Category: Art 160

Final Art Assignment

May 4, 2023 / CDVL

Overall, this class has been super eye-opening and has pushed me past my comfort zones that I had before taking this class. My advisor wanted just that for me when she encouraged me to take this class as one of my last electives during my time at Agnes Scott. Although I am still not entirely convinced art is for me, I have grown a greater sense of appreciation for it.

This final assignment was one that I had higher expectations going in as to what my final product would be. While I am not entirely satisfied, I think I am proud of myself for completing the work. I engaged with the theme and got good feedback from my classmates during the critique. My theme was about three of my biggest fears surrounding my eleven year old sister.

The first picture I did was the one on gun violence. I really wanted to do a collage or like newspaper style for that one. If I were to redo it, I would probably make the person in the middle smaller and then really fill the page with more headlines. I did end up going back over the black ink with the grey compressed charcoal to give it more texture. I wanted it to look like a newspaper that had been crumpled, or at least possess that textured quality. I don’t think was entirely achieved, but it was interesting to see how the wet and dry material interacted.

The second drawing I did was inspired by my sister being an “iPad kid,” but also because she’s at the age where online bullying and addiction to likes and comments on social media really begins. Out of all three of my pieces, this is the one I like the most. I finished the stippling, which took forever, but I think it was worth the final product. I wanted it to look like a mix between TV static and hypnosis.

The final picture was the one representing climate change. I wish I had drawn the gas mask at an angle. However, I think that the textures that I was able to get with this drawing were probably the most successful of all of them. I wish I had spent more time on the trees in the eye lenses, but I got too frustrated with that part of it. However, I did enjoy drawing the smoke. I used white conte on top of black charcoal, which came out really interesting in my opinion.

Overall, this project and class have really expanded my artistic abilities, but also my appreciation. My favorite part of the class was getting to watch other people’s processes and final products.

Progress Post (04/21/2023)

April 22, 2023 / CDVL

In the last few days of art class, we are working on our final projects. For my project, I’ve chosen to do biggest fear as my theme. My biggest fear is something bad happening to my little sister, so I’ve chosen her as the central figure for my drawings. I also decided that I wanted to use collage in my drawings. When I went to get inspiration from real artists, I found an issue of the Contemporary Art Issue that featured twenty-five artists that have used collage.

After doing this, I started to think about which fear surrounding my sister I wanted to showcase in my three pieces. The three I chose were gun violence, the affects of social media/too much technology use, and climate change. I began to compile pictures and inspiration images to help me through my process.

I chose gun violence as this one hits close to home right now with the recent shooting in Nashville that occurred not too far from where my sister currently goes to middle school. I really focused on the collage for this piece and wanted to newspaper headlines to be central. I am not entirely happy with the final product, so if there if time I will most likely go back and re-do or just add to it.

This is the inspiration and sketching I did for this piece.

The second piece that I am still working on is the one focused on technology. I am using stippling to get the tv/hypnosis affect. The iPad was done in vine charcoal. The collage piece is with the apps and messages seen on the image. I am definitely happier with this one so far, but it still needs some work.

This is what the piece looks like right now.

This is the inspiration and sketching for the second piece.

Finally, I just started working on the third piece that is going to be focused on climate change. I haven’t figure out the entire composition of the piece yet, but I did start sketching and gathering more images for it last class. I want the focus of that piece to be a gas mask, but possibly with a utopia in the eyes of the gas mask. I think either this or the background is where the collage aspect will come into play.

This is the sketching I was working on in class.

Overall, I think I am in a good place with my project and am excited to continue to work on it during the last two weeks of class.

Texture Assignment

March 7, 2023 / CDVL

When we were first assigned this our next assignment, I was a bit overwhelmed because I didn’t know where to begin. I wanted to keep things as simple as I could as to not overwhelm myself, but still wanted to push myself to try new techniques. When trying to decide on my objects, I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to formulate them, but knew I wanted to keep it to things that I see or use all the time. This is why I chose the four objects (i.e. coffee up, mask, agenda, and pencil pouch) that I did because I use them all the time and they all had shapes that I thought I would be able to draw.

This was the resource image I ended up with

After choosing my photos, I did some larger thumbnails to figure out the composition of the objects, make sure I was hitting all four edges, and working to draw the shapes. These thumbnails can be seen in the images below. I really enjoyed working on the coffee cups in particular, but, overall, I felt like I was able to create a good composition out of the objects.

After completing the thumbnails, I worked on the texture study to try to culminate some of those texture drawing skills before I tried to transfer my thumbnail to larger paper to work on as my final product.

Although I was apprehensive, after I completed my texture study, it was time to work on my final product. I first worked to get my composition of my objects right on the bigger paper, which took several tries. After I finally got them where I wanted them, I started to work on the back wall. I knew I wanted to do stippling because it reflected the dotted texture seen on the wall. I used the charcoal and mars pencils on this part. This took a lot more patience than I anticipated, but I was able to get, especially the corner, to look how I wanted. If I could go back, I would probably add a bit more to the lighter side, but I also wanted to get a highlight there and was struggling to keep it lighter. After the back wall, I used the india inc to create the tiled texture. I very much enjoyed this process, as it made me feel like a little kid in art class. However, I did have to go back in with a sharpie afterwards to clean up the edges. After this, I worked on the pencil pouch, which was probably my least favorite object. I used the ebony pencil and the mars pencil, but it just didn’t turn out like I anticipated with the texture. I used brown paper to create the mask and the cup holder because I wanted some 3D texture to be present in my piece. I used the orange conte on the agenda. Originally I tried to draw flowers, but it wasn’t working out and trying to erase it was messing with the india inc of the tiles, so I just decided to make it solid orange. Finally, I used the vinyl charcoal to do the coffee cup. I think this was my most successful use of shadows and highlights in this work, and so it looks the most realistic, which is why I am most proud of it. The rest of the background at the top needed to be tied into the piece, so I decided to use the brown paper there as well.

Overall, I am proud that I was able to complete this piece. I am decently happy with the way it turned out and that I was able to learn to use new skills in the process.

4 Drawings Assignment

February 10, 2023 / CDVL

Coming into Art 160, I had not been in a true art class since elementary school… so a whopping eleven years. I tried to convince myself several times to drop the class, but here I am. This first project was extremely intimidating to me because, at least as first, I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I tried to go into it with an open mind, but found myself incredibly frustrated. The first several days of the assignment, I tried to doodle and play to “loosen up.”

I tried a blind contour to try to get in the right head space and was happy with how it came out!

I also tried several thumbnails to get a feel for what I was doing.

It went okay, but I still wasn’t satisfied with that I was able to do! I was too focused on the product instead of the process.

When it was time to start drawing, I was incredibly nervous. I could sort of draw the shapes, but felt like I was struggling to figure out how to use the materials “correctly.” I personally think that in my first two pieces, you can see my frustration in trying to do this. However, completing both of these two drawings, although I was not in love with them, was incredibly fulfilling.

In this drawing, I mostly started with the ebony pencil, but ended up filling in the shading with the graphite stick and the compressed charcoal.

In the second drawing, I focused on the spacing of the shapes and attempted a contrast by shading with the charcoal pencil, mars pencil, and black conte stick.

Both of these are not my favorites because I just wasn’t super happy with how they turned out.

With my second two drawings, I think I got more comfortable with the materials and was able to use a wider variety of the materials on the two pieces. I also think I took contrast and shadows/highlights more into consideration with the second two pieces. I moved past just trying to only use the pencils and be less in control with the other materials. I enjoyed using the vine charcoal on my fourth piece more than I thought I would be. Although it was hard to control, it was fun to play with and interesting to see how its values came across.

This was my third piece, I was really proud of how the wood of the shelf turned out, although some of my proportions were off with the objects.

This is all four of my pieces together! I was happy to have completed this project!

I like specific parts of my second two pieces. My favorite thing to draw was probably the metal contraption from my fourth piece.

I was incredibly nervous for critique day because I have the tendency to harshly compare myself to others. However, everyone was incredibly kind and insightful. Seeing everyone’s unique perspective of the same objects was so interesting. Overall, I was happy to have successfully completed the four drawings using all of the necessary materials. In the future, I just want to continue to “loosen up” and be more confident in my abilities, but also my eraser. I am realizing it is okay to make mistakes, as long as I am trying.