaner pieces of smoke. I added some smoke in after my initial design and I don't like the way it looks because it doesn't seem to glow with the other pieces well and looks distinclty different to my eye.

6) I used hatching to create brighter highlights in certain areas of the face and to give the smoke color and opacity. I also created bright white bars to accent the person and the crowd surrounding her. 

Clap-Self portrait

          The idea behind this piece is that when I was little, my mom would joke with me saying that I should clap when I change subjects because I would leave her confused as to how I got from one thing to another. So, I decided it was time to explain how my crazy mind works. I tried to connect different streams of thought and show jumps from one subject to another and somewhat how they relate to eachother. The values in the darks or shadows could have been pushed further to create a more realistic image. I used purples and a bit of brown to create the shadows in the piece. For the thought bubbles, I tried to use a background color that went along with the theme of that particular bubble and wrote as well as drew images that coincided with said theme. The bubbles not only portray happy, hopeful thoughts but mh negative thoughts as well which is more accurate to how I think. I wanted people to notice that negative thoughts-drawn in a dark gray and black in some places- creep their way into even the most happy of thought streams. Life isn't all rainbows and candycorn after all. I am happy in that I feel the piece does look like me to some extent and that the bubbles are interesting. This piece is original because it portrays my own thoughts and feelings connected to a picture of me. I have never seen something like this before, although I'm sure it has been done somewhere. 

Opacity- Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans

1. My project is very neat. I took time to draw each individual bean and add in highlights and shadows to give it a more realistic shape.
2. My background is more jellybeans but because of the angle of the picture, each subsequent jar of beans is smaller the farther back you go. Also, I filled in the spaces between the beans with a darker shade of the same color to represent the other beans that are behind the bean that are at the edge of the container.
3. I used pretty much the same colors for the beans as I saw in the picture; however, I used lighter shades of a color to create highlight and darker shades of that color to create the background and the idea of a greater amount of beans behind the ones that are most present in the piece.
4. I created contrast in my piece by making my highlights really bright and creating a dark background to make the beans stand out.
5. I used lighter shades of the same color, although in some cases if the color was already really light I used white, for the highlight on the outside of the beans and I used a darker shade of the same color for the background directly behind the beans to create the illusion that there are more beans than just the main ones you first see against the container. I created each bean in a round shape and tried to color it smoothly to create the seamless surface jellybeans often have.
6. I chose to have the background color corelate with the color of the beans at the forefront of the image to create the idea that there were more bean behind the ones that received the light.
7. To successfully create this piece, to give the proper texture and shape to the beans, I had to understand how to blend and push the prismas to get the colors I wanted.
8. I had difficulty with creating the proportions of the beans so they look correct as the piece goes further back. I didn't want it too look too drastic. If I could do this again, I think I would have pushed the highlights of the plastic more and made each color brighter and clearer.

Final self portrait sketch

I ended up choosing to draw myself with my thoughts flooding from my head. My mom always teased me when I was little saying that I needed to clap my hands when I changed subjects because she had no idea how I would get from "A to π". So here I tried to show things I think about, both positive and negative, and how one thought leads to another then another and all of a sudden I'll jump to a new topic. I chose to do the sketch with a drawing pencil but for the final I will do it in Prisma Color.

Self portrait idea sketches

I have never really attempted a nice self portrait before this class. For the expressive category I came up with numerous ideas including the shattered mirror with me screaming, the head with my thoughts coming out, me wearing Mickey mouse ears with a goofy grin, and me holding a ton of colorful balloons. For the zombie category, I came up with a version of me with my eyes clawed out and a creepy smile as well as a version where you can see my face with a skeletal smile under translucent skin. Lastly, for the mechanical category I came up with a version of me at a side view where you can see a microchip for a brain and wires connecting to major functions. I had an easier time with the expressive category in part because I am such an expressive person.