Sketchbook Kitchen Objects: Space

The following are for another sketchbook assignment, this time we were to create a series of three drawings based on one theme using found kitchen objects as our reference. All are drawn in pencil. I had trouble with this but after setting up a few things and discovering they reminded me of a satellite, I concluded a good theme would be "Space". Another interesting note to make is that they are all drawn in the same location, but from slightly different angles(in reference to the table)

• Here I have a glass bottle and folded napkin on my kitchen table to form a rocket. I like this one the least because it seems too simple and doesn't really strike people as being a rocket when they see it.

•  This one is a bit more successful I think, meant to look like an alien's flying saucer. I made it out of two plates and a clear glass bowl. Everything was sitting on some books but I didn't draw them, to give it a flying effect.

•  And finally, my favorite, Sputnik. There are some obvious proportion mistakes on the fork and the shadows are a bit off in some places but I like it the best.

Spraypainted Stencils/Apple in a Bag

These two are very different in technique and design but are both assignments I took on with the Art3 Honors class at the beginning of the year.

• For this one I cut a triangle and a random floopy shape out of some black construction paper for stencils, and then took them outside and spray painted over them on a white sheet of paper. I didn't really have a goal for this, but I like how it turned out. It kind of looks like pieces of glass layered on top of each other to me.

• This was a drawing we did to practice stippling and cross-hatching shading techniques. We wee originally supposed to try only one style, but two worked well in some images and I wanted to try it. I learned that I really hate cross-hatching from this. I hated this a lot when I finished it, but looking at it now I see that I did partly succeed in some areas. I also notice that the apple looks a little oddly shaped. Overall... meh. 

No brush: Winter Wonderland

This painting is acrylics on canvas. I used a sponge instead of a brush, for the texture when stamped and the similarity to a brush when dragged. I love winter settings and the colors you can get from a sunset, so I found a landscape that combined both of these elements to be the reference for my painting. I found it difficult to separate the colors in my head so I could paint them in layers, so I took the photo into a digital art program (SAI) and separated the image into layers of similar colors. This made it a lot easier to paint, but I got to a point where I was happy with the painting even though I saw improvements I could make and ended up just calling it finished where it is now. Mixing the colors each time was also a pain and often I had to go over the entire painting again because I couldn't get the same color again. Though it could be improved greatly, I like it. It also got some compliments in class so that's good.

Creativity with Playing Cards

I do not like the subject of this piece. After seeing what others in my not-class did, I feel really unoriginal in that all I did was cut up the cards into a sort of interesting composition and then draw them. I feel like I should have been able to do something more creative with this assignment, but playing cards... are just playing cards, to me. I have trouble seeing them as anything else. Anyway, this is done with sharpie(red and black) and highlighter(yellow). I felt only markers would be able to provide the shockingly bold and bright colors I desired for this piece. I struggled a lot with the perspective and details of the cards, as I am bad at both. My eyes are either too close together or too far apart, because when I stared at the cards to draw them, I saw two images barely overlapping instead of the one, 3-D image. I probably need glasses. Ugh. I stippled some shading on this after I drew the cards, and I think it gives it a nice look. Though I don't like the subject of this drawing, I do like the results... it looks pretty, if nothing else.

No Brush: Fruit

 I used mostly a palette knife and a little bit of plastic knife to paint this piece, using colors I mixed myself out of only the primary colors; blue, yellow, and red. I believe I was told this was only for practice, but it turned out to be much more than that for me, and I consider this to be one of my all-time favorite pieces. I love the stained-glass feel and the warmth of the colors. I think I actually enjoyed using the spatula more than I would a brush! I don't think I originally intended for this to look like a smile, I just wanted to have varying colors that would not require me to paint a complex pattern. However, in the end, it does look like a very happy fruit monster, and I'm not unhappy that it does look that way. I LOVED this project, and hope to do more like it.

Summerwork: Live Portrait and Design of Initials

These two very different drawings were done as an over-summer assignment... which I was unaware of, so I had to do them the first week of school. I wonder if they would be better if I had known and started work earlier. Knowing what a horrible procrastinator I am, I doubt it.

• I was a little confused about the prompt for this drawing at first, but it turned out alright. This is a writing pencil and black colored pencil(I think that's my favorite medium) piece. The figure in said piece is one of my friends, Kyla Campbell, who graciously thought about horrible and depressing things for over an hour so she could look sad and thoughtful for me. I have both good and bad feelings for this piece. On one hand, it definitely looks like the model I was trying to draw, but on the other hand I scrunched up her facial features and made the lines of her face too dark where they should have blended and faded out more. I really liked the background for this, but I wish I had spent a second more on her earring, which is designed to look like a zipper(so cool). I didn't draw the fly-aways of her hair, so it looks almost like she's wearing a solid piece, but I like the lighting of it and the texture I managed to convey.

 

• These are my initials, in cursive. I used a sharpie pen, a box of colored pencils, and a light table(which I didn't know existed until the day I used it, I love light tables now) to trace the bigger sets over and over again. I wanted to make them look like ribbons, but my shading made them look thicker, like statues. I really like how the colors and placing make it looks like there are hundreds more of these little initial sets all around the window of the paper. I also like how the colors I chose contradict and compliment each other. When I read the prompt for this I thought it would have to be much more complicated, but it turned out that it is beautiful in its simplicity(or at least I think it is).

Sketchbook Hands: Soft, Sharp, and Unexpected.

 Each of these is a simple drawing of my hand holding an object. I tried to do different positioning of my hand and changing the way my hand was holding the objects to get very different looking images. I drew all of them with average writing pencils at first, then went over them with another medium that I felt would compliment the texture of the object being held.

• The one with the draw-string bag in the upper left is done over in drawing pencil. While I think the proportions on the thumb are extremely off, and the arm looks odd but I can't quite figure out why that is, I like this one the best. I think it does look soft, as it was meant to, and I love how the bag looks like a bag.

• The picture on the bottom with the arrowhead was a pain to draw, literally. The point on that thing was really sharp, making it a perfect choice for this particular drawing. I chose to use sharpie as my final medium to give it a stark contrast that would accent the sharp-ness. I don't like the angle of the hand in this one and I think I should have just done the same kind of darkened border as I did with the other two drawings. I also don't like how chubby and segmented I made my fingers look by doing the creases too darkly. I do think the fingers look very much like fingers and the arrowhead looks like obsidian, however, so I don't think this drawing was a complete failure.

• The picture in the top right is of (my hand and) a necklace I have. The necklace "chain" is some sort of rubber rope, which is why it is stiff and sticks out from my hand like that. The cat charm on it is turned around so that you see its back. I thought this might fit the unexpected theme because you always expect to see the front of things. I used a black colored pencil to finish this. Though I was a little rushed with this drawing, I rather like how it turned out. I had to redraw my hand several times before I felt like I had gotten the proportions right. I do wish that I had pulled my sleeve up a little bit, because the space in the border where my arm leaves the paper feels wrong.