Up Close and Personal Theme - Softball

Artists Create Original Work
For this project when we started out by doing the different techniques I noticed how bright the different medias all were. When I was picking my ideas I focused them on bright things, then i thought of doing a softball and I found I really liked the way it turned out in my sketched and trying out the different medias. For my reference pictures I actually took my own pictures to make it easier when i was sketching. I put my original pictures into the sketches and then used the more professionally done pictures for my values and seeing how the color reacts to the light source. I'm really glad I chose to do this idea because I had my object so accessible to me and I was more familiar with it.

Artists Solve Problems
When I was doing my project I noticed how the quality of the construction paper didn't really mix well with the chalk. When I first started the project  by doing my sketches in my sketchbook the color was really bright and vibrant and smooth. On the construction paper the chalk didn't mix smoothly and it made it hard to  layer the colors to get my value in between. Also because of the layering problems I had to leave a blank spot for the stitches of the ball because that was where i had most of my highlights so I needed the whites as bright as possible. Also to overcome the dulling colors and the increased difficulty to layer I just had to spend a lot more time than I originally thought, but i'm glad I did because I thought it turned out really well.

Artists Reflect
My camera made the color look really separated and not blended! For this project I really had to step back and look at it to make sure I was following my value well and staying true to how it would really look. When I had to move onto the second softball (bottom right) I remembered how hard it was to get my color bright so when I had to move onto the next one I tried making the back completely white and then adding on top of the white. Even though I thought this would help it really didn't make that much of a difference but I'm glad I tested it out. My favorite part of this project was when I would finally do the stitches and laces because it really tied everything together and make it look really good. I had to do this part last because it had to be completely on top of the other colors to make it the most prominent and to keep it separated. I also faced a challenge when deciding my background. I originally was just going to do dirt/sand because I thought grass was going to be really hard. I am very happy with the grass though. I thought it added a really great factor that i hadn't thought of. I know I was dreading doing the background because I thought it was going to ruin everything but it turned out great! Overall, this was my favorite project even though i had to wash my hands 3,000 times I loved the way this one turned out compared to other projects.

Scientific Theme - Icecube

Artist Develop Art Making Skills
When we started this unit and we were going over the technique I found I liked the pen material the best. Out of all the ink techniques I liked stippling the best. I found it was easier to show the value this way. For me the cross-hatching and other methods were very hard for me to maintain shape of the object. I learned when doing stippling you have to be very steady and precise when you're placing the dots. When i first started in my sketchbook I was doing the dots too fast, creating the tails at the end, which is not what I wanted. Later in the project I learned how to make my dots smaller than others to make even more variety between the values. Even though the stippling was very time consuming I enjoyed to overall technique and I enjoyed the way the stippling turns out in other drawings.

Artists Solve Problems
While doing the project one of the elements of art that we had to include was value and contrast. Overall the contrast was easy because I was working with black ink on a white background. When it came to value I found it to be more of a problem than I usually have. One of the reference pictures I had showed no value and It was just black on the inside but then you (Mrs. Rossi) told me to make the value and light source more prominent. When I first started this project I did the top of the icecube first and ended up making it all black, where I wish i could go back and fix the value in it. When I realized that I was doing it wrong I quickly had to change the direction of my light source and try to direct the value elsewhere. Overall, other than that mistake, I liked the way my final turned out.

Artist Collaborate
During the project I again faced many problems which you helped me out and you also helped me out deciding what else to include in my background and how to fill up the page. I consulted in my friends from the other table because I really liked how they performed the stippling while I was having trouble in the beginning. While deciding what to do for my project I originally had a huge iceberg and was going to do that, the people at my table directed me to do the Icecube and push myself towards what I thought was the harder object. I really like my final and I LOVED the stippling so I would definitely do the stippling even though it was so time consuming.

Colored Pencil/Oil Pastels/Chalk Pastel

For the colored pencil lollipop I didn't really like this one. I think the fact that the paper was brown kind of messed up the color. I had a really hard time getting the colored pencil to look colorful and get the value. Since I only had certain colors I couldn't get a good gradient going. I'm not sure if you are able to blend with the colored pencil but it was hard to get the brights and the dark values. Overall, this was my least favorite technique to work with.

I really enjoyed working with the oil pastels. I don't think that it looks that good since it doesn't look as smooth as the others and you can see the lines that you make while drawing it. This was my favorite technique to layer the colors. I found this easier to blend with and get the values. I liked when we had to layer the white last because I feel that it really added another level and aspect to the drawing. I think I might choose this to do my final because I liked this the most. The one downside I think the oil pastels have is that the look like crayons and I don't like the way crayons look. This was a little bit above the chalk pastels for my overall favorite, but just by a little bit.

I liked how this turned out but I wish I spent a little bit more time on the wrapper. When I first started the project I really didn't enjoy the chalk because I found it really to spread around and fill up the page to blend. When you blend the chalk I felt it really dulled down the original color when I didn't want it to. My favorite part of this material is the fact that it looks so smooth compared to the other materials. I think I'm starting to like this more than the others because of the final and the fact that it looks so smooth. This was originally my second favorite but   I think I'm going to end up using this as my final.