Mixed Media Project

For this project I chose to do a beach. At first Ms. Rossi gave us the five topics and I was originaly going to do simplicity. I then tried to come up with ideas and didn"t have any. Ms. Rossi then told me I should do amusement. I really liked this idea because I love going to the beach. I used my classmates to help me with come up with some ideas for different types of media. Real sand is what is on the bottom of the project. Technology was part of what I used. I printed off pictures of different beaches for the background. I was sceptical with the entire project because I wasn't sure if any of it was going to work. In the end I think I achieved the beach idea but I wasn't as thrilled with it as I wish I was. 

Sticky Situation

When I was given the assignment of painting something with the topic "sticky situation", I began to think of different things that I could do. I began to think about doing foods, because there are a lot of foods that are sticky when you eat them. But I looked around the room and saw that over half the class was doing a food, so I decided I didn't want to do that. Then I thought that it would be a good idea to paint a painting of spilt paint.

I started to look at references, and I couldn't find a picture like the one I painted, so I then I had to find a picture of a brick wall and a picture of paint cans. I think that I was able to achieve my own work because throughout the painting of it, I didn't use the references as much as I used my imagination.

The main thing that I learned through the project was making colors. With the brick wall, I had to make 5 different colors, all different just to make the wall. I think I was not only able to achieve the look of the brick wall, I was able to better my skills with creating colors with acrylic paint.

Up Close and Personal

With the theme up close and personal, I wanted to do something that showed the object up close, but you could still tell what the object was. I chose to do a lemon and a lime. I liked the texture of the inside as well as the outside of the lemon and limes. It was my own original idea, but I found two different pictures and combined them into one picture.
When I started the project, I decided that I was going to use colored pencil because I thought it was going to be the easiest. But once I started doing my sketches, I found that the colored pencils don't work as good for blending the colors. So I then decided to use oil pastels, which I hadn't had much experience with. So with some help with Ms. Rossi, I was able to better my skills with the oil pastels and turn out I think a good piece.
Like I said earlier, the oil pastels were new to me. I used something that I hadn't had much experience with, so this project was a bit of a challenge for me. The only real practice I had with them was on the final project, so I had to make sure to be careful and no mess anything up. Overall, I think that I was able to achieve the blending, shadows, and the overall 3-D affect of the whole piece.

Contrast Drawings

For these projects, we practiced with a bunch of different types of mediums. We used oil pastels, chalk pastels, and colored pencils. The can was in oil pastel, the lollipop was in colored pencil, and the candy was in chalk pastel. My favorite was the colored pencil because I felt like it was easier to put down the right amount of color. Although the pastels were easier to blend colors, I still liked the colored pencils. With the pastels though, I was able to blend colors and show contrast much easier than with the color pencils.

Scientific Project

For this project, that had the theme scientific, I had a lot of ideas for what I could draw. Some of my ideas included money, nature, time, clocks, or mountains. I ended up choosing a clock because I thought that I would be able to get the different values that it had on the different sides and the way that the light was hitting it.

The different mini lessons helped a lot in teaching me how to add value to different parts of the clock. It also helped me to make the clock actually look 3D with shading. I was able to show contrast with my work in several ways. I added a background to the edges to the paper so it contrasted with the white parts of the clock and parts of the paper. Another way I was able to add contrast was I made the numbers really dark so they contrasted with the whole drawing and they really stuck out.

The medium that I used was pencil. I chose to use this because I thought that I would be able to add value easier and I would be able to make the clock look more realistic. I was able to shade dark then light to give the effect that the dark parts were further away. I think that I took risks with this project because this was my first real drawing so I think that starting off with something that had a lot of value change was a risk for this project.

Overall, I liked this project because I felt like there was almost unlimited choices for what you could draw. And I also liked that I was able to practice my drawing and shading skills with a big project like this.