Drawing

Glass Bottle

Drawing the glass bottle focused more on adding highlights than shadows. This drawing was different because instead of adding shadows on white paper we were adding highlights on black paper. It was challenging at first to get used to the fact that I was drawing the highlights and not the shadows. Since we were using a white colored pencil it was also important for me to remember that if I wanted it to be darker than I had to lighten the pressure rather than make it heavier, but I eventually got used to it. I think that this drawing helped me understand the importance of pressure and color a little bit more.

Contour Line Room & Instrument Drawings

I think that the contour line drawing of the art room was a very difficult thing to draw for me because it requires you to be incredibly accurate proportionally while free-handing it and lifting your pen as little as possible. I didn't realize how easy it was to forget to include or take out lines and to mess up proportions and lines before it already happened. I had a really hard time remembering to take out lines that were behind objects, especially the ones behind the objects that are sitting on the counter. However I think that I had a harder time drawing the instruments than I did the room because for some of them like the clarinet there was an incredible amount of detail that I had to attempt to include without lifting my pen. There were also lots of things in the middle of open spaces that I had to draw and I didn't like the way it looked with a line connecting them (because you can't break the line). I also found it difficult to look at what I was drawing while I was drawing it because every time I did that my lines curved. By doing these drawing I know that I have definitely learned something and that if I ever had to do it again I would be better at it than I was, but I don't think that contour line drawings are something that I would choose to do on my own.

Prismacolor Pencil & Chalk Pastel Candies

Drawing the candies with the prismacolor and pastels was fun a relatively easy. Blending was easiest with the pastels because they were thicker and more easily smoothed out over a larger area than the prismacolors, which I think would be better for smaller areas. The hardest part about these was drawing the wrapper like it was on the candies, especially the twisty part. For me it was also hard to show the dimension of the candy inside of the wrapper. I think that the easiest parts were putting the colors in the candy and drawing the highlights of the wrapper. If I were to do this again I would pay more attention to the detail of the wrapper around the twisted part and the ends and try to draw it at a different angle and hopefully be able to show the shape of the candy more easily.

Perspective Project

 

My idea for the perspective project was honestly one of the worst ones I've had. I didn't have much fun drawing it and because of that I think that it's not as good as it could've been. I had a really hard time with with the extreme amount of detail in the buildings, windows, and covers. Drawing the road realistically and proportionately was also really hard. I changed my idea many different times during the project and I don't think that helped. Even though I didn't like it, I think I did a good job with the grass on the side and the sidewalk. If I was to do this project over again I would come up with a different idea that wasn't so technical so that I could be a little more creative and enjoy it more. I also think that this project taught me a lot about perspective. I know now that I have to be very careful with my lines so that they don't get off, and that the tiniest details are really important to include. 

Opacity Project

In this project I learned how to use my pencil in a way to make animal fur. I had a hard time with it in the beginning but I eventually caught on somewhat. Other than that I didn't learn anything new with my materials that I used. I tried a few things that I wasn't sure about in my project. I wasn't sure about the way the fur would look or how to proportion the part of the cat's face that was looking through the fish bowl. I used the fur technique for the first time, and I think that I still have a lot of room to improve it but I definitely know more than I did to start with. My work took a few unexpected turns, because I was originally planning on having the fish be the focus of attention but the cat was so big that it ended up out doing it. I also had trouble trying to figure out a way to make the fish stand out more so in the end the focus ended up being the cat. 

Gesture Drawings on iPad

I did not take inspiration from another culture, but I didn't know what I was doing at first so I looked at some of my friends' drawings to get an idea of what it was supposed to look like. I used technology as a tool by using a drawing app on the iPad. In a way we acted as a community to draw this because we had the help of other people from the school who let us draw them and we helped each other with things we didn't understand. I responded to challenges that occurred by starting over or using the undo button on the iPad until I got it right. My work did not take an unexpected plan because if I made a mistake it was easy to undo it with technology. I asked another student and Mrs. Rossi for feedback during my work process because I wasn't sure how to get started, and they both explained and helped me understand how to start with the line of movement.

Scull with Tracing Paper Drawing

It was a lot easier to draw a face proportionally with a skull underneath but at the same time it was difficult because not every single person has the same shape. It was also hard because since the skull underneath was shaded, it was a bit difficult to shade on the tracing paper without taking the skull out from underneath it, but overall it is a good way to get the idea of proportions in the face.

Skeleton Drawing

I didn't learn any new techniques or processes but I was able to improve some of the ones I already knew. I was able to practice more shading and understanding of how the position of the light affects the value. The whole process of drawing the skeleton on the paper was something that I wasn't sure about. I'm not very good at proportions. I didn't pick anything new because it was all in pencil. When I was working, I made the skeleton too big at first so I had to start over so that it would fit onto the paper and that was harder than I thought it would be. This took an unexpected turn because I didn't get as much time as I would have if I had done it proportionally and small enough the first time, and I spent more time then I expected to drawing the bones and trying to make them perfect so I didn't have enough time to shade the whole thing.

Gesture Drawing

I tried to step back and analyze my work as much as I could but I never thought to hang it up and look at it instead of looking at it on the ground which was a mistake. It looks a lot different when you're drawing with it flat on the ground then it does hanging up. I didn't really put much consideration into how my idea would work before I started drawing it, but I made sure to pick something where she was standing up because I wouldn't have to worry about some parts of her being closer to me and some being further away. I learned that if you stand a person up to the paper and take measurements it's a lot easier to proportion the body than just guessing. I gained skill with charcoal, which I hadn't used much before because I always thought that it would be too hard to correct a mistake because they didn't have erasers and they were messy, but after this project I decided that they're not so bad. I responded to challenges that occurred by re-doing measurements and re-positioning body parts when they didn't look very proportional. My work took an unexpected turn when I realized that it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Even though it wasn't the best, it turned out to be a lot better then I expected it to be which made me put more effort into it and have a little more fun with it than I planned to.

Scratchboard Drawing

For my scratchboard project, every technique and material that I used was new to me and I didn't think that any of it would work. I learned how to use the utensils to scratch the black and make something out of scratches. I learned that the pressure and thickness of the scratch was the only way to make value and contrast. I didn't gain skills with any familiar materials because I hadn't used any of them before. There were a lot of mistakes that I made that were unplanned. It was very hard to make the scratches thicker and sometimes when I would try to scratch a straight line it would come out dotted. I also put the sun on the wrong side of the drawing so I had to turn it into a border, and I had to go over the lines multiple times to make them thicker. I didn't really like this project because there wasn't much that worked out the way I had planned for it to.