These are the first drawings I did in class. I drew a tree, a cat, a cityscape, and a hand.
Prismacolor Fruit
I chose to draw a pepper using prismacolors. The image on the left shows my drawing and the image on the right shows the picture I used.
Watercolor Practice
These are both watercolor practice sheets. For the first one we tried different watercolor techniques and the next one shows value charts.
Watercolor Fruit
For this assignment we had to pick a fruit to draw and pick a color scheme. I chose to do an apple and use warm colors, an analogous color scheme, cool colors, and a monochromatic color scheme.
Watercolor Painting
1. What watercolor techniques proved to be effective in your painting? How and Why? Two effective watercolor techniques I used in my painting are layering with washes and wet to dry. I used layering with washes to get more color in some places to make it look better. I used wet to dry when I put a different color on top of another, such as the mountain in the background. I did this so the colors I didn't want to mix wouldn't mix. 2. How important was using transparent layers in your painting? Transparent layers were pretty important in my painting. I used layering mostly for the trees in my painting to try and create texture. I used layering more for the trees and greenery than the sky or the ground. 3. Explain how your composition was successful? Did you utilize all the elements of art and principles of design? Explain. My composition was successful because of the placement of everything. I utilized most of the elements of art and principles of design. The elements and principles I used the most were texture, space, value, and variety. 4. Was color choice an important factor in the overall success of the painting? Why? Color choice was definitely an important factor in the overall success of the painting. I tried to choose colors true to the photograph I used for my painting. The color I used the most was green. My color choice of colors in the photograph help makes my artwork look more realistic. 5. Describe your craftsmanship. I used the watercolor paintbrush with the paint for the tubes instead of watercolor pencils. I wanted a more free-flowing piece rather than a precise one. I used every primary color in some way. I layered many colors and used other techniques to get my painting the way I wanted it to be. 6. If you were able to do something different what would it be and why? If I were able to do something differently I would choose a variety of different colors to make the painting more exciting. Or I might chose to paint a different a different composition. 7. Explain to me what you have learned about watercolor and how it has improved or discouraged your development in art. One thing I have learned that you have to wait for watercolor to dry on the paper in order to add more color. You have to have patience and a vision when working with watercolor. I think I have improved a little but in using watercolors because now I have had practice.
Final Artwork:
Hundertwasser Painting
1. Describe the craftsmanship of your painting. (Is it neat and well executed?) I did a few layers of each color in the painting, but it was hard to get the outline of the cat a solid line. I outlined the spirals in the background with a gold sharpie. I added little pink spirals in the red and red lines to the cat in my final product. 2. How does your work embody the artist’s style? Hundertwasser used spirals in most of his paintings and never used any straight lines. My work embodies Hundertwasser's style because of the spirals and non-straight lines I incorporated in my artwork. The background wall is full of blue spirals and the cats eyes and whiskers are spirals too. The rest of the painting is made up of uneven lines. 3. Describe your choice of colors/color harmonies and how you used them throughout the artwork. I used analogous colors, green and blue, and I outlined the spirals in gold for the wall. I used pink and red for the other background. For the cat, I used warm colors and outlined it in blue. The red and green next to each other is a complementary color scheme. I think the colors I chose work well together. 4. What is the emphasis (focal point) of your artwork? I would say that the focal point of my painting is the yellow cat. The rest of the painting is mostly red and green, so the yellow pops out and grabs your attention. I outlined the cat with blue paint. 5. How did you use textures and patterns to embellish your artwork? I used many textures and patterns in my painting. The cat has different colored strip, spiral eyes and whiskers, and an outline. Part of my piece consists of red shapes outlined ia semicircular shape with pink, some with little pink spirals inside them. The other part of my painting is green with blue spirals outlined in gold sharpie. All of my patterns consist of lines or spirals. 6. How did you put a border on your artwork? How does it enhance the work? I did not choose to use a border for this piece. 7. Describe any difficulties you had creating this artwork. I had difficulty creating enough of one color. It was hard to make the exact same color I needed after I used it all. I also had some trouble outlining the cat. The line didn't end up being as consistent as I wanted.
Final Artwork:
Oil Paint Fruit
These are the fruits I chose to paint with oil paint, I painted the pear using the the palette knife method and the apple with brushes.
Oil Paint Landscape
1.Describe the craftsmanship of your painting. (Is it neat and well executed?) I think my painting is pretty neat and well executed. I started with the water first because the trees coming from the bottom overlap it. Next, I painted the sky and then the hills and trees I painted last. 2.Describe your choice of colors/color harmonies and how you used them throughout the artwork. I chose to use natural colors for my paintings, similar to the ones in my reference photo. I used white and gray for the sky, many different greens for the trees and hills, and blues for the water. 3.How did you create contrast in your painting? I created contrast in my painting by using different colors. The blue water contrasts with the green nature. I also used some shadows and highlights to create contrast. 4.How did you apply textures, highlights and shadows to enhance your artwork? In the water, there are a few highlights. The darker part of the water is a shadow from the hills in the background. I did many layers of paint and different shades of green for the trees to create texture. 5.How were you able to create depth in your painting? I was able to create depth in my painting by using shadows and highlights. Also because of the color choice. To add depth to the water, I incorporated many different types of blues. 6.What painting techniques did you use that made your painting successful? I painted a few layers of paint so that the red wouldn't show through. Layering also helped create some texture in my painting. THe only tool I used for this painting was a paint brush. 7.Describe any difficulties you had creating your drawing and what you could do to improve your drawing? One difficulty I had with this painting was the water. I should have added a larger variety of colors to the water rather than just different shades of blue. I also could have made the shadow on the water darker. 8.Explain the successes you had with this painting. Overall I am happy with the colors of the painting. They are similar to the colors in the reference photo, making it look more realistic. Another success is starting with the background first.
Final Artwork:
Pet Portrait Painting
These are the painting techniques, reference photos, practice sketches, and in progress pictures for my pet portrait painting of my cat, Greyson. In order to prepare for painting animal fur and animal eyes, I watched the tutorial videos on your website. I chose two videos and followed along to practice painting fur and and an eye with oil paint. The final painting was done using only oil paint. I used a reference photo to do my planning sketch and for my final piece. In order to add value to the fur I added other colors to gray or white to make it lighter or darker. For the white fur I added yellow ochre to make it darker. I had to paint many layers of white fur in order to create texture and cover the red paint. The gray part of my cats fur took fewer layers to paint than the white. I added the white whiskers over top of the fur after I was finished with the fur. The eyes and the nose were done in between layers of fur. For the background I painted over the top part with a slightly different shade of red than the base color. The bottom was painted a lighter orange. If I were to do something over again it would be the background. I would do a more detailed background instead of just red and orange.
Final Artwork:
Glass Oil Painting
These are the practice pieces, reference photos, and in progress photos of my glass oil painting. Before starting my final piece, I did a mini practice painting of a glass jar. Then I did compositional sketches in colored pencils to help me choose what composition to do in my final piece. To prep for painting, I painted the canvas with black acrylic paint. It was new for me to paint with a black background and painting glass. The black made the white highlights pop and stand out more. Since this was my first time painting glass, I don’t think my painting turned out as well as it could have. All the practice I did beforehand helped though. If there was only one thing I could redo about this painting I would choose to redo the yellow. It doesn’t look very well blended so I would work on that and make the yellow closer to the color in the reference photo. But overall I enjoyed working on something new and I think it improved my oil painting skills.