Bows

My first experience with prisma colors was not too great. I thought this would turn out terribly and I'm really surprised at how well it turned out!! I worked slow and paid attention to all the detail and I think I did a good job with that. They turned out more realistic than I thought. I also think did a great job making them look shiny and three-dimensional. It was really time consuming so I couldn't make as many bows as I wanted to. I still think it looks great regardless. I really want more practice with prisma colors because I think I have more potential with them than I think I do.

Landscape

This picture was taken in Seattle by my friend Claire Wilfong. I've wanted to paint this picture for the longest time and I can't wait to show her! I could have chosen one of my own landscape pictures, but I thought this was so beautiful that I just had to paint it. I think I did a great job making the grass look realistic as well as the water and the trees reflection on it. I'm getting better at oil paint and I think I'm going to continue with this medium in other pieces. I've been thinking about my concentration and I want to stick with oil paint for most of my projects. I'm going to challenge myself with oils instead of experimenting with different mediums. Every now and then I'll try something new, but for the most part I'm going to push myself with oil paint. I love realism like this. I'm going to include my pineapple and mailbox into my concentration. Everything I've said about oil in my past projects is still true, there isn't much else for me to say about it! I'm excited to see what else I can create and see my improvement with oils.

Taking something natural and making it mechanical

I really like my idea for this project. I chose to make the inside of a human being mechanical. I like the idea of her back ripping and seeing mechanical parts instead of bones or organs. The one thing I would change about this is the background. I feel like I could've done a better job with it. I don't think it's terrible though. I definitely think I did a good job with the different skin tones and the sheet around her waist. I also really like how realistic I made the ripped up back look. It looks like her skin is actually peeling away and that there are real mechanical parts inside of her. I would like to see what this project looks like in different mediums though... I think it would look just as good in prisma, it's probably easier too when it comes to the detail that you can't always do with a paint brush.

Self Portrait

I really like how my self portrait turned out. It looks a lot better if you look at it in person though because you can see the detail and value a lot easier. I chose pencil as my medium because I really like to create value and shading with a blending tool, you can tell I used that a lot. Without a blending tool I would have a hard time creating the shape in my facial structures and the way the light hits my face. Making this was very tedious but I enjoyed drawing it a lot. I tend to focus on the detail in my projects rather than being carefree with them. I get frustrated with my work if it's not accurate and realistic. When I first look at this I can see that my eyes look really heavy and tired. I didn't intend to look tired, but the more I look at it that way I like it!

Distorted Eiffel Tower

I really liked my idea of a distorted Eiffel Tower, it added originality to my piece. I've never painted with ink before, I thought it would be almost the same as acrylic paint, but it wasn't. I realized that ink is more permanent and there's no texture to it at all. It also doesn't dry like acrylic paint. The only way you can lighten the color up is if you water it down A LOT. At first, I thought about doing the whole picture in black and white, but someone told me I should use candy-like colors for the sky/clouds. I thought about it and practiced painting clouds with watercolor in my sketchbook. It took a few tries to get the right look I liked. I also looked up a few tutorials on how to paint the sky in watercolor; that helped me out a little! I proceeded the idea of candy-colors for the sky/clouds and I love how it turned out, I'm glad I didn't leave the whole thing in black and white. Besides the sky, the tower wasn't too difficult to make. If anything, I found it hard to pinpoint details from my picture as well as the shape of the tower. I wanted it to look accurate. I think that I did really well on this, with the detail and color. It came out better than I thought.

Interior Oil Painting

I love how this turned out!!! I can't get over how well I think I did. I never thought I'd be able to make the grass look that realistic and make my house look unfocused in the background. In some areas it took a careful hand, and in others I was able to paint messy and freely. It was important for me to keep focus on the realism of the grass because it takes up about 85% of the canvas.
I started off with a quick sketch of what my mailbox and house will look like. I forgot to put down a wash first but that didn't interfere with anything, I just made the wash really light over top of my sketch so I could still see it. Once that dried, I started painting. I made my house look unfocused by not adding all the details in the picture. I kept messy paint strokes throughout the whole house, I think it turned out successfully. The last area I worked on was the grass. I used a small paint brush the entire time, it was very tedious. I made my brush strokes taller in the front and shorter in the back to show realistic perspective. This and my pineapple painting are a tie, I can't decide which I like the most. I think they both turned out really well and I'm proud of them both. It sucks that it takes oil so long to dry. I'll have to wait a while for it to dry if I want to enter it into a contest any time soon. If I get another chance to enter into a contest, I'll probably enter this one.

Everyday Object (oil paint)

I am very satisfied with how my piece turned out! I decided after making this that I want to enter it into the State Fair instead of one of my summer pieces. Through the process in making this, I fell in love with oil paint. I really love the texture you can make and the thickness of the paint. Before I started drawing the pineapple, I put down a light purple wash as the background to make it easier on me when painting with the oil. After that, I made a quick sketch of the pineapple before I started painting. It was very tedious and time consuming making the detail in the pineapple, but the way it turned out was worth all that time. I've realized that I'm more of a detailed and realistic artist than a carefree artist who tend have a messy paint style. I feel that my art work turns out better when I put a lot of detail into it. I really want to work with oil paint more and try different techniques with it. Instead of using a paint brush like I normally do, I would like to try painting with a pallet knife to get more texture into my piece. And I think the whole point in using oil paint is to have texture in your piece, otherwise in my opinion it looks like acrylic almost.

Practice

I'm  really satisfied with how my apples turned out. I was surprised at how well I was painting with a pallet knife, I think the texture looks really cool. I've never used oil paint before, but after playing with colors and materials making these apples I began to love oil paint. I'll take any chance I get to paint with oil. It's fun to mix colors together to make messy backgrounds with lots texture like these. The only down side to oil paint is that it takes forever to dry. Other than that, I love the way these apples turned out. I think oil paint is something I will be strong at.

Prismacolor/Watercolor Project

Using PrismaColor was difficult and frustrating for me. I had trouble blending my colors together even after all the practice I did. I think I could have done a better job on the detail of my hair. Overall, I did try my best and I didn't give up half way through. I had a couple ideas for this "reflection" project; there were only so many I could think of though. This idea seemed to be my favorite of them all. The concept of my piece is me looking into the mirror and not seeing myself as anything. It's scary to think about the future and where I will end up; I always beat myself up and compare myself to other people which leads me into thinking that I'm not good enough to face reality on my own. The idea of my colorful skin shows that on the outside, people see me as a smart, original person.

Sketchbook Assignments

Summer Work

My summer work definitely needs some revising. I know I could have had better work, but finding time during the summer to work on my art was difficult for me because I kept getting distracted by other things. My favorites have to be the self-portrait picture of me and the painting of Rome. I like the idea of my self portrait because I made myself the painting instead of actually painting myself on a canvas, I thought that was really different and unique. The paint on my face made it really hard for me to smile! Also, it wasn't as hard to wash off in the shower like I thought it would. My second favorite has to be my Rome painting. It took me a while to draw and make it look accurate. I had to leave some things out because it was hard to tell where all the details were in the picture, and it would have been too difficult for me to free hand a guess the images. The main thing I need to fix in this is the texture in the road. It shouldn't be the focal point, but right now it is, so I'll have to fix that later on in the year. Although, I do love how the colors in the building and sky turned out. The sky blends perfectly and looks realistic to me. All my other projects need work to them in my opinion. I like my ideas, I just think that a little something else needs to be added to them for them to be considered finished.